Before You Were Born - One Year of Dinner Table Devotions and Discussion Starters

Before You Were Born

I carried you before you were born. I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.

Isaiah 46:3-4

You brought me safely from my mother’s womb and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast. I was thrust into your arms at my birth. You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Psalm 22:9-10

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:4-5

It’s a scene that plays itself out daily at school recess: two team captains picking their teams for a game of kickball or softball. Everybody lines up, hoping to be chosen for the team.

Some people see our relationship to God something like that team selection scenario. Except we sometimes think God, the team captain, is standing there hoping we’ll choose to be on his team. We think the choosing is completely up to us. But the truth is, God is not standing idly by, hoping we will choose him. He has made the first move to give us the desire to move in his direction.

Ephesians 1:11 from The Message says it this way: “Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.” Long before you were born, God determined that you would be his. He is not sweating it out on the sidelines, wondering if you will choose him. He made the first move by choosing you. He didn’t choose you because you chose him; he chose you so that you could choose him. Paul said it this way: “By His doing you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:30, NASB).

DISCUSSION STARTERS

How does it feel to be chosen—for the team, for a play, as a friend?

What do you think about God’s character that he chooses us?

How does it make you feel to know that God knew you before you were born?