Devotions for all Ages

Daily Inspirational Thoughts
to bless your life.

The topic this week is:

Inspirational Thoughts

A Monday through Thursday Devotional

~

With special sections for

FAMILY DEVOTIONS

~

These are written by your host Beth McLendon

unless otherwise noted.

Also check out our other Family Devotion page - Here

Teen Devotional (with parents) Here

---

                                         Take note:

Wednesday the FAMILY DEVOTION

includes several things you need to get
including:

Silly Putty

---

Monday  

When I call on Jesus,

all things are possible.

~

Need a miracle?

Good News!

We know the One who can do ANYTHING!

We hope you enjoy the following song -

When I call on Jesus

all things are POSSIBLE!

Monday Family Devotional Ideas

Talk to your child about some of the many things

that God has done

that were impossible.

We have two pages to help you:

Click:

Inspirational Impossible Miracles

or

Miracles of Jesus

Consider asking your children what they think is the greatest miracle.

Consider asking your children what miracle in the Bible is their favorite miracle.

For teens, you might suggest that they read over our Miracle page to find out about miracles that have happened recently.

Click Miracle Page

---

Tuesday 

Be careful where you choose to camp.

~

You naturally become what you are around.

Tuesday Family Devotional Ideas

Begin by talking
to your children and teens about camping.

Ask them what things you bring for camping - such as sleeping bags, tent, matches, etc.

Other Questions:

Ask your children and teens if it would be wise to put their sleeping bag over an ant bed.

Ask them if they can think of any other unwise places to put their sleeping bag.

(Laugh with them about silly places. Allow them to have some fun with the devotion.)

Remind them that we need to put our bed in WISE places.

Give them this Application:

"Be careful where you choose to camp"

means:

We need to be careful where we spend our time.

~ ~ ~

We need to be careful where we choose to dwell
and
what we choose to do each day.

If we are wise,
we seek to spend time:

*  Being around wise people.

*  Reading the Bible.

*  Singing songs to God.

*  Praying to God.

*  Doing kind things for others.

 

If we choose to "camp" right next to Jesus,
we will find lots of blessings in our life.

~ ~ ~

When we camp near dangerous things,
we pay the price.

 

If we choose to "camp" near danger and wickedness,
we will encounter
lots of extra problems and sadness in our life.

 

The Bible tells us that:

*  Sin is fun for a season.

   (Hebrews 11:25)

*  At some point, sin will stop being fun and you will eat the bitter fruit of having your own way instead of choosing God's way.

   (Proverbs 1:29-31)

*  At some point sin becomes a hardship and then we begin to feel ashamed.

We will always pay a heavy price for choosing to camp in sinful places.

 

---

Wednesday

Father God will make me

into the

image of Jesus

if I don't stop him.

Wednesday Thoughts:

We will never become the total image of Jesus.

The above statement just means that if we cooperate with God, we will look more and more like Jesus as the years go by.

Five years from now,
I should look a lot more like Jesus than I do now.

What slows my progress?

ME!

Jesus was a carpenter.

He worked with wood. He created beautiful things with wood.

Some people are talented
and can take a piece of wood
and carve something beautiful.

- - -

But the person couldn't finish creating
if the wood kept stopping him.

- - -

God wants to make big changes in us.

We want him to make small changes.

- - -

As God's wood,

we want God to take a little off once or twice a year.

We

slow down

God's progress.

---

Prayer

Lord of heaven and earth,

Rearrange the priorities of my life today.

Refocus my attention.

Renew my devotion to you.

Today I declare that you are:

Lord over my mind and over my actions.

I will focus on you.

I will pursue you.

I will become more like you.

Amen

Copyright © 2015 Beth McLendon of Inspirational-Prayers.com

From the upcoming Helmet of Salvation page

Please see our

Prayers for Yielding

Wednesday Family Devotional Ideas

Consider buying Silly Putty for this devotional.

Silly Putty is a product that is fun to use with children.

Note, I've done this basic devotional with a group of women. So this is good for all ages.

Talk to your children about the fruit of the spirit.

Read the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23.

Then say:

God wants to help us to produce the fruit of the spirit in our life.

God wants us to look more and more like Jesus.

I'm giving each of you a Silly Putty egg. This Silly Putty represents your heart. For our Bible devotion, this Silly Putty will represent your heart.

We will play with it after the devotion. Right now, I want you to remember that this Silly Putty represents your heart.

God wants us to look more and more like Jesus.

Some people don't want to look more and more like Jesus.

