Day 4 – Be devoted to one another in brotherly love

Morning prayer

Start you day with this prayer

We humbly bring before You the vulnerable, the sick and the lonely people.
We humbly bring before You everyone working in the medical field.
We humbly bring before You medical researchers, 
especially those working towards a cure for this virus.
We humbly bring before You everyone responsible for meeting our basic needs.
We humbly bring before You ourselves too.
(Silence)
Let your will be done.
Amen.

Prayer station

Use this symbol to lead you in prayer for the day.

Symbol: A pen

 

We pray for teachers and lecturers that have to plan for the rest of the year. 

We say thank you for so many people in our country that want to continue teaching our students in the best way possible, in spite of the challenges.

Reflection

Read this reflection on the text for the day. 

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honour one another above yourselves – Romans 12:9-10

Everything valuable can be faked. Love as well. That is the reason why Paul asks the believers in Rome to be sincere in their love. Their love should – literally – not be hypocritical. A hypokritos was a Greek actor who wore a mask so that his true identity would be invisible while he was acting.

Our love for one another should not only be an act. Our love for one another should be sincere. According to the words that Paul uses in verse 10, our love should be like the love between members of a family. It should be like the love between brothers and sisters, and parents and their children.

For Paul, the love between family members, between people who genuinely care for one another, is sincere love. It is a love without selfishness or jealousy. Parents aren’t jealous of their childrens’ success, but rather proud of them.

In the church, our spiritual family, our love for each other becomes visible when we honour each other and when we do what is right. 

Lord, help me to always respect other people and to show them sincere love. Thank you for my spiritual family who cherishes me with their love. Amen.

Isaac’s Soap Opera

Watch this video with your children

Liturgy for life

See the ordinary things you do in and around the house as signs of God’s care.

Let go and hold on

Schools were supposed to open tomorrow! But now we are only on day 4 of 21 days that we have to stay at home. It is easy to think about everything we will lose in this time. We can think about everything that already had to happen at school. All the sports events that were cancelled, maybe a birthday party that you cannot host anymore. There are even people who had to postpone their wedding! It is easy to think about everything we have lost, but maybe we can also think about all the good things God gifted us with in this time. Sit down with the people in your home and draw two columns on a piece of paper. Write above the one column, “Let go,” and above the other, “Hold on!”

In this time there are things that we have lost and which makes us sad. Tell each other what made you sad. Admit to one other when you have hurt each other. (Just yesterday we spoke about forgiving each other.) We acknowledge these events and things that we have lost in this time. As you begin with the second column, ask one another, “What did we receive in this time that we didn’t have before? What did you learn about yourself and your family? What is positive for you and what are you thankful for?”

Go fetch your work or school bag. Clean out all the old papers and junk that you forgot about. If your bag is already clean, take out documents and letters that will not be relevant anymore after the big changes that happened in our lives now. As you take it out and throw it away, ask God to help you to let it go and to not hold on to what is bad. 

Think about something that happened in this time of lockdown that you want to hold onto. Our family made a vegetable garden yesterday. We took a picture of how we worked together in the garden. I am going to print this photo and put it in my work bag so that when I go back to work, I can think about all the extra time I got to spend with my loved ones.

Children’s activity

Play with your children.

Wow! 21 Days of isolation. 21 Days in which we’re only allowed to be in our homes (or gardens) and can only go out for the most essential things like food and medicine. It can be a little rough! All the things we usually do during the day, like school, sport, church … are not happening anymore. It can really confuse you and maybe even bore you a little. These daily readings will help you to spend some time with Jesus every day in a creative and fun way. You can do these readings and activities by yourself, with your siblings, or with your entire family. Ask one of the grownups to post your activity on Facebook so that others can enjoy it with you. Tag it with #solitudecalendar #churchtogether

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Have you ever put on a mask and pretend that you are someone else? It is easy to pretend you are someone else when you have a mask on. If you think about it, it is actually very easy to pretend many things. That is why Paul asks the believers in Rome to sincerely love each other. We must genuinely love each other and not pretend to love one another.

Have you ever pretended that you like something, but you did not really? Tell the story.

In what way can we show true love towards each other?

Activity

 

Make masks from paper plates or cardboard. When you play with it, remember that our love for one another should always be sincere.

Have a tea party. Invite everyone in the house to take part and tell one another how you are while you are drinking tea together.

Use the prayer station to pray together.

Creative prayer

Colour and reflect (Instructions are available under the picture)

INSTRUCTIONS

 

• Choose your art materials such as coloured pencils, coloured pens and koki pens. Any of these will work.

• Colour in the picture and do the activity.

TIPS

 

• Choose no more than five colours. If you’re unsure of which colours to use, take out all the colours and put them on the table. Close your eyes and pick up five.

• It may be easier for you to first start colouring the edges and not big blank spaces.

• Don’t stop halfway, especially if your reason for stopping is that you think your picture isn’t pretty. This is the purpose of the activity – to get your attention away from unnecessary thoughts like, “Am I doing this right?” and to focus on the people that you love. 

• When you’ve finished colouring the picture, put the picture in a prominent place in your house, like your bedroom or in the kitchen.

Consider sharing your picture on social media with the hashtags #solitudecalendar #churchtogether

Thank you’s and testimonies

Share your testimony with us! Use the online form below.

Teks

Aanhaling

Teks


Aanhaling