Family Devotional Time Resources
Remember, this is just a resource to help you as parents spend time listening to and reading God’s Word with your children!
Passage for this week: James 3:17
Resource: Pray The Word Podcast by David Platt (see link below)
How to use this resource: The questions below should be read after you and your family have spent time listening to the resource, and after you have had time to read through the passage carefully and slowly. Following your family time discussion (using the questions below, or your own questions regarding this text), close in prayer and ask your kids how you can be praying for them and let them know how they can be praying for you as parents.
Family Devotional Questions For This Week:
1. What stands out to you the most from reading this passage and the surrounding verses? What did you learn that is new to you from this passage? What does this passage challenge you with understanding?
2. How did David describe that we are prone to follow the wisdom and ways of this world?
(Potential answers: The ways of this world and its wisdom are folly. We can almost contrast everything we see in this verse with what we see in the world. it also seems like this verse counters everything the world presents us with: impurity, lacking peace, harshness, closed to reason, Beverly lacking mercy, showing partiality and insincerity. these are things that define the wisdom of the world. we must counter these with the wisdom of the Lord that is found in his Word and shared amongst being in biblical community.)
3. Why can’t we be the people God has called us to be without His empowerment and His Holy Spirit in each one of us providing us with godly wisdom?
(Potential answers: The simple answer would be that nothing good resides in the hearts of every one of us. Jeremiah 17:9 reiterates that our hearts above all else are wicked and deceitful (while the world will do nothing else but tell you that you are good and to listen to your heart!). what a contrast! so, we are called to listen to the Lord and find our hope not from within ourselves, but from our creator and sustainer who has given up His own life to save ours. truly, what would it profit us if we listen to what the world says we need and gain such things only to lose our souls?)
Prayer Prompts For This Week:
– Pray for wisdom to be granted to us as we navigate life as parents and students in each circumstance you can think of while sharing out loud what that would look like for you this week.
– Pray for authentic godly wisdom that will produce conviction as well as hearts that are pursuant of the gospel in our own lives and in the lives of those we are around.
– Continue to pray for one another and write down or remember the requests of each person. Either have one person pray over each request, or delegate those prayer requests so that each person prays for something or someone specific.