Weekly Devotional Time Resources
Remember, this is just one resource to help you as families spend time reading God’s Word!
Passage for this week: Romans 4:20-21
Resource: Pray The Word Podcast by David Platt
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 Question For This Week:
1. What stands out to you the most from reading this passage? What did you learn that is new to you from this passage? What did you learn that caused you to remember something you’ve known, or what has been reinforced from reading this passage?
2. Context is important: What was it that took place in Abraham’s life that was a ‘watershed’ moment for his faith?
(Potential answers: For that, we have to travel back to Genesis 22. God had commanded Moses to take his son – for emphasis, his ONLY son whom he loves – up on a mountain in Moriah where Isaac would be offered as a burnt sacrifice to the Lord. Previously in genesis chapters 12, 15 AND 21 though, God promised to make from Abrahams offspring (Isaac) a great nation, numerous peoples as numerous as the stars in the sky! So, Abraham shows faith and trust that God will keep his promise and STILL produce this offspring from Isaac, even if it meant raising Isaac from the dead and doing so to maintain his promises to Abraham (See Hebrews 11:19 for reference there).
3. How did Abraham “grow strong in his faith”? What is the lesson we learn here from Abraham’s example Paul gives us in Romans 4?
(Potential answers: certainly this moment in Abrahams life remained at the forefront of his mind for the rest of his life. As an immensely challenging scenario God tested him with, he remained faithful to the Lord and believed in the promises God had given him ever since covenanting with him! So we can ask another question from this understanding that David platt asks: how do you live to the glory of God in light of this passage? We do this by believing fully God’s Word! if you are in a season of doubt or even unbelief, renew your mind in remembering God’s faithfulness to those He loves and has shown the extent of this love in His Son Jesus Christ and meditate on the faithful events where God’s people have learned of Hid faithfulness like this account from Abraham’s life today!)
Prayer Prompts For This Week:
– Pray for our trust in God to be bolstered. pray that God would increase our trust in His promises through Christ Jesus that have been established by God sending for us His only Son Jesus, who willingly went to the cross and won for us eternal salvation for those who trust in Him.
– Pray that we, too, like Abraham would take God at His word, knowing His ways are higher than ours, and that His thoughts are higher than ours. pray that there is nothing that God will not withhold from you that He thinks you should or shouldn’t have. Pray for the remembrance that if God has promised us eternal life in Christ Jesus, then nothing can separate us from that promise, and that even death is gain (Philippians 1:21).
– 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.