Month: July 2022

The Kitchen Table Devotions

“The Prodigal”

Day 40

It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” Luke 15:32

The Father always keeps first things first and best things best.  Problems begin when the parties end.  We were made to celebrate the goodness of God.  That’s what the church family worship gathering should be about.  But it’s hard to celebrate when we lose sight of what’s first and what’s best.  In fact, many, maybe the older brother, will resort to celebrating what’s worst and call that good, but it’s not.  And there are those who have just given up celebrating and that’s no good either.  If the Father celebrates, so will His family.  There’s nothing greater than being redeemed and restored.  God is good!  If we keep first things first and best things best, we will celebrate the right things and escape the wrong things. 

The Kitchen Table Devotions

“The Prodigal”

Day 39

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.                                    Luke 15:31

Be grateful for what you do have.  The one thing that will ruin resentment is rejoicing.  It might be impossible to be resentful and rejoicing at the same time.  It might also be impossible to really rejoice when we’re really resentful.  It’s exasperating to live around those who think they are entitled to happiness.  It’s easier to share a room with a sorry sinner than a blue believer.  Here we have everything that the Father has given us and we can’t be happy because others are happy.  Sometimes we’ve just got to get re-centered so we’re not so unbalanced and unpleasant.  Life’s not that hard.  Be grateful for what you have today and you can grateful for what God does for others.

The Kitchen Table Devotions

“The Prodigal”

Day 38

but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your  wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.

Luke 15:30

Don’t let resentment ruin your heart because it will.  When our attention is captivated by what others have or have done, we expose the poverty of our own hearts.  Somewhere down the line we quit living our own lives and we didn’t even know it.  Maybe it happened when the younger son became disengaged and disrespectful and the older son just lost any respect and concern for his brother.  It happens.  Every person we meet is worthy of respect just because God made them.  We don’t have to respect what they did but we must respect who God made them to be.  Resentment will leave us in ruin, even when we haven’t lived in rebellion in our own actions.  We can’t find the love and life of God when we live in the curses and competition of the godless.  Take it to Jesus!

The Kitchen Table Devotional

Day 37

“The Prodigal”

but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.

Luke 15:29

It’s a terrible thing what resentment does, causing us to rob ourselves of the opportunity to know love, life, and laughter.  Resentment is a personal inside job that points the finger at everyone else but here’s the truth, resentment hides and happens in our own hearts while we blame and berate others.  Here’s the crazy thing, the young son gave his life away, but the older son lost his life without knowing it.  Anger, hate, and resentment rob us of love, life, and laughter.  Our only hope is found in the father who always lived always loving and still does.  The only cure for resentment is repentance so that we can receive the love of our Father.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

Day 36

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him,                Luke 15:28

Anger is the adversary of affection.  It doesn’t let love live in life.  Ander closes the door on man and God.  It demands its’ own way.  Stubborn anger is an agreement with our feelings and flesh to fight what’s right and good.  It creeps into our lives when we treasure our feelings over our faith.  In fact, anger reveals what our faith is in. Anger is a manipulating motivator of the mind.  It makes everything and everyone hard to work with in life.  Just being angry pulls the door shut, keeps the fear in, and closes off the opportunity for love to work.   You can see when anger is in the room by all the closed doors in the house.

The Kitchen Table

“The Prodigal”

Day 35

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him,                Luke 15:28

When we can’t be happy, we can’t find happy.  And when we can’t be happy for others, it’s difficult to find happiness for ourselves.  It’s a sign of unhappiness when we can’t be happy for others.  When we let our negative emotions determine our environment, we’re sunk.  We will miss the moment and the opportunity to live, love, and laugh.  There were memories to make and moments to share but that doesn’t happen when we let our emotions like anger, jealousy, and hate rule our day.  Anger doesn’t create memories; it corrupts them and leaves us with regret.  And we let this happen by focusing on someone else’s decisions in life.  There’s a Father in heaven who loves you and His love is rich, choose Him, not hate.  Our Father is into good memories and great moments.

The Kitchen Table

“The Prodigal”

Day 34

And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’                               Luke 15:27

When good news is bad news there’s troubling news on the way.  Something good has happened and something good is going to happen, there’s going to be a celebration.  But good news is bad news for those who like sad news.  There are some people who just like sad news.  It makes them feel better about their bad news.  The father received the wayward son back with a party.  Good news had replaced bad news and the new news was there was going to be a party.  Here’s the thing, sad news people don’t like good news and the bad news is that resentment lives where rejoicing dies.  Sometimes happiness begins with being happy for others.  Resentment can’t grow where rejoicing lives.  Paul writes, “Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” (Philippians 2:18)

Kitchen Table Devotional

“The Prodigal”

Day 33

And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.              Luke 15:26

Some people will live their whole life based on what other people do or say.  That sort of life will leave a person out of sorts, outside the circle, and without what they truly want in life.  Jesus once said,  “The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.  While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” (John 12:35-36)  The older son was left in the dark and as we go along, we will begin to see why.  He was living in his own world by his own words.  We can’t know the life of God apart from the words of God.  Hearing the word of God will keep us on the way of God and in the celebration of God.  Don’t rely on others to know the way, rely on God yourself.