FAMILY DEVOTIONS
9th-13th February 2015
1 John
Tips for Family Devotions
1. Prepare
We’re pleased to make your life easier by providing some resources to use,
but do not get lazy. Spend a bit of time looking over it so you can make it
work for the ages and stages of your kids.
2. Have Fun
Make sure that this is a fun family time for you and your children. Go into it
with an attitude that this is a family night together, not a classroom.
3. Go with the Flow
Sometimes children are tired and struggling to concentrate. Don’t let
family devotions be the part of the day that crushes your family. Have the
wisdom to just do a simple prayer if the kids just aren’t up to concentrating.
You never want your children to grow up with the attitude that our
devotion time was the time of the day when Dad was always cranky.
4. Time and Location
Find the best time and place that suits your family. Some families have time
in the mornings, some prefer nights. Some families do it around the dinner
table; others in the bedroom. But make sure the time and location
demonstrates that it is important (ie. don’t do it with the TV on in the
background).
5. Focus on Jesus
Avoid using the Bible as a rule book. Yes it has a great pattern for life, but
the gospel is not a bunch of rules, it is a knowledge of God through Jesus
our Saviour. He saved us from having to obey all the rules and has made us
new creations. Ensure that you are always pointing to the hope we have in
Jesus, even though we do not live to God’s standard.
Family devotions
Monday
How many things can you see in this picture? Answer at the end of the
book. #
Well when we look into a dark picture we can’t really see anything huh? I
guess if we were to imagine a dark place like a tunnel or a hole it could
look like this.
In the bible it talks a lot about living in the darkness and being darkness,
when have you been in the darkness, maybe at night?
Read 1 John 1:5
We know that at some point that it will get dark tonight, and if we go
outside that it will be hard to see, because it is so dark. However this verse
says that sin is the darkness that makes it hard to see God. But in God
there is no darkness, He is always light. He saves us from the darkness of sin.
Talk about how that makes you feel?
Pray: Thanking our great King that we can be in His wonderful light and not
have to be in the darkness of sin.
Tuesday
Have you ever gone for a walk on a really bright day? You can see
everything around you and everything seems awesome in the light. Some
of you get up really early, but how many of you have seen a beautiful
sunrise?
These are photos of 2 amazing sunrises, and they are just incredibly
beautiful. But just before the sun came up and spread it’s light over the
landscape what could you see? Nothing that’s right, it was in total
darkness. The beauty of this landscape was always there but unless the
light shines we can’t see it.
Read 1 John 1:7
Walking in Jesus’ light allows us to see His beauty and see the majesty of
our King Jesus. Jesus died for us so that we can be in relationship with Him,
and see Him in His beautiful light. What also happens in this verse when we
walk in the light? Chat about this.
Read Ephesians 5:8
Read John 8:12
Pray:
that you can trust that Jesus is the light for you in your life.
Wednesday
Pray
Pray that you will always desire to walk in His marvellous light, praise Him for
being just the most amazing King of creation.
Thursday
As a family chat about the names of everyone’s best friend, other than
Jesus, and why that person is so special to you.
What if someone or something saved your life? You’d be very grateful
huh?
Story about a dog called Eve
Everyone loves those heart-pounding movie scenes where the hero
escapes a burning pit seconds before it explodes, but it's not so fun in real
life. That's what Kathie, a paralyzed parapalegic, learned when her
Rotweiller (Eve) pulled her by the ankles from her burning, smoldering truck.
Upon pulling Kathie out, Eve proceeded to drag her to a nearby ditch, just
far enough away to avoid the explosion of her vehicle.
Wow what a great dog, the lady was in a lot of trouble but her great dog
saved her.
That is a great story isn’t it. But that story is nothing like the amazing story of
our saviour Jesus. He didn’t just rescue us he has saved us forever.
Read Acts 4:12
Read 1 John 1:9
Fantastic isn’t?
Thank Him for salvation!
Friday
What is the biggest word you know?
What about some of these?
The longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary is
'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' at 45 letters long.
'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious', made famous by Mary Poppins, is 34
letters long.
But the winner is a word used to describe a protein called titin, it has
189,819 letters, takes three hours to pronounce. WOW! These are words
that we don’t use every day are they? In fact I don’t remember the last
time I used 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’.
Can you all say it?
But even the Bible has really big words as well. Propitiation is one of those
words.
Let me break it down so you can learn it. Pro pish e ation.
Propitiation is not a word that we use every day, but it is such an important
word to understand.
If you’re doing something in propitiation, that’s your basic goal: to regain
favour.
How do we sometimes try to get favour from God?
What has Jesus done so that we regain favour with God?
Read 1 John 2:2
This word is so cool because it describes exactly what Jesus did when he
went to the cross and died for us. He went to the cross to get rid of the
penalty of our sin which is death, and then with that out of the way open
up the way for us to be able to come before God. Jesus regained our
favour with God by His sacrifice on the cross.
Pray: thank God that the sacrifice that Jesus made is enough to save us,
nothing we can do can add to our salvation, or make it better, we are
saved and made right before God.
NOTES.
#Of course there is nothing here but darkness, but have the kids look
anyway!!)