Today’s Reading:
Read Jeremiah 25:1-14; 26:1-15; 28:15
Let’s play a game! Choose someone in your family to wear a blindfold. Choose someone else to be the direction giver. The blindfolded family member needs to listen closely to the directions and ONLY do what the direction giver is telling them to do. While directions are being called out, the other people in the family should call out WRONG directions. The object of the game is for the blindfolded person to complete the task that the direction giver gave.
How did that work? It’s hard to listen for one voice when you have many other voices shouting out around you with the wrong directions, isn’t it? In our reading today, Jeremiah’s voice was becoming hard for the Israelites to hear because there were false prophets calling out things that were untrue, things that God never said. The people did not like what Jeremiah was saying. He began to face persecution. (Persecution is another big word! It means being treated meanly or harshly because of your beliefs.) Jeremiah told the people that a King named Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon was going to conquer the Israelites and that they would live in exile for 70 years. Other prophets were saying that Jeremiah was wrong. They led the people to continue sinning.
In the end, God protected Jeremiah. Jeremiah continued to spread the message that God had given him about the Israelites.
Application/Prayer:
Read Isaiah 30:21.
“and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’”
Ask God to help you hear HIS voice as you live for Him each day.
August Memory Verse:
“Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
Using the daily reading prompts from George H. Guthrie’s Read the Bible for Life, here’s how to use this devotional:
- Bring your Bible! Your kids need to see that everything you are reading to them or learning about comes from an actual Bible!
- Each day starts with a reading prompt. Read the selection as a family. If your kids are readers, encourage them to read along with you.
- After you’ve read the passage, read the short devotional thought that goes along with each passage.
- Prayer and application are important any time we read God’s word! After each devotional, there is a challenge to help apply what your family has read that day.
- There is a reading for six days of the week. The last reading of the week is a Gospel Conversation Prompt to help you connect the reading from the week with God’s plan for salvation.
Other Resources:
August memory verse coloring sheet
August Fill-in the blank activity