Changed By Love

Let’s Study Metamorphosis – Day 6: We Are Being Transformed – Like Tadpoles!

Jul.2,2013

How are Christians like Amphibians? I asked the twins this question today. They knew the answer. We start out as one kind of creature and become something different.

Then I had them get their Bibles and look up the following verses. We read each one and talked about how God has made us into something totally new, but how we have a part in becoming more like Him by renewing our minds. They found out that we renew our minds by reading, studying, meditating and speaking the Word of God. We replace our thoughts with God’s thoughts.

We also discussed again how we become born again. We talked about the day they prayed and asked Jesus to be the Lord of their lives. It was about 2 years ago. Their spirits were made alive and alert and able to connect with God through His Holy Spirit.

They learned that God has forgotten their sins, the main one being stealing candy, even though we haven’t forgotten and remind them of it frequently. One Easter morning, about 7 years ago, when the twins were only 2 years old, I had put out candy on the dining table for all of the kids to surprise them. I didn’t have baskets or anything. We couldn’t even afford candy, so a friend gave us some. When we got up that morning and went out to the kitchen, the twins had all of the candy down on the floor and were just polishing off the last of it.

So they have had a hard time living that down. They wish they had never done it now. I explained that God has forgotten their sins as if they were buried at the bottom of the deepest ocean or they were removed as far as the east is from the west. They were relieved. I think they would be relieved if the rest of us would forget their sins, too.

Jesus answered him, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, that unless a person is born again (anew, from above), he cannot ever see (know, be acquainted with, and experience) the kingdom of God.

John 3:3

Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

Romans 12:2

And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

2 Corinthians 5:17

For neither is circumcision [now] of any importance, nor uncircumcision, but [only] a new creation [the result of a new birth and a new nature in Christ Jesus, the Messiah].

Galatians 6:15

I used these verses to help the twins understand how we are changed into new creations when we make Jesus Lord of our lives.

I didn’t have them read from the Amplified, but I plan to do this tomorrow. It explains the concepts so thoroughly.

They read from their own Bibles, which I got for them for Easter this year. Fiona’s Bible is the New King James translation and Garrett’s is the New International Reader’s Version.

And this is what the tadpoles look like today:

The red spots on the sides might be where the lungs are developing. That’s what Katie theorizes.

If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see that it looks like something is developing there. I would guess it would most likely be lungs.

You can see their big eyes now.

I thought this was a cute shot of this tadpole.

It’s so fun to see the phases of transformation of these tadpoles. In some ways, they seem to be changing slowly, but then lots of changes have to be made for them to become totally new creatures.

Kind of like us.

Spider With Poor Eyesight

Jun.29,2013

I started to reach for my glasses but saw something on one of the lenses.

It was this little green spider. Can you tell why he was perched on the corner of my glasses that way?

Look at the design on the cover of the Planner that my glasses were sitting on.

I think he was waiting for an insect to come and visit the flowers on my Planner cover.

Let’s Study Metamorphosis – Day 5

Jun.29,2013

Well, the water started to smell pretty bad, so I changed it. I’m sure I put all 8 back in. I put in the water conditioner and let it sit for 10 minutes, then put all the tadpoles back in. They all stayed around the bottom for the first 10 minutes or so. I kept watching them and trying to find all of them. They were hard to see to count them. I finally thought I had found them all. But every time I counted I got 7 instead of 8. Later, Katie asked me why we only had 7 now. I went back over, and they were starting to hang around the top floating on lettuce leaves again, and there were only 7 of them. So we lost a tadpole somehow. I don’t know how.

You can see the spiral on this one’s tummy pretty well.

The glass bead magnified this one’s tummy so that you can see the spiral better.

Tail to tail. They just happened to be sitting like this.

I woke up this morning thinking about Metamorphosis.

I remembered that a major part of this lesson about Tadpoles turning into frogs is the spiritual application. Our spirits are brought to life and the connection with God is established as we believe on Jesus as our Lord and Savior and give Him our lives, and then we are transformed into a new Creation in Christ.

I started to think of lots of verses about these things, so I got up and wrote down the words that were coming to me. Then I got up and went to Bible Gateway and got the scriptures so that I can have the twins look them up in their Bibles. They will see that God put in nature through tadpoles turning into frogs a parallel to our transformation from fleshly people to spiritual people – we are a new creation! We are no longer dead in our sins but alive in Christ. We are being transformed by the renewing of our minds. I will put these verses in my post tomorrow. There are more of them than I thought, so I decided to dedicate the next post to them.

I love it when God teaches us lessons through nature. Jesus did it. So should we.

Let’s Study Metamorphosis – Day 4

Jun.28,2013

It is so cool that we are getting to see this happen first-hand!

Varbak.Com
development of frog larvae

I wonder if our frogs will be this little when they develop legs or if they will be bigger…

Here is what I was able to capture in photos today:

I noticed a bunch of the tadpoles all lined up along the side of a lettuce leaf. Shawn said they looked like musical notes.

I got a few good pictures of the spiral on their bellies today.

Here you can see the beginning of a lumpy, frog-shaped body.

These two look like twins doing synchronized swimming!

The moss starting reaching upward. I told Emma that it was rising up to tickle the tadpoles’ tummies. She thought that was funny.

Feels like home.

We got a good start on our Amphibian lapbook today. The twins are working on this.

Fiona did the top booklet and Garrett did the bottom one.

Our lapbook is from A Journey Through Learning.

We did quite a bit of research on the Internet today about Frogs and Toads and Salamanders. And even Caecilians. Big worm-like amphibians that look like earthworms but are as big as snakes. It was giving me the willies, but I looked them up, anyway. I can stand looking at photos of them, but I hope I never see them in person. The chances are slim, because they are only found in South America, Central America and Southeast Asia. And they stay underground most of the time.

We have already learned quite a bit about amphibians, but we will be learning lots more about frogs as our little tadpoles continue to develop and change during these next several weeks.