Some people want to look like someone in the world. Some people want to look like movie stars or famous singers or a famous sports person.

To show this, take your Silly Putty and press it into a frame of one of the cartoon pictures.

See, your heart now looks like the cartoon picture that you pressed into it.

Is this a good picture for your heart? Do you want your heart to look like this?

Wise people want to look like Jesus.

As we read the Bible and pray to Jesus, we focus on Jesus. As we focus on Jesus and love him - we become more like him.

Focusing on Jesus and living for Jesus makes our heart become tender. With a soft heart, we can become more like Jesus.

Focusing on Jesus is sometimes referred to as "pressing into" being more like Jesus.

Let's press into Jesus with our heart.

With our Silly Putty, we can take this image of Jesus (give them a picture of Jesus that you have traced over with a pencil) and we can press the Silly Putty on the image. Then the Silly Putty will have the image of Jesus on it.

We want our HEART to have the image of Jesus on it.

We want our LIFE to have the image of Jesus on it.

We want people to see Jesus when they see us.

We want to treat people the way Jesus would treat people.

We want to make choices in our own life, the way Jesus would make those choices.

Let's look at this rock.

This rock is hard.

This rock cannot change its condition.

This rock cannot be molded to look like Jesus.

When our heart is hard, it is rebellious toward God.

A hard heart is not like Jesus.

A hard heart does not look like Jesus.

So we don't want to have a heart like a rock. Because a rock is ________(pause and let the children or teens say "Hard.")

We want our heart to be ____________(pause and let them say, "Soft.")

The Silly Putty represents our ____________ (pause and let them say, "Our heart.")

When our heart is soft and we read our Bible, pray to Jesus, and try to please Jesus, we will look like __________ (pause and let them say, "Jesus.")

Let's put our Silly Putty down for just a minute and pray a prayer and after that you can play with your Silly Putty.

Let's ask God to soften our heart.

(You may want to have this prayer written out so that everyone can say this prayer together.)

Dear God,

We want soft hearts.

We want to produce the fruit of the spirit in our life.

We want to look like Jesus.

We ask that you would help us.

Amen

Now, the lesson is over  - so you can play with the Silly Putty and the cartoons, but just remember that YOUR HEART needs to always press into Jesus and not other things.

Wednesday - extra for TEENS

Every part of today's devotions is for the teens. I hope you will share today from beginning to end.

To finish today, I have some extra things to do with teens.

Extra for Teens

Reveal to your teens which of your friends you think is most like Jesus.

Allow your teens to give you their opinion of your most Christ-like friend.

(That could be eye-opening for you.)

Ask your teens who is their most Christ-like friend.

Ask them to give examples of the ways that friend is like Jesus.

Consider praying with your teen about God helping us to find additional wise friends who love Jesus - for them and for you.

Consider doing a devotion with your teen on Friday that involves examining the following page:

Inspirational Thoughts about Friends

---

Thursday 

Pride comes before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18

____

         What did I do wrong?

A  Talk with God

Lord,

What man or woman can truly understand pride?

Who can truly see the extent that pride has infiltrated his or her life?

How can I ever see the extent that the choices I make have been influenced by pride?

Without receiving your wisdom, I will shove your agenda out of the way.

Without receiving your wisdom, I will be an instrument to wound other people. 

Without awareness of what I am allowing, I am doomed to experience regret.

Thank you for your forgiveness, compassion, and mercy.

Thank you for cleansing my sins and for opening my eyes to see.

Amen

Copyright © 2014 Beth McLendon of Inspirational-Prayers.com

Before giving the Family Devotions

I want to inform you 

that this website has a page called

Prayers against Pride

With lots of prayers on the page.

Thursday Family Devotional Ideas

Show the above video to your children and teens
and ask them
for their observations.

Ask: What can we learn from that video?

Next, you may want to separate the children from the teens.

Share the "McGee and me" videos with your children

And then below that is
a video for teens
at the bottom of the page

Next we present a

Children's video Devotion.

___

A quick note to adults and teens:

I have learned a lot from watching
the videos below. So consider watching them.

McGee and ME!

To make it full screen, click the right bottom area of the video.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Consider discussing lessons to be learned

from these videos.

Thursday - extra for TEENS

In addition to the first video presented for today,

we have another video to watch with your teens.

Encourage them to share their thoughts on this video.

Be prepared to share your thoughts.

Please consider using the

Prayers against Pride page

for more devotional material for today

for your teens.

Originally presented August 10, 2015

---