Family devotions – Page 2

No aspect of the faith is so unequivocally needed and yet so universally neglected as family worship. Most good church going, bible believing men and women never take prayer together and never review the scriptures with their kids. Thankfully, Donald Whitney is attempting to change that dynamic. He just released his latest book, Family Worship, to show Christians why family worship is important and how easily it can be done.

Looking at Abraham, Joshua, and many other biblical giants, Don Whitney quickly and concisely shows his readers that the gospel was first and foremost passed down from generation to generation through family worship. Even with the creation of the New Testament church, the primary role of the family remained as seen in I Peter 3:7. And the practice should continue on. Taking a rapid-fire approach, Dr. Whitney covers over a thousand years of church history in a span of 15 little pages to reveal that Christians of every age have valued family worship. As Jonathan Edward says, “The Christian family ought to be as it were a little church.”

After blowing his readers away with the scriptural and historical need for family worship, Whitney gets practical. Realizing that most of us have never experienced family worship, the seminary professor and father discusses how to do it and do it well. He says that a good family worship session needs to last only around 10 minutes (maybe less if smaller children are involved.) and cover three things: read, pray, and sing. Read the Bible, pray together as a family, and then sing. Outside of choosing a song, little other preparation is needed except a commitment to have a family worship time.

Lastly, Whitney shifts to answer some common questions that surround family worship. The two biggest questions he tackles were, How do women help with family worship; and how do men start leading? He encourages women to practice family worship in the absence of men. And then he calls men to overcome their past failures by repenting and beginning to lead today.

He also provides a helpful distinction between the church and the family. The family supports the church but is not the church because baptism, the Lord’s Super, and preaching extend past the family.

Family Worship is a great read for parents, grandparents, and married couples. As Whitney writes, “Family worship is for couples, not just parents.” If you are one of the many Christians who sees the need for family worship but doesn’t know much about the subject or where to begin, grab a copy of this book. It’s direct, easy to read, and rather short. As a friend of mines once said of a similar small sized book, “if we can’t read this book, we are really in trouble.” If you can read, you can find the time to read this book. I encourage you to set aside the eight dollars and an hour or so of your time to learn about family worship. And now I’ll let Whitney have the last word:

We need to accept the fact that in this sinful world, challenges to family worship arise regularly in every home. The blessings of family worship are too dangerous for Satan to let pass unopposed. Nevertheless, we must stand on the bedrock truth: God deserves to be worshiped daily in our homes by our families. And for that reason, start today.”

May 27, 2015May 30, 2015 Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Is it Time to Hate the Duggars?

Is it time to hate the Duggars? In recent days, the all American homeschool family of 19 kids has dropped to the level of Honey Boo Boo. The revelation that the oldest Duggar, Josh, molested his sisters and one other girl when he was 14 has left their groupies reeling in disbelief. What do we do now? I suggest we learn.

Being married, I have watched the TLC show on more than one occasion (Please let me keep my man card!). And, I’ve heard Jim Bob and Michelle say that they want their show to be a medium for teaching others. I.e. they are trying to model what a godly, healthy family should look like. And though I am saddened to watch this tragedy unfold, I don’t think we need to write the Duggars off as hypocrites just yet. We can still learn one more important lesson from Arkansas most famous family.

No Perfect Parent

I once heard that a homeschool, graduation speaker deemed his audience of Bible thumbing guys and denim skirt wearing gals to be above temptation. Because these kids came from such great Christian homes, the seniors couldn’t even be corrupted by devil. Yay them!

Whether we follow after the Duggars, or think that our kids should be evangelists at school, or fall somewhere in the middle, we too can become super confident in our parenting style. Wear this, talk about that, attend this church type, and poof, we’ve created the perfect, godly, well-rounded kid. Yep, we did it. We created the perfected parenting! Yay us!

What a great sentiment! Sadly, it’s not a true one. This is one of the last lesson the Duggars will leave us. We can’t make good kids. I don’t know of a more dedicated couple than Jim Bob and Michelle. Having met them in person and having kept up with them via my living room T.V, I honestly believe they love the Lord. They decided to homeschool their children from biblical convictions. They placed a premium on family devotions. And, Jim Bob barely allowed his engaged kids to side hug. The Duggars did everything in their power to fence off their family from the evils of the world. And still, we found ourselves disturbed by a scandal involving Josh. Why?

