Devotional / Family Worship; December 24, 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 48:17-49:13

17 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, 

“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, 

Who leads you in the way you should go. 

18 “If only you had paid attention to My commandments! 

Then your ^bwell-being would have been like a river, 

And your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 

19 “Your ^adescendants would have been like the sand, 

And your offspring like its grains; 

Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence.” 

20 Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! 

Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this, 

Send it out to the end of the earth; 

Say, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.” 

21 They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts. 

He made the water flow out of the rock for them; 

He split the rock and the water gushed forth. 

22 “There is no peace for the wicked,” says the Lord. 

Chapter 49

1 Listen to Me, O islands, 

And pay attention, you peoples from afar. 

The Lord called Me from the womb; 

From the body of My mother He named Me. 

2 He has made My mouth like a sharp sword, 

In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me; 

And He has also made Me a select arrow, 

He has hidden Me in His quiver. 

3 He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, 

In Whom I will show My glory.” 

4 But I said, “I have toiled in vain, 

I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity; 

Yet surely the justice due to Me is with the Lord, 

And My reward with My God.” 

5 And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, 

To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him 

(For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, 

And My God is My strength), 

6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant 

To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; 

I will also make You a light of the nations 

So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” 

7 Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One, 

To the despised One, 

To the One abhorred by the nation, 

To the Servant of rulers, 

“Kings will see and arise, 

Princes will also bow down, 

Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.” 

8 Thus says the Lord, 

“In a favorable time I have answered You, 

And in a day of salvation I have helped You; 

And I will keep You and give You for a covenant of the people, 

To ^drestore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages; 

9 Saying to those who are bound, ‘Go forth,’ 

To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ 

Along the roads they will feed, 

And their pasture will be on all bare heights. 

10 “They will not hunger or thirst, 

Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; 

For He who has compassion on them will lead them 

And will guide them to springs of water. 

11 “I will make all My mountains a road, 

And My highways will be raised up. 

12 “Behold, these will come from afar; 

And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, 

And these from the land of Sinim.” 

13 Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! 

Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! 

For the Lord has comforted His people 

And will have compassion on His afflicted.

In Isaiah 48:17, Isaiah began quoting God in a divine monologue that doesn’t seem to end until Isaiah 49:13. In Isaiah’s quotation, God is identified as the one speaking. God chastised Israel for not listening to His warnings about sin. Then, God (Yahweh) spoke about how Yahweh called Him before He was born and assigned Himself the responsibility not only to restore Israel but be a light for all nations. By Isaiah 49:13, God said, “…Yahweh has comforted His people.”

The language, even how the tenses in Hebrew are used, is odd in this passage. It really only makes since if God is referring either to Isaiah as the savior or if from God’s perspective the events are already completed though they are yet to be from Isaiah’s perspective. Since God Himself takes credit at the end of the passage, we can only see God as the savior and messiah. God is His own chosen servant. This shows us much about God’s relationship to time. We also see the necessity of trinitarian theology since there are two persons of God depicted in this prophecy. God would assume human flesh and be the comforter of Israel, even the light of all nations. God with us—Immanuel. 

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Today’s question from the New City Catechism:

Q- What is the Lord’s Supper?

A- Christ commanded all Christians to eat bread and to drink from the cup in thankful remembrance of him.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 says,

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 

24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 

25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 

26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

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