Family Devotions - Pursue What Matters

It is the my heart cry that my children pursue that which really matters. I desire to see them seek hard after God and to desire Him so much that nothing else seems to matter. So often, however, I see in them what I fight in myself everyday...a love of stuff. Materialism has so invaded our culture and our church. If we allow it to overtake us, the cross of Christ and the gift of His son's birth will become so insignificant to us and we will drift away from God further into sin.  I am concerned about what I see in my children and concerned with their focus.  As such, I prayed fervently for God to help me reach their hearts and to draw their hearts to God.  

The lesson below is what I spent time going through with my children before we opened Christmas gifts.  My prayer is and will continue to be that God reaches their heart and so grips them with His glory and majesty that everything else pales in comparison.

Family Devotions

January 5-7, 2009

Pursuing What Matters 

HOOK

Trip Lee Video – What is a wasted Life?

 

Pause after video is finished playing.  Give it time to sink in.  Then ask the following and allow or responses.

1. Why do we exist?
2. What is God most passionate about?

 BOOK

1.  We were created to worship God. 
   
1. What is worship?  (Ask and allow for their responses, then share the dictionary definition)
2. Dictionary Definition – reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.
3. God’s Definition - Greatest Commandment;  Mark 12:28-31 (Have someone read.)  This is worship.  Loving God in this fashion is nothing less than pure worship.

God desires our hearts and souls first and foremost.  He desires us, in our entirety.  He wants our sole devotion, our sole desire, our sole attention.  If we desire other things more than God, they are idols.

2.  God is a jealous God; we are to worship Him alone.
   
1. Exodus 20:4-5
2. Exodus 34:14
3. Numbers 25:1-9 – The Israelites worship the false Gods of Shittim.  God was brining down His wrath on the people.  In that context, read verses 10-13

 God does not share His Glory or His Worship.  He is jealous to secure it for Himself alone.  He alone DESERVES our worship.  He ALONE deserves our attention.  There is NONE other than Him who can command such honor and glory.  

God alone deserves our desires, our attention, our worship, our heart. He alone deserves our passions, our wants, our hopes, ours all.  He alone deserves it, commands it, and protects it.  

So often, this is what we think we deserve, what we crave, what we desire, what pulls at our hearts and takes our attention and time. 

This is often the kind of life that we pursue, that we live for.  We seek possession, wealth, comfort, ease, status, position, fame, and whatever else will please and satisfy our fleshly desires.  Yet, God calls for our hearts.  He came, not in wealth, but like this:

Christ did not come in wealth or position.  He valued something entirely different.  He came, not looking for wealth, status, position, fame, comfort, ease, or to satisfy fleshly pleasures.  He came looking for sinful hearts.  He came to turn hearts of corruption toward the living God.  He came to make reconciliation so that those very sinful hearts who were opposed to God could turn to Him.  

Christ gave of Himself in order to save me.  He gave of Himself to you. He gave of Himself to rescue our hearts and souls from sin and death. He came to give us the gift of LIFE and LIFE ETERNAL.

That is a gift worth celebrating.  He is a giver worth worshipping.