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WEEK 3: Homeschool Prayer Challenge | Serving in Our Homeschools
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Jun 19, 2024
Be intentional about praying for your homeschool — join me in the Homeschool Prayer Challenge! Link to sign up (it's FREE!): https://homeschoolcourses.thrivecart.com/homeschool-prayer-challenge/ Log in to the challenge: https://homeschoolcourses.thrivecart.com/l/ Favorite Bible study tools & resources from Amazon: https://amzn.to/41H1kwf Homeschool Prayer Challenge Playlist: https://blessedhomeschool.com/prayerchallengeplaylist ********************************************* Boring Legal Stuff: • This video is not made for kids. • I occasionally have sponsors for videos. However, all thoughts or opinions shared are always my own. • I also sometimes share affiliate links where I earn a small commission. This costs you nada, and helps support my blog and channel. Thank you so much! • FTC: Blessed Homeschool is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
View Video Transcript
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Welcome to week three of the homeschool prayer challenge. My name is Sarah and I'm so thankful to have the
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opportunity to be here with you guys each week, encouraging you to be in God's Word daily, to study it with
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your kids, and to keep the Lord at the center of your homeschool. I hope that the reflection in prayers
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each week have blessed you so far and I'm excited to talk to you about this week's focus, serving in our homeschools
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All right, here's your weekly reminder to log into your dashboard of the prayer challenge
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so you can print out the prayer this week along with the Bible study notes. I know that for me
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having prayers and scripture in places where I can see them really serves as a good reminder
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throughout the day. So if this is true for you to print it out and hang it on a fridge, a mirror
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in your homeschool room, stick it in your Bible, wherever works for you. I hope that
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that these are a blessing to you each week. And if you're not officially
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sign up for this free challenge, check out the link in the description below so
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you can sign up and get all the goodies. Okay, let's get to it. As moms, there's no
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doubt that we serve our families day in and day out. There is always laundry to do
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dishes to wash, groceries to buy and prepare, not to mention everything that goes
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into homeschooling our kids. It makes me exhausted just thinking about it. Now once in a blue moon
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everything runs super smoothly during the day and my mood is so great that I'm overflowing with gratitude for my home, my husband, my kids, and the blessings
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of homeschooling. However, more often than not, if I'm not careful, my daily duties can easily
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become a burden and lead me to be a grumpy, stressed out mom, one who might snap at her kids
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or feel resentful that I don't have enough time for me. Can anyone else relate? I know that this is
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not the attitude I'm supposed to have, and I'm so thankful for God's grace and the Holy Spirit
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that gently prompts me when I'm missing the mark. This week I was drawn to Colossians 3 for a reminder about what it means to not just serve our families serve for our families or myself but to serve the Lord Colossians 3 23 through 24 says whatever you do work heartily as for the Lord and not for
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men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive your inheritance as your reward
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You are serving the Lord Christ. There is surely a lot that could be said about serving, but here are a few things that
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stood out to me this week as I meditated on this passage. Number one, serving helps us represent Christ. I read a devotional a while back about marriage
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The point the author was trying to get across was whether or not we were reflecting Christ in our daily interactions with our spouse
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The question they asked was, could your husband or wife say that they feel like they are married to Jesus
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Talk about a gut punch. Even on a good day, I'm sure that I fall far from this standard
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And it really made me think, though, as Christians, we are to reflect Christ's nature in all the
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we do or strive to anyway with the help of the Holy Spirit. How would my actions and attitudes have to
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change for my husband to be able to say he was married to Jesus figuratively? What about our kids? How
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close can they come to claiming that Jesus is their homeschool teacher? Likewise, are we seeing
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Christ in our kids who were created in an image of God and are we treating them as such
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Humbly serving is one way that we can reflect Christ more in our homeschool. Jesus indeed sets the
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perfect example, showing us what it means and looks like to serve others. They are going to be many times where we struggle with our attitudes in serving
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but let's remember that by serving in our homes, we have the opportunity to represent Jesus to our children
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We can reflect the character of Christ each day when we are patient, helpful, compassionate, attention giving, and selfless in serving our family
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Let's take as many of those opportunities as we can to show our kids the character and love of Christ
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All right, number two, serving at our homeschools is an act of worship. We were created to
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worship God to serve Him. That's our purpose. As much as we want to stake our purpose in our
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homeschool or our jobs it will never be realized there We will only fully be fulfilled by our relationship with God through worshiping Him And one way we can worship is by serving others How often do we just think about worship as singing praise songs in church
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There is once a time that this is exactly what I thought worship was. I will never forget the
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definition of worship that Apologist and author Natasha Crane used in one of her books. She describes
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worship as responding to all that God is with all that we are. Let that transformative statement
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truly sink in friends. To me, it really opens up the doors to what it means to truly worship
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When we serve humbly, it's an act of worship. When we pray with our children and study the Bible with
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them, we are worshiping. When we purposefully devote everything we do to God. Yes, even wiping up a
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dirty table one more time. With a pure heart, we are worshiping and glorifying him. And number three
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serving brings us joy. Colossians 324 tells us that we know that from the Lord you will receive the
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inheritance as your reward. God is self-sufficient. He doesn't need my service. He doesn't tell us to
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work for the Lord and not for men because we are supposed to earn his favor. He tells us this to set us
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free to help us keep our focus on the eternal and not just our current circumstance. Oh, how often I
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need this reminder. We serve to pursue more joy in the Lord, to pursue a closer relationship with him
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and in serving him with pure heart, we will also receive a reward in our future heavenly kingdom
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This passage reminds me of who we are ultimately accountable to. God. We can perform even the most mundane
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tasks with joy because we know who our father is and how much we are loved. Let's let our homeschool
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lifestyle be one of worship and in whatever we do. Let's do it heartily for the Lord and his glory and honor
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I have to admit that most days I can't do this in my own strength. How often do I work to serve
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myself or my family without directing the focus where it needs to be. It's so important to remain
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diligent in prayer and walk closely with God so we can do our work for him. He will give us the
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strength that we need I praying this week that we all have pure hearts and attitudes as we model the joy of serving in our homeschools Let me pray for us Heavenly Father thank you for trusting me with the responsibility of homeschooling my kids I desire to have a pure heart that
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overflows with patience and love, and that I would willingly and joyfully take on all of the
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responsibilities that come my way today. I pray that I would see Christ in my kids and that my actions
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toward them would reflect this. And all I do today help me to do it enthusiastically as an act of worship
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to you. Thank you for loving me and my kids and for the reward of joy in you when we are obedient
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in our service. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Thank you so much again for joining me and praying for our
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homeschools this year. Go ahead and check out the links in the description below to log into the
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challenge dashboard and download your prayer and printables for the week. And if you are watching us on
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YouTube, hit that thumbs up and subscribe so you don't miss out on future weeks. All right, your
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printables this week will look like this. a page that has the scripture that you'll want to read and kind of focus on. You'll get your
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prayer. And then each day you'll have a couple of short reflection questions. So it's broken down
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to Monday. You have a page for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then Friday at the end of the
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week, you've got space to jot down how you saw God working in your homeschool. There's space
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for any specific prayer request that you might have. And then, there's also a lot of space to write down your own specific prayers for the week. So that's what
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you're going to find. Along with, there's also an extra page that is a full page of just the prayer
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with a pretty little border around it. So you can print that out and hang that up and put it in a
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place where you're going to see it throughout the week. I hope that these resources are helping
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you be intentional in being in God's word daily, praying and keeping him at the center of your
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homeschool. Let me know how I can be praying for you this week. please leave a comment below with any request you'd like to share with the community
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All right, that's it for week three. I'll see you next week
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