Monday Passion Week Family Devotional

Hi All,

Instead of blogging this week, I'll be posting the Easter family devotions I completed for our church. These are actually excerpts from a book I'm almost done with, so please don't redistribute them. My prayer is that your hearts are encouraged within your home and family as you live out the covenant before your children.

Monday:

Shorter Catechism Question #137:

What sign is used in the Lord’s Supper?

Eating the bread and drinking wine to remember the suffering and death of Jesus.

Read Luke 22: 14-23

Once a year the people of God went to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Passover. It was a time to remember the ways God had provided for His people. It was a time to remember how God led them out of slavery in Egypt to freedom. This year Jesus wanted to celebrate the feast with his closest friends, his disciples. The disciples were afraid because they knew people wanted to kill Jesus.

But when the time came, Jesus and his disciples sat down at the table together. Jesus knew it was almost time for Him to die, but He also knew His Father was in control of everything. Jesus told His disciples this would be the last time He would share and eat this special meal with them until the Kingdom of God came.

First, Jesus took the bread. He blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. He said, “This is my body given for you.”

Then, He took the cup of wine. He blessed it and gave it to them. He said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant of my blood.”

We still celebrate this feast today. In the church we have communion. The bread and the juice remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice. Just like the people of God remembered, we remember that Jesus suffered and died in our place. He took our punishment, our shame, and our separation from God. Jesus took all these things so that we could be free in God’s love for us.

· Share a time you were disciplined for doing something you knew you were not suppose to do. Were you ashamed?

· How does it make you feel to know Jesus took God’s punishment for our sins?

· How does it make you feel to know that we do not have to be ashamed anymore?

· Have you found freedom in Jesus’ suffering for you? If not, talk to your parents about it now.

· Thank God for Jesus’ sacrifice and that Jesus is returning to celebrate this feast with us again.

Sing verses 1 and 6 of “Amazing Grace.”

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I’m found

Was blind, but now I see.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we’ve first begun.

John Newton, 1779.