Why Scandals Happen

Kids are defiled from the inside out (Mathew 15:18). To fully keep sin out of our homes, we’d have to boot the kids to the street corner (and then we’d have to join them). Unless God saves and redeems our little ones, even the best parents will see their kids fail, and fail majorly. Even believers can fall into major sin. Ultimately, evil can creep in and destroy because it lives in the heart of every kid. We must be on guard. And we must realize that only the Holy spirit through the power of Christ can keep our kids from evil.

What We Learned

We can learn much from the Duggar scandal, as Dr. Russell Moore has pointed out . But I think the most important lesson that we can take from the Duggars today is this: there is no perfect parenting plan. As we watch the authorities and TLC sort through everything, let’s check over our own parenting style. Let’s avoid the temptation to think we’ve arrived. Join me in trying to avoid the thought that, “That could never happen in my family.” Let’s not boast in our ability to parent, presuming we are better than the Duggars (Galatians 6:1). Rather, we must realize that no family, close nit-town or church is immune from being rocked by sexual sin. We should take steps to prevent people from having the opportunity to sin. And then, we should continually pray for God to spare our families, churches, and communities from evil. Let’s learn from the Duggars while we still have time!

What do you think? Will you keep watching the show if TLC releases a new season?

September 18, 2014September 18, 2014 Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Parenting

Don’t Baby Talk Jesus

Sometimes I am not sure if I’m teaching my 4 month-old how to talk or if he’s teaching me how to make noises. Regardless, I love our time together. And as we communicate through giggles, cackles, and words, I find myself constantly putting ideas into his mouth. When he smiles, I smile back saying, “Does little man think Daddy is silly? Yes he does, doesn’t he?” And I am not alone. I think, pretty much every parent, grandparent, aunt, and uncle verbalizes their thoughts about their baby’s brain activity as if the adults’ notion was the kid’s reality. Such conversations are naturally titled “baby talk.” And while baby talk is appreciated by families everywhere, our spiritual conversations with our kids need to be baby talk free.

The Danger of Good Desires

My wife and I very much want to see our son embrace Jesus as his savior. We continually pray for his soul and introduce him to Bible stories, and our church. But when he becomes old enough to talk and think about abstract things, we will have to fight the temptation to use baby talk to coax him into a profession of faith.

Here is what I mean. We could talk to our little guy about the horrors of hell and then ask him, “Don’t you want to follow Jesus and have a happy life?;” or we could say, “Mommy ,Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma will be in heaven, don’t you want to go to heaven too?;” or we could have him repeat the sinners’ prayer after us. We could put all kinds of ideas and thoughts into our son’s head and then ask him to act. Now, our little man might respond by getting scared and even saying a few words. But, he will only have acted on our thoughts as they relate to his sinful desires. You don’t have to be super spiritual to realize that saying a quick prayer is a lot less troubling than an eternity in hell.

The Power Of Salvation

But for our son to embrace Christ, he must embrace Christ. It’s redundantly simple, but it is a huge truth. He must realize that he is a sinner; he must want to repent; and he must desire to set his mind on things above. His words only matter if they are expressing his heart and his love for Christ.

Think of the crowd at Pentecost, the Ethiopian Eunuch, or the man born blind in John 9 (Acts 2; 8). Yes, they all needed to hear the gospel explained before they believed. But once they knew the glory of the mystery of Christ, they eagerly repented and embraced Jesus. Without any coaxing or sinners’ prayers, these people boldly asked, “Brothers what shall we do” (Acts 2:37)? No one had to speak for these new believers to make sure they got saved.

A Baby Talk Free World

Today, our kids come to faith in the same way by responding to the Word of God in faith. As parents, we are called to expose our kids to the gospel by teaching the scriptures, by correcting our kids in love, and by repenting of our own sins. Let’s faithfully follow the example of the Christ, the apostles, and the early church and introduce our kids to the gospel! And then, let’s trust God to work.

And in our zeal to see our kids saved, we must leave behind the baby talk. We can’t manipulate our kids into salvation by projecting our ideas onto them. Instead, let’s ask open-ended questions, such as: “Do you love Jesus; does this make sense; do you sin; what do you think about heaven; and if lying is wrong what should you do?” Then, let’s respond to their answers with truth, asking God to work!