Family Devotional Prayer, Strong Christian Community, and the Connection Between Suffering and Glory
Welcome back to The Think Institute Newsletter. Every Friday you get an email with one idea from me, one quote from somebody else, and one thing for you to think about. If you find this helpful, share it with a friend. Anyone can sign up for free here: https://thethink.institute/newsletter. Enough jibber-jabber. Here's your email.
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AN IDEA FROM ME
On opening your family’s devotions with prayer:
“The opening prayer can set the stage for the worship that is about to happen, by helping to prepare your family’s hearts and by inviting the Lord to meet with you. There is no script you need to follow, but it doesn’t hurt to make your opening prayer as biblical as possible. When I open our family devotions, I typically say something along the lines of the following:
“Our Father in Heaven, please let this time together be a pleasing sacrifice of praise to you (Hebrews 13:15). Open our eyes to see the wonderful things in your instruction (Psalm 119:18). And may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer (Psalm 19:14).
“Again, there are no magic words to say. However, in addition to invoking the Lord’s presence with your time together (Matthew 18:20), the opening prayer is another opportunity to teach. So I recommend giving some thought to it beforehand.”
Source: from my forthcoming book, Bible Based Family Discipleship. The men of the Hammer & Anvil Society are studying this together for the next seven weeks. Membership is closed now and will reopen Monday, March 4th. Learn more at: https://thethink.institute/society.”
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A QUOTE FROM SOMEBODY ELSE
“But again, we can’t give somebody something we don’t have ourselves. If we don’t have strong communities rooted in the faith once for all delivered to the saints, we have nothing to invite other people into. Having a robust identity as a unique community—and yes, as a minority group in a negative world—is a necessary precondition to effective and genuine evangelism and service to others.”
Source: Aaron Renn, Life In the Negative World: Confronting Challenges In an Anti-Christian Culture (Zondervan, 2024), 128. Lord willing, Aaron Renn will be coming on my podcast, "Worldview Legacy," to discuss his new book very soon. Subscribe to the podcast here: https://thethink.institute/podcast.
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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
I host a monthly evangelistic discussion group for Redeemer Fellowship called Pub Talk. This month’s conversation centered on the topic of Suffering and Redemption. The following is one of our discussion questions. How would you answer?
St. Paul: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). What’s the connection between present sufferings and future glory? And who is “us?”
Reply to this email with your response in the next 7 days, and I will write you back.
Learn more about Pub Talk here: https://meetup.com/pubtalk.
Contact me to learn about how to start an evangelistic discussion group for your church. https://thethink.institute/contact.
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Thanks for reading this week’s Newsletter from The Think Institute. We are a non-profit ministry helping Christian men and their families explain, share and defend the Christian message. You can help support the mission here: https://thethink.institute/partner.
Lord willing, I’ll talk to you again next week.
In Christ,
Joel Settecase
Executive Director
The Think Institute
P. S. You can watch my Family Devotions Workshop for free here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5AptLMYwdE&t=2947s.