Month: October 2019

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 28

“No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”  Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”    Luke 8:16-21

We’re not just friends, we’re family.  Those who belong to God’s family share His DNA and it shows up in how they live, when the live and why they live.  We live like we’re from heaven because when we believed in Him, we received from Him, His spiritual DNA, the Holy Spirit.  It all begins with belief.  It’s that believing that’s so important because our spirit (we are three parts, spirit, soul and skin) lives from faith, not feelings.  A person’s spirit behaves according to what it believes to be true.  That’s why faith comes from hearing!  Jesus said, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”  Jesus compared His word to a seed that is received by the soil.  The soil produces what it receives and so does a person’s spirit.  We become like Him when we believe in Him from our spirit or our heart.  It might not all make sense to our soul or our mind at the beginning, but we believe in God’s word, work and will for our lives.  When our spirit grabs onto God’s truth, God’s Spirit grabs onto our hearts, changing the very motivation of our lives to live as part of His family.  We’re not just friends, we’re family, we share the same DNA.  Live today for Him by living today like Him; live from His inspiration, not our intimidation.  We’re family! 

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 27

love to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another John 15:10-17
Real friends don’t keep secrets from each other. There’s a connection, a comradery, that’s built with time, trust, and truth. That’s how real friendships happen. Friends share values and visions in life. Friends share with each other because they stand with each other. Friends honor each other and they help each other. One of the blessings of believing is friendship with Jesus where He shares His secrets and His sources with us. It’s something He wants to do, and He waits to do for us. He’s a friend, He doesn’t walk away, give up or turn away. Those who believe in Him know that to be true. One of the most valuable tools to a victorious life is friendship, real friendship, that we can rely on. But friendship is a two-way relationship where we abide in Him, allow Him to speak the truth to us and where we assist Him, also, in what He wants to do. One last thing, a real friend will go out of their way to make sure other’s way is good. Jesus did that for us, going out of His way, to a place called Golgotha, to save us and our friendship with Him. Abide in His love today!

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 26

About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” Luke 7:14-24
One of the blessings of this life with Jesus is the awareness, intellect, and discernment He gives us for living this life. It’s a Holy Spirit insight and intellect that we won’t find necessarily in schools, scholars or subscriptions. There’s a blessing of the brain that flows from the working of His will. Jesus says, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know…” The Holy Spirit gives will give us the inspiration, insight and the intelligence we need to live in His glory. But this happens when we decide to live for His glory rather than our glory. There’s this search in the heart of man to find significance, success, and strength in this life. No one wants to be a failure. Many give up trying to find success and significance but no one really wants to fail. That’s why we have all those excuses. But there is glory, honor, success in this life when we begin living for His glory, honor, and success rather than our own glory, honor and success. In living for Him we will find that He is living for us and we will find ourselves freed from the judgment of appearances to make the right judgments about life. And when we make the right judgments about our lives, we make the right judgment for the lives around us leaving people helped, healed and with hope.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 25

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”  As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”  Luke 11:24-28

A house is blessed by what it is founded on and filled with.  We can build our lives on the firm foundation of God’s word and then fill that house with what is foolish, finite and forgettable.  Our enemy is counting on it.  It’s hard to believe that a person will put so much into the house they build and then think so little of what he fills it with.  A nice house becomes a nasty place when we fill it with ungodly thoughts, words, and treasures.  But blessed to be a blessing is a house, a life, that is built on God’s word and filled with God’s word; the Bible says so.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 24

A Doer Does

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.  But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1:19-25

The one thing that caused Jesus to marvel was what people did or didn’t believe.  This Jesus life isn’t just about liking what Jesus said but about living what Jesus said because we love what Jesus said.  We should love it; it will save our souls.  Loving God’s word let’s His word swim through our heads and sink deep into our hearts where it becomes the truth of our hands and heels.  Blessing is just on the other side of believing.  But believing takes courage to let the word of God shine in our hearts, show us who we really are and stay there to make us what we believe.  Real faith behaves because it believes.  What we do with what we believe will determine where we go with that belief.  What we believe will affect our will, our wisdom, our wants, our words, and our walk.  Blessing is just on the other side of believing Jesus. 

