MAN IN GOD'S CREATION

Lesson Eighteen
HOW PEOPLE ARE MADE:
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT

Burden to Impart:

In this lesson we see how God created man as a "living soul." Our soul is simply our personality, our self, us. Our soul was created with:

  1. a mind, to think, reason, remember and understand, and even higher, to imagine things unseen or unheard of before;
  2. an emotion, which gives us many feelings, such as love and hate, joy and sorrow, shame and confidence, etc.; and
  3. a will, which allows us to make choices and decisions. Man was created with a soul so that he could express and magnify the Lord through all of his thoughts, feelings, and choices.

Memory Verse: "And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord" (Luke 1:46).

Facts to Teach:

  1. After God formed man's body out of the dust of the earth, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Man is a 'living soul." We are a soul and our soul is us, our sell Our soul is our person, our personality. Our soul is simply the person who fives in the "house" of our human body.
  2. God created man's soul in as equally marvelous a manner as he did man's body. Man's soul is a deeper part of man than his body. We mainly have three parts to our soul.
    1. The mind: (Have the children name and describe as many functions of the mind as they are able.) The mind is the organ by which we are able to think, to reason, to remember, to understand, and even to go beyond these functions by the imagination, being able to imagine things never yet seen or heard. (Scripture references for teachers: Psa. 13:2; 139:14; ~. 3:20.)
    2. The emotions/feelings: (Have the children list and descn13e as many feelings as they are able to.) Our emotions, or feelings, cause us to "feel" things in our soul just like our body is able to feel things (hot, cold, pain, etc.). We are able to have many feelings, and most of our feelings have opposite feelings; some are very strong, some are not so strong. Some feelings are helpful and constructive and some can be harmful and a problem- love and hate, shame and boldness, happiness and sadness, excitement and boredom, expectation and disappointment, success and failure, comfortable and uneasy, etc. (Scripture references for teachers: 1 Sam. 18:1; S.S. 1:7; 2 Sam. 5:8; Isa. 61:10; Psa. 86:4.)
    3. The will: Our will gives us the ability to make choices (plants have no will). We must make many choices every day. Some decisions are big, some are small, but each one involves our will. We can be strongly determined to do something ff we have a strong wilL We may allow others to lead and guide us if we have a flexible will. Also, we may be able to lead others if we have a stronger will than them. (Scripture references for teachers: Job 7:15; 6:7; 2 Chron. 22:19.)
  3. We can see that man is truly a "living soul," much more than merely a "living body." Our life is mainly, made up of millions of thoughts, memories, ideas, opinions, feelings, and choices, every day we live mostly by our soul, which is expressed as our personality, as us.