Family Devotions - The Lord is my Help

We did our family devotions today as this is Rich's day off and we woke up late yesterday and were going over to his folks house for dinner.  So the beauty of family devotions is that you are not limited to just one day of the week.  As it says in Colossians 2:16 "Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day."

 

Rich opened up with the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy and here is the video we sang along with:

 

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/q9SIHGTys74

 

 

 

 

Rich read the story in Genesis 24.  If you have been following our weekly devotions you will remember that last week that Mary found Genesis 24:22 while she was looking through the Bible and shared it with us.  So, now we are doing a study on a bride for Isaac this week.  A wonderful story of hearing the Lord and following his call.  After we read out of the Bible we found this cute video of the same story.

 

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/xrwZrMzX09o

 



 

 

We then prayed.  We were thanking the Lord for all He is doing and working in our lives.  We are so very thankful for more people finding our blog and being encouraged by it.  Just this week we have gotten emails telling us so.  So we prayed for all those that are coming as we are casting the net of truth and thanking the Lord for bringing the people.  We prayed for continued growth and help for the new people and for the ones now in the followship.

 

We closed with this song.  Mary loved this one and we just loved the images of Jesus with the little children.

 

Here is the link:  http://youtu.be/QbfXPgcmzcc

God bless you richly this week!

What is a Followship

A Followship is a network of Followers,  Followers of Jesus Christ,  people who are humbly, selflessly, lovingly, and thankfully following Jesus' commandments,  seeking to become disciples of Christ by subjecting themselves to His disciplines,  Jesus Christ Himself defining their reality in every aspect of life.

A Followship is not an organization,  it is a family of followers, following their Father the Lord Jesus hand in hand, and shoulder to shoulder, being bound together with the love of the truth of the Gospel, and the obedience of His commandments.

People who are seeking to fulfill the Lords commandments, order, and desires, making Him first in their lives above all else, and seeking to be set apart from the desires, and trappings of this world, and always (as strangers, and sojourners in this life) seeking to simplify, purify, and strengthen their walk with the Lord.

This Family focuses on following, not just fellowing,  Jesus said "whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother".   A persons true family are the ones who keep the Lord's word,  and help others to do so.   We desire to foster an atmosphere of discipleship through humble obedience, and strict adherence to the Lord's directives, no matter how difficult it may seem, and in this sense a followship is not generational, or sociogenic, but seeks to be a family of true believers, not a social club made up of religious friends, and  relatives.

A Followship does not practice hierarchy,  it does not have to, because the disciples are led by the Spirit of Christ Himself through obedience to the Word,  and as the Lord Himself said "call no man father, leader, or teacher",  in the Spirit there is only one Father, Leader, and Teacher, and that is Jesus Christ Himself, who was, and is, and always will be God Himself.  We believe in the gifts of the Spirit of Christ, and that He gives the gifts as He wills, He can give to anyone any gift He pleases at any time, so we believe that all Followers (at any time the Spirit of Christ chooses) can be apostles, teachers, healers, prophets, and leaders, and that these gifts are for all of us that believe, and obey.  We believe that these gifts are not "owned" by any believer, and that the Lord Himself is the only one who "owns" anything,  and Him being the owner of all things, gives good gifts to those who obey Him.

The Followship has no Temple, it is the Temple, each follower being a spiritual stone that makes up the Temple worldwide, whoever they are, and wherever they are, they are the Temple of God in Christ.  May the Lord Jesus bless, and guide all the Followers, Amen.

Family Devotions - The Call of the First Disciples

Rich opened up with the story of the calling of the first disciples in Luke chapter 5.

After the scripture reading we played this video: http://youtu.be/EGWqshxU7Lg

Then we played this video for Mary: http://youtu.be/UswoAr7lu_0

Then we sang "Just as I am"  and "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus"

http://youtu.be/CxA0TFe3-Uo

http://youtu.be/s2TwhEL2EPc

While we were singing Mary was looking through the Bible and found a verse and shared it with us.  It was Genesis 24: 35.  The context was the story of Abraham's servant going back to their homeland to seek a wife for Isaac.  Another great story of following the Lord and wanting Him above all else. Rebekah left all that she knew and her family to go to be Isaac's wife.  This will be our verses we will study next week.  Mary was so excited to find something on her own and share it with us and it fit into Dad's theme.  Such a great example that at the earliest ages we can experience God's leading and guiding in our lives and we can all share the truths of His Word and it can all be in context and order.

