Today’s Reading:
Read Jeremiah 9:1-21; 10:1-18; 11:1-20; 12:1-4
What is something that makes you sad? Share with your family a time when something happened that made you sad enough to cry about it.
Jeremiah was sad. He was so sad he cried! There is a big word that theologians (smart people who know a lot about the Bible) use to describe Jeremiah’s sadness. They call it lament. Jeremiah was so sad about the choices the Israelites were making that he lamented over it. He was so sad because he knew what would happen if the Israelites broke their covenant promise with God.
Jeremiah tried to warn the Israelites, but they continued to worship false gods. They continued to disobey. Jeremiah told the people that God was going to bring judgment to their nation. God had made it very clear to Jeremiah that the people’s actions would lead to captivity. Jeremiah also promised that God would ultimately deliver them from captivity. (Spend some time as a family researching what it meant for a nation to be in captivity.)
In Jeremiah’s sadness, he reminded the Israelites that nothing could compare to the one TRUE GOD. While they had made idols and chosen to worship other gods, those gods would never be able to do what the ONE TRUE GOD had done for the Israelites.
Application/Prayer:
Remember that sin is when we don’t do something God tells us to OR we do something we know He tells us not to do. Sadly, we know that sin separates us from God. Being separated from God should make us sad. Thankfully we know that God forgives us, and He never stops loving us. Read Romans 8:38-39. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. Thank God for his forgiveness today by singing a song of thanksgiving to Him or writing out a prayer of thanksgiving to Him.
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