Gold Rush VBS Devotions--Day 1

Day 1: Meet Jesus

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

Imagine meeting a man who claimed to be God. What would you think? Crazy nut?

Now imagine this man claimed to be the fulfillment of statements written hundreds of years before. Sure, sure, weirdo.

Now imagine the little boy down the street who had died was running around again. The man who claimed to be God had raised him from the dead. It was no trick—you had seen the boy after he died, and he was now playing with your kids.

Makes you think, doesn’t it? Could this man really be who he claimed to be?

This is our Savior.

Even though today, we would (and should) scoff at someone staking a claim to deity, Jesus Christ was the real deal. He was the Creator incarnate, the God-man, the One who came to save His people from their sins, fulfilling the promises God had made since the beginning of time.

As you study your Bible this week, focus your attention on the four gospels. Put aside the genteel storybook notions that cloud the truth about the Messiah. And read the accounts as if for the first time, marveling at the astounding claims Jesus made (“before Abraham was, I AM”); the awesome demonstrations of His power over nature, sin, and death; the amazing fact that He rose from the dead; and the astonishing change in the lives of those He touched.

Of all the people who have ever lived, ever led a religion, ever claimed to be a deity, only Jesus has the credentials to deserve our worship and following. And the only way we can know the truth about Him is through His inspired Word, the Bible. As you prepare to Meet Jesus with your students today, let’s meditate on this Puritan Prayer about the Rock of Ages.

Thou Great I AM, Fill my mind with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being With whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. A mighty God who, amidst the lapse of the worlds, and the revolutions of empires, Feels no variableness but is glorious in immortality. May I rejoice that, while men die, the Lord lives; That, while all creatures are broken reeds, empty cisterns, fading fl owers, withering grass, He is the Rock of Ages, the fountain of Living Waters.

—Arthur Bennet, The Valley of Vision (The Banner of Truth Trust: 2005), p. 104.