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Make Family Worship Interesting, Nobember 3
Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done;
and Your thoughts which are toward us cannot be recounted to You in order;
if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
Psalm 40:5
, NKJV.
Your children should be educated to be kind, thoughtful of others, gentle, easy
to be entreated, and, above everything else, to respect religious things and feel the
importance of the claims of God. They should be taught to respect the hour of
prayer; they should be required to rise in the morning so as to be present at family
worship.—
Testimonies for the Church 5:424
.
The father, who is the priest of his household, should conduct the morning and
evening worship. There is no reason why this should not be the most interesting and
enjoyable exercise of the home life, and God is dishonored when it is made dry and
irksome. Let the seasons of family worship be short and spirited. Do not let your
children or any member of your family dread them because of their tediousness
or lack of interest. When a long chapter is read and explained and a long prayer
offered, this precious service becomes wearisome, and it is a relief when it is over.
It should be the special object of the heads of the family to make the hour of
worship intensely interesting. By a little thought and careful preparation for this
season, when we come into the presence of God, family worship can be made
pleasant and will be fraught with results that eternity alone will reveal....
Select a portion of Scripture that is interesting and easily understood; a few
verses will be sufficient to furnish a lesson which may be studied and practiced
through the day.... At least a few verses of spirited song may be sung, and the
prayer offered should be short and pointed. The one who leads in prayer should
not pray about everything, but should express the needs in simple words and praise
God with thanksgiving.—
The Signs of the Times, August 7, 1884
.
In arousing and strengthening a love for Bible study, much depends on the use
of the hour of worship. The hours of morning and evening worship should be the
sweetest and most helpful of the day. Let it be understood that into these hours no
troubled, unkind thoughts are to intrude; that parents and children assemble to meet
with Jesus and to invite into the home the presence of holy angels.
Let the services be brief and full of life, adapted to the occasion, and varied
from time to time. Let all join in the Bible reading and learn and often repeat God’s
law. It will add to the interest of the children if they are sometimes permitted to
select the reading.—
Education, 186
.
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