Today is the 26th installment of 30 days of resources for your family to use to grow together. Each of our daily activities will have the following pieces:
- PLAY TOGETHER: An opportunity to have fun and do something together instead of watching Netflix.
- TALK TOGETHER: Around the dinner table or just two of you sitting on the back porch, take turns asking these questions to learn more about the other.
- ORIENT TOGETHER: In time of need we have an opportunity to renew our vision for Jesus, and pray for His work in our life and world.
We hope these resources are helpful to you as a family. Feel free to share with others as well!
This is goofy, but too much fun. Stand or sit about 2 feet apart, and get eye level with one another. Then trade off turns trying to laugh in the other person’s face without making any change in facial expression. No smiling or anything. Just flat affect. For even more fun, video it and post it to Instagram with the tag #MODGNIK2020.
I was reading this book recently by J.C. Ryle called Thoughts for Young Men. Don’t run off just yet! Though it’s written specifically for teenage guys (and you may not be a teenage guy), the content is applicable to us all.
So much has changed since the early 1900s when the book was written, but so much is still the same. In the book, Ryle warns young men of specific things that can waste our lives. Things like, “I’ll serve God when I’m older; right now I’m just having fun…” and his response is that most of the time this concludes with years later, “Well, I had intentions, but now I’m too old to serve God.” It’s a very convicting book, and I’m no teenage guy.
One of the topics really got me thinking. He quotes a story from Matthew Henry saying, “I am [a serious man]; for everyone around me is serious. God is serious in observing us – Christ is serious in interceding for us – the Spirit is serious in striving with us – the truths of God are serious – our spiritual enemies are serious in their endeavors to ruin us – poor lost sinners are serious in hell – and why then should you and I not be serious too?”
Did you feel that ton of bricks hit your soul like I did?
What Ryle is driving at is thoughtlessness, and oh, how it has plagued us, young and old(er) alike! We are a flippant bunch, aren’t we? We live life by whatever feels good and right today, rather than what God has said. D.B. Harrison says, “Too many people who call themselves Christians are not theologians (studiers of God), but rather feel-ogians.” We follow whatever we feel. We read Scripture and dismiss it – or parts of it – because it doesn’t feel right to believe that way, or to transform our worldview to see and think how Christ does. It feels wrong so often.
You want to know why? Because we’ve been discipled by our culture. All the disciples found in biblical times followed teachers called “rabbis.” Jesus’ disciples called him Rabbi! But much of the time, for modern Christians, our rabbi is current popular thought. And if I’m being frank, that’s as steady as tsunamic waves.
So, what should we do? The story of Daniel helps us. Daniel’s world got turned upside down quickly because he was selected by King Nebuchadnezzar to be in his courts. Instantly, the humble Jewish boy was taken away from his family and forced to be raised in a foreign pagan culture. King Neb even changed Daniel’s name to kill his previous worldview and life, and gave him a pagan name. But Daniel decided not to be flippant in his devotion to the one true God. Daniel 1:8 says, “But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself….” Daniel, who was a young man, a young teen, resolved (definition: purposed in his heart) not to sin. He understood, as Henry said, “Our spiritual enemies are serious in their endeavors to ruin us.”
Should we not be serious in our devotion to Christ too?
For Further Study:
Read Galatians 5:16-25 and note the seriousness. Then discuss these questions.
Questions:
- If you were on trial for your seriousness in your devotion to Christ, would you be found guilty?
- What would be entered into evidence to support the case?
- Have you ever RESOLVED to do something? What? How did it turn out?
- One of the keys to Christian sanctification (growing to be more like Christ) is cutting out things in our lives that don’t belong, and honing in on things in our lives that we need to push us toward Jesus. What should you cut out? What should you put in? How will you accomplish this (MAKE A PLAN!)?
MODGNIK 