As a family, we strive to spend time in God's Word and prayer regularly. Like many other families, we go through periods of faithfulness and periods of drought when it comes to actually doing that which we want to do concerning Family Worship. However, as we begin this new year, our family goal is to set aside time daily to read and discuss God's Word and pray together.
Each member of our family is using the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan that the church has made available. Each day, we are encouraging each other to read through the daily readings individually and then spend time meditating (thinking deeply on) what we've read using the sets of questions that the church has made available. When we gather in the evenings (either at dinner or sometime before bed), we'll spend time discussing one of the sections of Scripture that we read that day.
On January 1, we decided to read all of the passages together and spend a little time discussing the two NT passages. Someone asked the question, how do we this when we are just reading genealogies (Matthew 1:1-17)? No doubt, genealogies can be difficult to read (not to mention difficult to pronounce the names)! However, after reading the genealogy, Amy and I asked the kids about some of the people listed, and then tried to identify together what the passage teaches us about God. Here are some of our conclusions.
1. God is a faithful, promise keeping God. In Jesus, God kept His promise to Abraham (Gen 12:3) and David (2 Sam 7).
2. God is gracious as He includes people with sinful reputations in the story line of the Messiah: a prostitute (Rahab), an adulterer and murderer (David).
3. God is sovereign over all things and all people. He brings His will to pass.