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.
John 9:1-12
1 As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.
2 And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
4 “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
5 “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”
6 When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes,
7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.
8 Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, “Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?”
9 Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.”
10 So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?”
11 He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went away and washed, and I received sight.”
12 They said to him, “Where is He?” He *said, “I do not know.”
Jesus healed the blind man. The big question of the text is, “Who sinned that this man was born blind?”
It is human nature to search for meaning behind the existence of every atom and a working purpose for every little thing. According to Jesus, here, there was no underlying reason beyond God’s simple purpose for His own glory. I have come to believe that many things are gratuitous in God’s good creation. There doesn’t have to be a reason God created mosquitos or a reason our loved ones are struck with terminal illnesses. In this way, not everything happens for a reason. God is, though, working all things together for our good. He is glorified in everything. For materialists who believe every living thing mutated and evolved into its current state by means of natural selection, keeping only the mutations that are beneficial such that only the fittest survive, this becomes a problem of beauty.
The perception of beauty seems to be entirely gratuitous without any real evolutionary advantages, yet we perceive beauty and seem to Anatoly agree about what is and isn’t beautiful. From a Christian worldview, there doesn’t have to be a reason other than God wanted it that way.
In our lives personally, that means God isn’t necessarily putting us through bad circumstances because of some sin in our lives or someone else’s. Gratuity means bad things happen to good and bad people alike. It rains on the just and unjust. The promise of Scripture isn’t, “Everything happens for a reason.” It is, ‘God is working all things together, your bad circumstances included, for His glory and according to His good plan’ (cf. Romans 8:28ff).
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Alex Southern Baptist Chapel 
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