Jesus Makes His Home in Us: John 14:23

Gathering Prayer: (Do this prayer repeat-after-me style)
Dear Jesus, we thank you for time to feed our faith as a family, and time to learn about how Jesus makes his home in us.  Help our time together to be holy time.  In your name we pray, Amen.

Bible Verse:  John 14:23
This week’s devotion is a single verse from John 14.  You can see it as a visual verse here:

Play it several times with your family, until it has made it from your head into your heart.  You might even develop motions for the verse to get your bodies involved!

These are the motions that my family developed:
Those who love me (hug self)
will keep my word (open hands, palms up, like an open book)
And my Father (point up to the sky)
will love them (hug self)
and we will come to them (arms from sky to floor)
and make our home with them (group hug).

Discuss as a family:
How do we show God that we love him?  How do we keep God’s word?  (hint:  the Word is the Bible) How do we know that God loves us?  Where do you call home?  Why do you consider it your home?  What do you think it means that God has a home in you?

Song:  Home
Usually I don’t suggest secular music on this blog, but this week I just couldn’t resist.  This song is very close to the hearts of my husband and me.  It echoes the words of Ruth 1:16

But Ruth said,
“Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
¹⁷ Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”

This was one of the readings at our wedding, and this is a song that we played as we moved all the way across the country to Nebraska.  Fair warning:  the original song has some words that you might not want your kids singing, like “ain’t” and “a**”.  I found a couple of versions that I think would be fine for kids, but please preview them to make sure they work for your family.

Our family learned the chorus, “Home!  Let me come home! Home is wherever I’m with you!” from the first video, and let the second video play on repeat as we built our fort to remind us that We are always home wherever we are because God is at home in us.

Here is a version with just the chorus:

Here is a full version:

Activity:  Play Fort Building

My children love to build forts on rainy or super hot days.  We even have a fort-making set from Discovery Kids.  You can build your fort with whatever you have on hand.  As you build, you can say, “Hey family!  Where does Jesus live?”  and teach them to respond “Jesus makes his home in us!”

You might even arrange to have an indoor picnic in your fort to prolong the fun.

Here is a pic of one of our forts:

Thanks for your commitment to faithfully feed your family’s faith!  I hope that this time was holy time for you.

Closing Prayer: (Can be a repeat after me prayer if you have non-readers in your family)
Dear God, we thank you that for holy time together as a family.  Help us to remember that you always make your home in us, no matter where we go.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.