The Bess Family
Due to some challenges we are facing we were unable to make it to service again this weekend. However, we have been trying to do family home worship when this occurs. I did not journal the times we practiced family worship the last couple of weeks and I am trying to get back on track with that. Saturday evening Neal asked us if he could lead the entire family worship on Sunday morning before we left out of town. We were glad to see him so excited to take on this worship/devotional time. Here is his outline for our “home worship service”. I did not add or take away from his notes:
Songs: “Lord Can You” by Neal Bess and ” Love Like You Do” by Neal Bess
In my opinion, your home should be one of the safest places in your life. A place for comfort, a place for people who love you. Most of all a place for peace.
The Bible says in Psalms 27 ” The Lord is my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
This is a verse that lets you know God is always with you, so why should you be afraid? There are some people who feel fear inside of their own homes. Fear of a possible fight, fear that they’ll be punished for something they did. Some people even fear for their own lives inside their own home. The definition of home is “any place of residence or refuge”. Now the word I want to focus on is refuge. Refuge means shelter or protection from danger. Imagine if you had no place of refuge. Imagine if your home felt dangerous. Coming home to nothing but trouble.
Now we may not have it that bad, but what about the people that do? Do you know anybody who is scared to go home? Imagine being in their predicament.
So here is what I want the whole family to try. I want to make our home a place of peace. A place for our parents to come into and feel relaxed. To quit the meaningless fighting. To listen to our parents. One of the verses we have had to recently memorize was (and here he asked who remembered the verse and Kendall said it and then Nickson wanted to say it too) Ephesians 6:1 “Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right”.
How great would it be to see mom smiling all day then for dad to come home and just be overcome with joy because all the stress of work and the world are gone once he walks inside.
So I challenge this family to make it’s home a sanctuary. And to pray for those families who need the Lord in their hearts and homes. To no longer cause each other stress, but to give joy to everyone in our home.
Nick closed us out in prayer.
Tags: devotion, Family Worship, Journal Entry, Psalms, sing
