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May 10, 2022 18:00pm

Faith TALK: Stepping Up Our Worship

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(The following is a family devotional guide with suggested questions and scriptures.)

Focus Verse: “I do not know what to do, but I am looking to you for help.” – 2 Chronicles 20:12

T-Talk About It Topic

When you hear the name “God”, what descriptive words come to your mind?

Though it would be hard to write down all of God’s qualities, here would be a good starter list for your people: forgiving, merciful, loving, just, omniscient, sovereign, counselor, friend, good, kind, wise, holy, unchangeable, healer, Savior, compassionate, faithful, giving, powerful, and helper.

A-Anchor To The Bible

Worship is a fancy word that can sometimes get confused with gratitude. Gratitude is being thankful for what God has done in our lives specifically. Worship is focusing on who God is and praising Him for all His amazing qualities (like the ones listed above and more). It’s about submitting to God, whether it is through physically bowing down low to the ground and showing reverence to God or surrendering the areas you struggle with to Him. Worship is about putting God in His right place: in authority over us. Both worship and gratitude are very important to our spiritual lives. In the Bible, when people worshipped God with a heart that meant it, things happened…just ask King Jehoshaphat. King Jehoshaphat was a good king who sought the Lord. Though he had made mistakes in the past, he was about to be put to the test in the most extreme of circumstances: potential war. King Jehoshaphat got word that three armies had just entered his land, overtaken a town, and were on their way to Jerusalem, where he lived. He had only days to prepare for a battle in which he was vastly outnumbered. Instead of calling a meeting with his commanders and preparing for this battle, he called for a fast and for all the people to come together and seek the Lord. Once gathered, he prayed a powerful three-part prayer in which he worshipped the Lord first and foremost. First, he praised God as the God of his ancestors, the God in Heaven, and the ruler over all kingdoms on earth (including the ones about to attack him!). He honored God’s power and strength. This is worship at its best: When you are desperately needing God’s help but before you give your requests, you take take to worship who God is. Second, King Jehoshaphat shows gratitude by thanking God for all of His interventions in the past for the Israelites – anytime disaster fell upon them and they cried out to God, he saved them. Third, he ended his prayer in the most humble, most dependent way: “We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.” In this very simple three-part prayer, King Jehoshaphat demonstrated the beauty of worship, of gratitude, and of surrender. As a result, God spoke through a prophet and told them that this would be his battle and to go and face this enemy, knowing He would fight for them. And the best part? King Jehoshaphat placed the worshippers in front of his army, and as they marched to the battle site, they worshipped God. Then, God acted by creating confusion among the armies so that they started attacking each other, and by the time King Jehoshaphat’s army arrived, there was no one left alive!

L-Learn God’s Word

Worshipping God. Thanking God. Surrendering to God. Three actions that activated God to fight for His people. Whatever obstacle you are up against, never underestimate the power of these 3 simple but powerful actions that are complete game changers. That is why the last part of King Jehoshaphat’s prayer will be our focus verse this week!

K-Keep Each Other Accountable

Here are a few ideas to keep everyone in check with this week’s TALK:

Practice worshipping God together as a family with family prayers:

Worship: Before family prayers, talk about a quality or two of God that each person has experienced and begin their prayers with worshipping who God is.
Gratitude: After that, have your people think of at least one thing to thank God for.
Confess Sin: Next, confess any sin that could separate us from a loving, holy God.
Pray for others, Pray for self: This is where they could really live out their memory verse from 2 Chronicles 20:12: “I do not know what to do, but I am looking to you for help.”

Keep a prayer journal where you write out your prayers in the above format, beginning with worshipping God. Next, push yourself to write out at least 10 things you are grateful for each day! (And then keep following the prayer format: confess sin and pray for others and for self.) Keep track of answered prayers along the way by highlighting them or writing them in the back of the journal.

It’s easy to worship God and thank God in the good times – push yourself and your family to do this during the bad and downright ugly times. Talk about the beauty of Romans 8:28 in such tough times. God can always bring good from such times. If we can keep our eyes on the this fact: “If God has helped us in the past, He will do it again.” Worship Him knowing this fact. Help will come. He is faithful.

Motivate each other to memorize our focus verse this week. Write the memory verse on a chalkboard and display it by the door. Have them say the verse each morning and initial they did so.