Thursday, April 2, 2020

April 2 devotion

You can watch today's devotion here.


Love family by loving God
Matthew 10:37
4/2/20
Pastor John C. Berg

37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

This is your daily devotion for April 2nd.   God’s word for our consideration this morning is taken from Matthew 10:37  37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. This may be the most challenging devotion for you to take in.  Jesus is not saying “don’t love your family.”  He is warning us that we can turn our loved ones into little idols.  In fact, I suspect this may be a very common form of idolatry for many of us.
We’ve mentioned more than once in these devotions that God promises to work good things for us even through bad times.  I think one of the good things that many of us are experiencing right now is that we are getting more time with our families.  When things get tough we tend to nest or cocoon with our families.  We focus on keeping family safe.  We’re probably doing that even more so now since we are literally being forced to be with our families more.  Many of us are enjoying being around our kids more and hopefully they like having us at home!  But there is a danger here.  The devil has thousands of years of practice in infiltrating blessings and causing harm.  Remember, the harm the devil wants more than anything is to damage your relationship with God.  And so it’s possible that he might use this time to get us to love family more than God.
Of course we love our children and parents but we need to remember who created us, who saved us and who gave us faith in Jesus.  God is to number one in our hearts.  If we love and honor him we want to do what he says, and he one thing he commands is that we love and care for family.
Remember the most important way to do that!  The best way to love your family members is to bring them to Jesus and bring Jesus to them.  More important than the safety of our kids and the health of our elderly parents and grandparents is their relationship with Jesus.  So we can do both at the same time.  We can love and honor God above all else and also loving our family members by bringing them to Jesus, by connecting them with God’s Word.  I know many of you are watching these devotions and I’m glad for it.  Divinity and St. John members in the mail you received little orders of service I put together.  My suggestions is to use these together with the devotions as evening family worship time.  This is a way to love family and love God above all else at the same time.  This is a blessing that God is working right now.  If more of us can get into the habit of hearing God’s Word and worshipping as a family at home it will accomplish tremendous spiritual good for our families and churches. 

Let’s pray:   Dear Jesus, thank you for blessing us with family.  Thank you for giving us time with them.  Help us to love them bringing them to you and you to them. Amen.



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