Have you ever been in a corn maze or a hedge maze? It’s exciting, isn’t it, trying to find your way from turn to turn? You can’t see beyond the next turn, and that’s where all the adventure is…beyond the turn! 

There are two things you will notice in the book of Genesis. The first thing is, in all its stories, God gives people the power to choose their way in this maze we call life. The other thing? God offers hope. We can choose to have faith in that power of hope.

Genesis tells us what kind of creation we are. (We are the crowning act—the best—of God’s creation. We are a unique masterpiece.) It tells us we can do amazing things with God. It tells us how we are connected to the rest of creation. Wow! 

Can you imagine if you were standing on a cliff and your parents tell you that the safest step is to move left but you chose to move right…right off the cliff!! Throughout history, God’s people often choose to do their own thing… till they fell off or were stuck. Then God had to come in and reset everything. 

God has promised to those who believe that He would care for them. He even gave them prophecies to remind them of His promise. Each of those promises were anchors of His love for us. They were given so that we would always remember to stay with Him and recognize that even though we live in a world of sin, God loves us and wants the best for us. 

Throughout history and the Bible, people with power have tried to do things their way. Often forcing things to happen because they believed God wanted them to force things. But it’s a true person of God who relies on Him to bring things together. They allow people to choose to follow God, rather than forcing them to follow Him. God doesn’t force, scare, or guilt anyone to follow Him. 

The Bible is a collection of books; A library of books written for specific and general reasons. The Bible is also full of stories of people who failed. But it isn’t just about their failures; God didn’t tell us these stories to focus on the punishments, but for us to recognize the importance of faith and how that faith can take a person from failure to redemption. 

The Bible starts with telling you in the beginning God created. He began everything. He was the Beginning. Then it tells you that God created humans in His image. Wow! Imagine that! You are not God, but God made you enough like Him so that you can be goodness, and kindness, and love just like Him.

In their worship of God, some people gain their support, their source of inspiration, and life, from God without disrespecting or harming God. Then there are other people who often say they believe in God but don’t live according to God’s teachings and love. They just want to get what they can by posing as Christians. These are the people who make it hard for others to believe in God.

God gave His people prophecies (maps) and prophets (instructors) about Jesus’ birth. But other people came along and started pointing to other things. Pretty soon the people stopped believing in God’s prophecies and started believing in the words of the other people. Every good prophet of God makes you want to go back to God’s word to rediscover His truth. Never stop with just what you hear from a human.

Jesus was a child just like you. He woke up every morning, went to the bathroom, washed up, ate his food, played with his friends, and learned about God as he grew up. He probably got hurt while playing, and probably loved being tucked into bed by his parents. And He definitely grew up knowing that worshiping God included respecting the people around him.

Jesus liked to tell stories. Not just any story, but stories to teach something He knew was important for us to understand. This kind of story is called a parable. He told parables to help us understand God’s love for us and His plan for our lives. He would often tell stories from everyday life—like planting seeds or baking bread—to teach about things like faith and love. 

You can’t grow in faith if all you do is sit in church without doing something about it or without getting to know the people around you. You have to take a step with God, start with studying His word, and the journey becomes an adventure, and miracles start happening. 

The Beatitudes identify important principles that we should follow to live a happy and fulfilling life. We should be humble, kind, peaceful, righteous, sincere, and patient. 

By following these principles, we can be closer to God and live a life filled with blessings. 

Do you know why they call it the book of Genesis? Because Genesis means beginning. Our story began then. Our relationship with God began then. His first promise was made then. And his weekly gift of a special day for remembrance, joy, celebration, and hope was given then. And all those three have lasted since then. 

Throughout the Bible, God gives us mannequins of faith; figures that display what faith could look like if we chose to wear it. However, that faith would look different on everybody because everybody is unique. Right? The clothing— the material of our beliefs—are the same, but how we put it into action would be different because each of us is different. 

When we study the Bible, we learn that in Jesus’ heart, we are worth every drop of blood He bled as He was cruelly whipped and nailed to the cross. 

True beauty sometimes may be scarred—like the scars in Jesus’ hands—but it is love that helps us look beyond those scars and know the value of that sacrifice that gave us eternal life…if we so choose to believe and accept. 

The book of Acts in the Bible tells about the spread of the gospel after Jesus returned to heaven. Acts begins with Jesus’ final instructions to his disciples and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The disciples then began to preach and perform miracles, but more importantly they began living a life that reflected the principles of Jesus: compassion, forgiveness, love, and respect.