The Bible Column - Family Prayer 2018 05 26

“Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.” Psalms 119:164
John Newton, the slave trader turned minister and hymn writer, began a letter to a young man determined to have family worship with these words: “A neglect of family prayer is, I am afraid, too common amongst professors in this day. I am glad that you consider it both as a duty and a privilege, and are by grace determined that, when you shall commence as master of a family, you will worship God with all your house.” If the neglect of such worship was common in Newton’s day, the observance of it in our day is as rare and as refreshing as rain in the dry desert.
Someone has said that there are two cooks in a Christian home: one the wife, whose task is to prepare the meals for the sustenance of the body; the other the husband, who through family devotions is to prepare spiritual food for the soul. The psalmist very plainly declares, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” (Psalm 127:1). Yet many Christians seek to establish a Christian home without allowing Christ to rule the home in reality. Going to church and Sunday school together is not family worship. This is part of the building of a Christian home and is essential to it. It is the first and most basic step, next to the conversion of the parents, and should be done regularly. But family devotions are the worship of God together, as a unit, in the home of that family.
May the Lord keep families to yield to the Lord in salvation and then faithfulness in their Christian lives!