Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

One definition of revival is that of being in a state where nothing matters but Jesus. One way to think about living in a revived state is “All Jesus All the Time.” He’s your all and everything. That’s how you can live now and always. You don’t have to wait for something to happen. You can give your life to Jesus today and let go of everything that is keeping you from living in His constant loving, full-of-joy presence.

The world today talks about living in the present. That’s not the key. It’s living in His Presence. That’s the goal, living in consistent fellowship with God. That looks like knowing Jesus is with you always. It’s keeping your eyes on Jesus. It’s setting Him always before you. It’s acknowledging Him in all your ways. It’s abiding in His love.

How can you do that? You can let go of every other love. He needs to be your one and only. The greatest commandments are to love God and love others. All of God’s laws are summed up in those commands to love. We are able to be forgiven because of Jesus’ love sacrifice to take the punishment for our sins. We continue in that blameless state before Him because we receive the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit and let Christ live that love out through us.

We need to obey that greatest commandment and love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. You can be revived by giving up all other loves so that your life is consumed with the only love that matters. Yes, there will still be work to do, but you do it with Jesus right there with you. You can fellowship with Jesus when you wash the dishes, turning it into a sweet time instead of a chore. 🙂

Ask the Lord to shine His light on your life and reveal where you’ve given yourself to other loves. Give them up. If you feel like you can’t or don’t want to, then ask God for help. Ask Him to change your heart so that you love Him alone. Walk in His light, as 1 John 1:7 says, and you will have love for others and He will be working to remove all that’s not from Him. It’s a continual state, not of perfection, but of blamelessness because you are ever giving yourself over to His purifying process, walking in the light of His love.

Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.” (Eph. 5:14 NKJV)

Here are some Thanksgiving activities you might want to try.  (Choose from available activities from the sites.)

Cranberry Science

Ship Drawing

Thanksgiving Crafts (and more)

Mayflower Crafts  (use available links)

Turkey Escape Game

Thanksgiving Online Activities/Games

Thanksgiving Online and Offline Activities and Games

Thanksgiving Logic Game

Spot the Difference

A History

Why are you homeschooling? Do you have a goal in mind? Maybe your child was created with a drive to get a full scholarship from Harvard, but I hope that’s not your goal for them. Those kinds of goals need to be driven by the child, something they take on and achieve with you cheering them on, not something that you drive them to do. We shouldn’t be choosing career paths for our children. They were made for a purpose, and we should want that for them, not our own aspirations.

Let me get back to the idea of goals. What is your big goal for your kids? What is your goal for homeschooling? What’s your “why?”

Let me suggest one for you: that your kids would love the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their strength, and with all their mind, and that they would love their neighbors as themselves.

If your child got the full scholarship to Harvard, it would sure feel good. It would feel good telling others about Harvard. It would feel good telling those family members who were always questioning whether your kids were missing out by being homeschooled. But, we’re not in this for ourselves. We’re not doing this every day in pursuit of validation for ourselves. The end game isn’t to prove to anyone else what a great job we did homeschooling. We’re not out to prove our kids are just as smart as the kids who went to school.

We have a bigger purpose in mind. I hope you have a bigger purpose in mind.

I know some of you homeschool out of fear. I hope you can redirect that into love. Pour love into your kids, not fear of what’s out there. Some of you homeschool because of busy schedules. I hope you keep school as an important part of the day and don’t neglect it in pursuit of other things. Some of you homeschool because you want your child to have the best academics and know homeschooling can be better than school. I hope you take the time to enjoy being together in your freedom and not just pursue accelerating your child’s education.

And some of you want more than anything that your child would love God and love others, but sometimes forget that’s the goal and get sidetracked looking at all those pursuing other goals. Yes, we want our kids to be educated. This is God’s world and we want them to know about it. We want them to not just be able to read, but to be able to study the Bible. We want them to be able to make smart decisions with their money and understand the numbers of credit and interest. We want them to marvel at how God designed the world to work, and to learn from history’s mistakes to avoid them in the future. But it’s all got a focus. This is God’s world we live in. He put us each here on purpose for a purpose.

If you ever wondered what God’s will is, I’ll fill you in. Love God. Love others. Teach your kids their purpose in life. If they are doing that, He’ll make sure the rest falls into place.

I’ve opened the new September Study, The Suffering Servant. This is a thirty-day study going through the topic of suffering. Let’s trust God is in control and working out good.

What is Jesus Month?

For a few years now, I’ve encouraged our users to take the month of September to spend extra time focused on the Lord. We should always be doing what we should be doing 🙂  but I hope this gives you a little encouragement towards maybe giving some things up for a time and replacing them with extra time in the Bible and prayer. In the past, our family has done a Christian-only TV policy for the month and added this extra study and a time of prayer together beyond our typical family Bible time.

