Personal or family worship as we await church family worship
Your Word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You -- Psalm 119:11 (NASB). In our fight against sin, we need to treasure God's Word in our heart, that's the heart behind fighter verses being hidden or stored up in our heart like treasure or riches for ourselves and to be shared with others. Below is the next "fighter verse":
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.—Colossians 3:16-17 (ESV)
For our family devotions tonight we read the above memory verses for this week a few times and some of the devotional from www.fighterverses.com. We talked about the concept of not just being in the Word, but the Word being in you and what that meant. I liked the analogy of being poked and you bleed what’s inside you, as it was said of Bunyan he bled Bible. What’s inside us comes out when we’re poked and if we’re filled with selfishness that will come out instead when we’re poked or provoked. I talked about examples I’ve seen with our kids where the Word that they memorized they were able to use to encourage others, including their siblings at times (one wrote a sweet letter with scripture to encourage a struggling sibling recently, which was a great illustration of this text).
I told my kids about how my mom growing up often had hymns and songs in her that she hummed throughout the day, like this verse says. I’m sure it helped her with the end of v. 16, to be thankful in her heart to God on days when her son wasn’t listening to her teaching, admonishing, and wisdom! We also talked about when we don’t sing, that affects or shows our heart, and how even on days when we don’t feel like singing, it’s good for our heart and good for “one another” (an emphasis in v. 16 we often don’t think about). We talked about how kids can be an encouragement to adults in how they sing. Some around the table took turns talking about what they miss about singing in the sanctuary with God’s people. We were reminded how much we miss singing as a church where we can see and hear each other in person, and are looking forward to being able to do that soon (at least in small groups).
We talked with some friends who recently sang with some friends and it was such a highlight and reminded them of the privilege of doing Colossians 3:16-17 with “one another” (not just by video) and a reminder for us to keep praying for when we can. We also watched some of the Getty family sing HERE (great kids!) and were reminded of the blessing and joy of family worship, as we await the day of church family worship.
An elderly saint yesterday showed me they’re using the Fighter Verses app to put the week’s verse on their smart phone screen saver to help them (good for us younger ones, too!). Or you can use their word art to print out like below, and the verses set to song are helpful as well.
Tonight a mom told me she really appreciates the discussion questions HERE as it makes it easy for them to talk with their kids about application right after (also can be used for groups). For families who haven't experienced family worship before, this article is a simple introduction, and it's good to keep simple - read, pray, and sing (goal to interact, not just instruct). If your family isn’t in the habit of devotions together, let me encourage you to use resources like the above and www.figherverses.com, and they can also be used as individuals or with a fellow believer.
don’t know if our kids get much out of our family worship sometimes, honestly there's often more commotion than devotions! But it’s good to take some time around the table or around the house to talk of spiritual things (Deuteronomy 6:6-8). If you're not used to singing together, you can join in the Getty family singers (or Millican family on Facebook:). These are just tools to help us worship and be doers or the word and not hearers only. May the word dwell in us more richly as Colossians 3:16 says.
Let’s pursue treasuring Christ’s Word together, whether with family or apart,
Pastor Phil
P.S.
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