A Home With Purpose
by Allison Carr (Family Life Associate)
As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. – Joshua 24:15
What is the purpose of your home? Beyond just living in your home, what are you trying to accomplish there for your family? In Deuteronomy 6, we learn that the home is to be a central place for God’s ways to be both taught and lived out. God loves the family. And it is His desire to see our home be a place where we are passing on faith to the next generation. He made this clear in Deuteronomy 6:
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and where you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (vv.6-7)
God’s truth, love, and promises are to be in our hearts, but that doesn’t happen simply by living under the same roof. That’s why we are to “impress” God’s truth on our kids. We are to talk about who God is and what He has done when we “sit at home.” We are to be intentionally training and equipping our kids with faith on the way to school, around the dinner table, while we’re sitting on the back deck, or while we’re tucking them in at night. “Wehn you lie down and when you get up,” the Bible says, our home should be places for God’s presence to dwell and God’s purpose to be fulfilled.
Take some time this week to consider how you can use your home more intentionally for a purpose. Write a mission statement that uniquely fits your family and home. Ask yourself, how can we use our home to love and serve others? Talk with your family about simple and practical ways you as a family can live for God’s glory right where He has you.
Father, thank You for the gift of my family. Teach me to count my days so that I can make my days count. Give me strength and wisdom to live with greater purpose, loving, teaching, and equipping my kids to one day leave my home. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
- How would you currently describe the purpose of your home?
- What is one way you begin living more on purpose as a family?
By: Ruth Schwenk
The Better Mom Devotional