American Polytheism

When we explore the religious practices of the ancient Greco-Roman world we see that they did not practice different religions, but they practiced many different versions of the same religion. Basically honoring various gods with temples, rites, and various rituals, and tributes, which is referred to as polytheism.  They had many gods and many temples.  Each god had unique attributes and had control over certain aspects of life, and the world.  Each one would be sought at different times depending on the circumstances of the individual seeking help from the gods, or wanting to honor, or worship a god for a specific perceived blessing that was received.

It has been recorded in the history books that Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the fourth century AD.  This is a misrepresentation of what actually took place and what the Emperor was endeavoring to accomplish.  He did not convert to Christianity.  What he actually did was he converted Christianity, and adopted the Christian God to the religion of the Empire.

He did not remove all the other gods from the Roman religious repertoire, he merely added another god to the list of very important gods in the Roman religious experience. We see many pagan aspects of this fact when we examine the main religion that eventually emerged from Constantine's corruption of the truth.  The Roman Catholic Church developed as a result of many pagan practices mixed into the corrupt "Christian" framework that Constantine fabricated. It was some years after Constantine that the pure pagan polytheistic practices were removed comletely, and the Roman Catholic Church became the dominant religious influence in Europe.

Family Devotions - King Josiah

Last week Rich read the story of King Josiah from 2 Chronicles 34 through verse 21 where the book of the Law was found.  This week he picked up in 2 Chronicles 34 verse 22 and read to the end of chapter 35.  This records all the reforms that King Josiah did after the book of the Law, that was recorded by Moses, was found hidden in the temple.  What a powerful account of a life dedicated to God and making changes to practices that had been done for many, many years long before his birth.  He completely cleansed Judah of false worship.  It just made us both weep as we listened to the account of Josiah's life.  It says in 2 Kings 23:25 "Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him."  We then reviewed the 2 videos that we posted in last week's Family Devotions - Create in Me a Clean heart.  Mary enjoyed them a lot, especially the first one.  It ended with this thought, "Why is this story important? Because true knowledge is learning what God says and knowing what God says can make you wiser than you can imagine."  We do identify with this story and statement for that is what we have been endeavoring to do this last year since we have left the church/religious system of our culture.  We want to know what God says about worship and about how we are to be as a body of believers.  Not according to traditions of men but according to God's word and example set before us in the scriptures.  We explained this to Mary and she understands why we have left the church system and why we worship at home together as believers.  We then sang these two hymns, All Creatures of Our God and King and Crown Him with Many Crowns:

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/0d3gO6qDLNA

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/YuMh_ept-Js

We closed in prayer thanking God for who He is and that we know Him.  We also for all the believers who are seeking Him for the truth of His word and our brother, Todd, in Bakersfield who we have the privilege of fellowshipping with.

Family Devotions - Create in Me a Clean Heart

We read the story of King Josiah this morning out of 2 Chronicles 34.  We found two You Tube Videos that were good.  One for smaller kids and one for kids and adults.  So here they are:

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/3csjqtYoxcs

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/dJyQHcmrK40

We also sang the B-I-B-L-E children's song and then Create in Me a Clean Heart

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/BGPmMcDeRpM



We closed in prayer asking God to purify our hearts this week and help us to always be close to Him and love His words and put them into practice.

Family Devotions - Coin in the Fishes Mouth

Rich picked our Bible story this morning.  He read Matthew 17:24 - 27

²⁴ When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the two-drachma tax?” ²⁵ He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?” ²⁶ When Peter said, “From strangers,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are exempt. ²⁷ However, so that we do not offend them, go to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for you and Me.”

We talked about trusting Jesus in providing for our needs.  Not extravagant things, but our basic needs.  We told Mary a story from my childhood.  When I was very young my parents were going through a hard financial time.  They made up a list of thing to get at store.  When they got there they divided the list and each took part of the items to get.  They got their stuff and went back home.  When they got home they realized that neither one of them got milk or cottage cheese and they had spent all their money.  This was the days before credit cards, so once your money was gone, it was gone.  They were upset at not getting the items and were arguing about who was supposed to get it.  Right in the heat of their discussion, they heard a knock on the door.  They got real quiet and went to the door.  There was standing a brother in the Lord and he said that he had just been to the store and thought that we could use some milk and cottage cheese and was bringing it over to them.  They accepted with a big smile and were rejoicing that God knew their hearts and situation and had provided for them!  Mary's face lit up and loved hearing a story of God's provision in my life before I could even remember.

We found a sweet song that Mary did a little dance and motions too.

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/-LJRndQuFnQ

We also sang this song "I will make you fishers of men".

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/KL7uV5jF8Rk

This is our hearts prayer is that we will be fishers of men as we follow Jesus and his words.  We closed in prayer for all our dear brothers and sisters in the Lord and thanking Him for all that he has done in our hearts and lives.