Month: January 2024

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 8  Day 2

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.

1 Corinthians 8:4

It’s not what you know but who you know that matters.  When our who we know is God, then our what we know will come what He says.  Don’t be surprised by the difficulty involved in leaving the who we used to know and replacing what we used to know.  Belief is a heart issue, a matter of what our spirit believes is true.  Be ready to replace your who with God and your what with His word.  The sooner you do this the sooner you will walk in the blessings of His word, His wisdom, and His ways.  Those who can’t will walk with a weakened conscience and worried spirit.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 8  Day 1

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge  makes arrogant, but love edifies. ²  If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; ³ but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

1 Corinthians 8:1-3

It’s not what you know, but who you know that matters.  Proverbs 1:7 says that the fear (great respect) of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.  In the battle of religions, it’s about what we know.  In the battle for redemption, it’s about Who we know and Who we love that loves us and loves the world.  It’s His great love that teaches us all things to live this great life and has made for us.  Do you know the Great I Am who is the Great I Can has a Great I Care for us in His heart.  It’s in His love that we learn all the wisdom of the seen and unseen world.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 7  Day 5

A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. ⁴⁰ But in my opinion she is happier if she remains as she is; and I think that I also have the Spirit of God.

1 Corinthians 7:39-40

Get the spiritual right and the rest will follow.  Keep God first in your life and keep His word as the compass for your life.  When you were born-again, God took you for forever to be His and you took Him to be your Lord for forever.  God works in the forever, and He considers marriage to be a for as long as I live relationship.  Honor Him and His word.  Keep Him first and He’ll work His forever in your life.  Trust Him!

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 7  Day 4

But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; ³³ but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, ³⁴ and his interests are divided.

1 Corinthians 7:32-34

Read 1 Corinthians 7:32-38

Get the spiritual right and the rest will follow.  Be careful with who and what you step into a relationship with, in this life.  Relationships bring responsibility and concern or anxiety with them.  That’s okay but it happens.  The problem comes when we put our human relationships in front of our relationship with God.  Love and life’s demands can quickly put God’s plans and purpose on the back shelf.  God made us for relationships, but if we don’t know what’s important, we will be destroyed by what isn’t important.  The best thing to do is to come into agreement about God before we agree to come together in a relationship.  And dad, don’t keep your kids from marriage, help them find a godly marriage.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 7  Day 3

Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk.

1 Corinthians 7:17

Get the spiritual right and the rest will follow.  God’s calling is always more important than our circumstances.  There is always a pulling away from what God is calling us to and relationships often pull us away rather than push us toward God’s calling.  Never let what God has called you to leave you.  It might not look like what you first imagined but never lose sight of what it is that God wants from your life.  What He has for us is far greater than what anyone else wants for us including ourselves.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 7  Day 2

But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband ¹¹ (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife. 1

 Corinthians 7:10-11

Read 1 Corinthians 7:8-16

Life and love have a way of getting messy fast, real fast.  Remember this:  Get the spiritual right and the rest will follow.  We can live by faith, or we will live in fantasy, frustration, foolishness, failure, and fear.  Get the spiritual right and the rest will follow.  Love, marriage, and family are God ideas for our good.  Do it His way and you won’t end up paying for your way and neither will your kids.  We get in trouble because we let the sexual get in front of the spiritual.  Love, marriage, sex, and family are God ideas to be enjoyed in His instructions.  Anything else exposes us to the sabotage of sin. 

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 7  Day 1

Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

1 Corinthians 7:5

Read 1 Corinthians 7:1-8

To live a successful spiritual life, deal with and surrender your sexual life to God.  The moment we begin living in promiscuity, we begin to pilfer from our relationships now and future, especially in marriage.  Fornication and adultery both deprive those we love of pure love and that allows the devil to bring deception, doubt and dislike into a marriage and a family.  It’s hard to enjoy and pursue spiritual things together when we have sexual ties to others.  It’s deep and very spiritual, allowing the devil to bring further temptation and trouble into our lives.  But don’t give up!  There is nothing that we let the devil bring into our lives that we can’t let Jesus take from our lives, but we must do it and deal with sexual sin with God and our spouse.  Then we will be free to fully give and to fully enjoy love for God and each other as God intended.