Armor of God Devotional Study {Day 1}

I have been trying to find some Bible studies to do with the boys that were a little different than the normal Bible stories they hear every Sunday.  Not that there is anything wrong with those stories, I just wanted something different.. 

 I decided I wanted to to a study on The Armor of God.  Anyone who knows Ruy knows that he loves army stuff so I figured that this would be something he would really enjoy.  I went onto Pinterest to see if I could get any inspiration from any other blogs.  I love Pinterest.  It has become one of my greatest enemies friends!  Seriously...I have to be careful or I will get so caught up in the crazy amount of ideas that are floating around on it.  I came across this blog while I was searching Pinterest and liked a lot of her ideas.  A lot of her ideas were things I had already been thinking about, but it helped me put it all together better. 

Today was our first day of the Armor of God study.  I got the boys Playmobil Knight set out and let them play with them while I read Ephesians 6:10-20.  The knights had swords, helmets, and breastplates, which were all things we would be reading about in those verses so I wanted them to have a visual as I read.  Plus it's hard for little boys to hold still so I have found that they still listen very well while playing with either Legos or Playmobil.  

Liam picked out his outfit today from the dress-up box!  His beach hat from 2 summers ago, Ruy's vest from Mike's wedding, and a Zorro cape! Ruy's cape is supposed to be Anakin Skywalker's cape.

Ruy's favorite part was verse 16 where it says "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;"  I asked him if that sounded scarey and he said "No!  That's awesome!"  Liam got interested when in verse 12 it says "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood..." He jumped up and said "Blood! Where?"  And then came running over to me and tried to find a picture of blood in the Bible.  He didn't understand why there weren't any pictures in my Bible.  :)  I love three year olds.  

I focused mainly on verse 10 today though.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might."

I had the boys show me their muscles and then I had to show them mine.  Ruy said he was definitely stronger than me!  I talked to them about how we don't have to try to be strong on our own, but that God is our strength and through him we can do great things.  I had them show me their "muscles" and say "Jesus makes me strong!"  I didn't think that Liam would really catch on but it's amazing how much a three year old really does listen.  Throughout the rest of today, Liam would come up to me and show me his muscles and say "Jesus makes me strong!" 

My desire through this study is to help them understand that even though they are just children, they can still do great things for God and live for Him.  I want them to understand that God will always be with them, and that they can lean on His strength.  

Tomorrow we will be talking about the "Belt of Truth." 

Feel free to join us on this study.  I'd love to hear about it if you do!!