Devotional / Family Worship; December 19, 2025

What is family worship? (Click the arrow to the left)

As Christians, particularly Christian men, we are responsible to lead our households with strength and resolve in the ways of Christ. Leading our families in devotions and family worship is one way to lead our families, raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Jesus Christ (cf. Deuteronomy 6:7; Ephesians 6:4).

In my house, we do morning and evenings. In the morning after we eat breakfast together, we all have our quiet times. We read our Bibles seperately and journal what we see. In the evenings before bed, we talk about what we saw in our morning Bible reading, I share my insight from my own devotional time, we ask questions from the New City Catechism, we sing a couple worship songs together, and then we pray as a family. Family worship doesn’t have to look like this. It may look different for every household, but I want to invite you to join me in leading our families well. Every weekday on this blog, I want to provide a guide for fathers to lead their families in some form of family worship. If your household doesn’t have a father, I believe the responsibility falls to the mother. Design a routine that works for your family, but be intentional about leading in the only way that matters instead of getting too caught up with the affairs of this world. Every Christian man is the pastor of his home. I believe the most important thing we can do for our children is (1) lead them in the home and (2) be faithful to the church as a family. As the family goes, so goes the nation. Our job as pastors to our family matters.

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Isaiah 53:4-6

4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, 

And our sorrows He carried; 

Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, 

Smitten of God, and afflicted. 

5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, 

He was crushed for our iniquities; 

The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, 

And by His scourging we are healed. 

6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, 

Each of us has turned to his own way; 

But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all 

To fall on Him.

Isaiah continued in Chapter 53. God’s servant, yet to come though already rejected by Israel and Judah, appears constantly to:

• bear the sickness and carry the pain of His people,
• be crushed because of His people’s iniquity, and
• heal the woulds of His people.

Since Isaiah wrote in the imperfect tense, I understand this to mean:

1. Christ preexisted His incarnation,
2. He has always been doing this work and continues,
3. In His appearance, predicted at the start of this pericope, His work of redemption as described here would be finished.

That’s the exact declaration people would hear from Jesus on the cross 700 years later, “It is finished.”

Christmas wasn’t the start of salvation for the nations. It was the completion of salvation for the nations in Christ alone. That’s why we celebrate.

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Today’s question from the New City Catechism:

Q- What are the sacraments or ordinances?

A- Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Romans 6:4 says,

4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4 says,

19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 

20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.

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Have a question about today’s devotional?