Family Worship

I thought I would share some of the things that we have been discussing during our family worship time here on my blog. Not so much for the sake of sharing with everyone on the www but as a record for me and our family.

We always open in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to bring understanding and revelation of the Word to us. To make it living and active and to bless our time with one another. Last night Scott opened in prayer and then he asked Jonathan, our 16 year old son to read John 2:12-25 (we are reading through the Gospel of John). Most of the time Scott does the reading himself however sometimes he asks one of the boys to do it. We have tried to have everyone take turns and divide up the verses but we've found that everyone is so busy paying attention to when its their turn that they aren't really paying attention. :)

We use what some call the S.O.A.P method during our time together... Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer. After we read through a portion or certain account we go back to the beginning and Scott and I ask the kids questions about what we read, what is happening, who is speaking, what is being said, who are they talking to etc. This helps to give us context and understanding and I have been so blessed by the insight that the Lord has given to Scott to share with us. This isn't something that comes easy for Scott - this is a new practice for our family and he's nervous and feels like I can do a better job but the Lord is showing Scott that it is his responsibility and I am so proud of him for stepping out in this area and leading.

O.kay, so back to our time in John 2; we really focused our discussion on verses 23-25

"Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name and when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in them."

I found this so interesting, that Jesus did not commit Himself to those that believed, it seems odd and out of character. I am sure that I've never noticed this before in my own reading. A deeper look into these verses revealed to us that Jesus could see into the hearts of those that believed and while they believed Jesus knew that there wouldn't be action to back up their belief. One commentary we read said that they were unsaved believers. I thought about how many people say they believe in Christ and yet their lives and actions don't reflect it. We had discussed this very thing the night before when in our reading we read that Jesus had manifested His power and glory through the miracle at the wedding feast and how we too are to manifest His glory to others through our lives. What a sobering thought though... that Jesus did not commit himself to them. It's not that He didn't love them and He certainly came to earth and shed His blood for them just as He did for all of us, but He was not about to commit Himself to them and coddle them along. I once heard someone say that if you have to beg and ask someone to come to church you'll have to do it to keep them there. Jesus will never force us into relationship with Him, we each need to make that choice to believe and then FOLLOW Jesus. These people made their choice and Jesus, knowing their hearts, knew what that choice was and moved on. I wonder how it made Him feel though - to see their hearts and know that although they belived they still rejected Him. :(

Our application for the evening was to examine our lives - do we merely believe or does our very life manifest Christ clearly to others. When we are finished we close in prayer and Scott prayers over the Word that we shared asking the Lord to make it real to each of us and prayes a blessing over us.

I am so very thankful to the Lord for the work that He is doing in my husbands life. Scott, because of his job and often being gone, has always left the spiritual teaching up to me and I've had many (many) failed attempts at family devotion or worship time. We would get busy and I would get lazy and miss a night and then the next night we would be gone and before you knew it we weren't doing it anymore. The kids were also looking at me as the head of our home. Again, with Scott being gone so many of the decisions and things that needed to be done fell to me. We are seeing the error in this and are working hard to correct this and so for now, while Scott is gone from home we will put family worship time on hold and then when he is home, Scott will pick it back up and lead. We are trying to establish Scott's leadership in the home and while I know that I am called alongside Scott to help in this area, for now he feels that this would be best and I agree. I pray that the Lord will bless our time together as a family and that Biblical order will be restored.