Why September?

Jesus fulfilled the Spring feasts when he died on Passover, rose on First Fruits, and sent the Holy Spirit on the Feast of Weeks. We are waiting for Christ’s return and reign when He will fulfill the fall feasts: the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of Booths. These don’t follow our calendar, but happen around September.

Jesus Month for Kids

I reached out to Mr. Phil (aka Bob the Tomato) and asked about a free month’s access to his Mr. Phil TV streaming channel for our younger kids, from older preschool up through elementary age since my study is for older kids. He has two BIBLE-CENTERED shows.

They’ve generously offered us six-week free access to Mr. Phil TV. Your coupon code is ALLINONE and is good through the month of September. There are two series on there to choose from – What’s In The Bible? and The Mr. Phil Show.

What’s in the Bible? is 26 half-hour shows telling the stories of the Bible and connecting the overarching story. This is great for people new to the Bible, and for everyone else as well for learning about the Bible. My family owns this series on DVD and we all enjoy it, though it’s aimed at elementary age kids.

The Mr. Phil Show is 20 (currently) twenty-minute episodes. The shows are repetitive in the beginning. In the second half is a lesson from a historical character about things like what to do about a bully, how to know what God wants you to do, or how to pray when you are distracted. I tear up at every one. That’s followed by a Bible lesson, reading right from the Bible. (A little note: I flipped out at the second episode and turned it off because the question was if the Bible were true or a fairy tale, and the answer was both. I went back to check it out, and it was fine. It says the Bible is true, but that it’s like a fairy tale because it describes a world where there is more than meets the eye, wonder and miracles. I have seen almost all of them to check them out.)

There are 40 additional 9-minute Bible studies available like the ones found at the end of each episode. You can also search things like faith or sanctification and it will bring up videos that define it and talk about it.

What’s in this post?

• September Studies
• Mr. Phil TV, free access for six weeks
• Bible study with Lee

Next week I will open up the new September study, The Suffering Servant. I will also make it available through My EP. Parents, feel free to add a student block for yourself if you want to track your way through. These are month-long Bible studies on a topic. The previous years’ studies can be found on the September Studies page. Since these are geared for an older audience, I reached out to Mr. Phil (aka Bob the Tomato) and asked about a free month’s access to his Mr. Phil TV streaming channel for our younger kids, from older preschool up through elementary age.

They’ve generously offered us six-week free access to Mr. Phil TV. Your coupon code is ALLINONE and is good through the month of September. There are two series on there to choose from – What’s In The Bible? and The Mr. Phil Show.

What’s in the Bible? is 26 half-hour shows telling the stories of the Bible and connecting the overarching story. This is great for people new to the Bible, but for everyone as well for learning about the Bible. My family owns this series on DVD and we all enjoy it, though it’s aimed at elementary age kids.

The Mr. Phil Show is 20 (currently) twenty-minute episodes. The shows are repetitive in the beginning. My 9-year-old thinks it is funny, but my 11-year-old gets called in for the second half of the show. In that second half is a lesson from a historical character about things like what to do about a bully, how to know what God wants you to do, or how to pray when you are distracted. I tear up at every one. That’s followed by a Bible lesson, reading right from the Bible. (A little note: I flipped out at the second episode and turned it off because the question was if the Bible were true or a fairy tale, and the answer was both. I went back to check it out, and it was fine. It says the Bible is true, but that it’s like a fairy tale because it describes a world where there is more than meets the eye, wonder and miracles. I have seen almost all of them to check them out.)

There are 40 additional 9-minute Bible studies available like the ones found at the end of each episode. You can also search things like faith or sanctification and it will bring up videos that define it and talk about it.

Sign up for the free trial and enter your info and coupon code (ALLINONE) for a free month (so you get six weeks). If you haven’t finished the series, please consider signing up for another month or getting a year. I’d like to bless Mr. Phil for his generous offer of a free month for our EP users, so if it’s not a burden to you, please consider supporting his efforts to get Bible teaching out to kids. I love that he reads whole books of the Bible in the studies, instead of just little tidbit lessons.

Bible Study with Lee

I’m offering to meet on Fridays, 11 AM EST, to talk about the Suffering Servant study. Parents, families, and children 12 and up are welcome. You need to be doing the study and be up to date so we’re all talking about the same thing. The first one will be on September 9th. We’ll meet four times on Zoom. The link is in the Suffering Servant course and will be on the September Studies page.

What’s In Next Week’s Post

• Why is September Jesus month?
• Why Jesus month?
• Link to the Suffering Servant study