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 23

He Sheep Hear His Voice

At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”            John 10:22-30

A lot of believers believe in heaven more than they believe in Him, and that’s a problem.  Believer’s who are believing in heaven are caught up with heaven arguments and anxieties.  Believer’s who believe in Him, Christ, are concerned with what He wants now.  Jesus said that His sheep would hear His voice and follow Him.  And the difference between many Christians is that some have their minds focused on going to heaven and others are focused on going with Him.  The secret to walking in the Spirit is having our minds focused on Him and His word which is stored up, treasured, in our hearts or in our spirit.  We grab onto God’s presence, perspective, passion and power in our spirit and we go with Him.   The one who believes in Him has their mind focused on the inside, not the outside, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.  And He gives those who believe in Him, eternal life, not just heaven when we die but heaven (eternal life) in the here and now.  No one can take His presence, passion and promises from those who believe in Him.  Their minds are focused on His voice, not the voices on the outside.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 22

If It’s Real, It’s Real

​ “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  John 14:1-17

There are a lot of things we can believe today, let’s believe in Jesus.  Knowing Him is just on the other side of believing in Him and if we believe in Him, we will always know His presence with us and His passion for us.  Real relationships are about knowing each other and if we know Jesus, we will know God and His Holy Spirit too.  They’re all one and they are all right.  But we must believe His word and let it form the way we think, feel, and live.  Real relationships reflect the love, life, liberty, look and longing of that relationship.  Where there is agreement there is authority.  There are a lot of things we can believe today, believe in Jesus and His way of looking at and living life.  As we believe in Him, we will realize that we are being with Him or He with us.  His presence makes all the difference.  It’s a great way to live a life that works.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 21

Listen to Live

Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Mark 4:1-9

Living in God’s word requires living out God’s word as we live from God’s word.  God’s word is like a seed that falls into the soil of our hearts and grows there, influencing how we think, talk and travel through this life.  The Bible says that “as a man thinks in his heart, that’s the way he is going to be.”  Proverbs 23:7  This born-again life is lived in a relationship with the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit lives by a different rule book or playbook than this world does.  The Holy Spirit functions in the passion, purpose, power and perspective of heaven, not here.  God’s word is the passion, purpose, and perspective of heaven that releases the power of God in this life.  When we come into agreement with God’s word we can live in agreement with the Holy Spirit and that’s powerful.  When we let God’s word form our understanding about life we can accomplish the undertaking of living this life in God’s power, from God’s perspective for God’s purposes and in God’s passion enjoying heaven here and now.   Let God’s word sink deep into the heart and live from what He says.  Listen to live.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 20

Listen & Live

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”  Luke 6:46-49

There’s an equation for success in God’s word: Listening + Living = Lasting.  We know that this life is lived by faith and that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, but life involves living.  We must do something with what we hear.  Just hearing won’t get us around the corner or down the road in this life.  A house stands the storms of time by listening to its foundation.  If the foundation says “stay” it stays but if the foundation says “move” it moves.  The same thing happens with life.  Life reflects what it listens to and lives for.  Jesus said that we could tell a tree by its’ fruit.  Who will we listen to today and who will we live for?  We will live for the one we listen to along the way.  God is building lives that last forever in His love.  Listen to what He is saying and live in what He is doing, it will leave you lasting in what He’s longing.  Take time to listen so that you can live in what lasts.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 19

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ​‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”               Luke 18:18-30

This life of God is too big for my pockets.  The rich young ruler thought he could merely fit God’s promises into his own life/pockets and go on his way.  So often we think the Jesus life is about believing in, not believing on.  And this Jesus life is way to big for our little pockets.  Jesus said, “will not you receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”  We can’t carry both His life and our life; His life is so big that we will need His help to live it.  That’s why we must leave this life to live in His life.  That’s why we must pick up our cross, lay down our lives, and die to ourselves. We must be willing to quit trusting in ourselves and trust in Him.  We must be willing to trade our impossibilities for His possibilities.  We must trade our religion for His relationship.  Go and sell all that you have and come follow Jesus.  Even His thoughts are too big for my head; it is something scary that will do something scary wonderful in our lives.  Trust Him today!