Author: Pastor Mike

From the Kitchen Table

Day 38

​ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.           Hebrews 12:1-3

You’ve got a great big destiny ahead of you, don’t the anyone or anything delay God’s plans for you.  This thing about attitudes and appetites is something we must pay attention to.  They may not keep us from getting to heaven but they may keep heaven from getting to us.  Our flesh and our foe will use the littlest things to keep us from the biggest treasures.  It’s attitudes and appetites that keep people out of the game, off the field, in the dugout.  That’s why we need to keep our eyes on Jesus, looking and listening to Him, the author of this life we live.  He knows how to win at life and His ways work.  It’s really a decision about success and shame and that will involve our attitudes and appetites.   Jesus never seemed to have a bad attitude or bad appetites.  Yeah, there was that day when He cleared the temple, took some drastic action to correct depraved system that treated people, especially the poor, badly.  Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus, He had an attitude of holiness and an appetite for heaven and it kept Him slender and strong for running the race, winning the prize.  If we keep our eyes on Jesus we will keep our feet in the race.  Anybody can quit, and many, because of their bad attitudes and appetites do, but you have to chose to live.

From the Kitchen Table

Day 37

I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.  But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.  It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?  The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.  Romans 7:14-25 msg

Don’t underestimate the strength of the skin.  The Bible calls it our flesh, our sinful nature.  It’s the house of our spirit this skin of our flesh.  Our own skin can and will be our greatest enemy at times.  When man sinned, he went from living from within, by the breath of God, to living from without in the appetites and attitudes of his flesh.  The Bible says we were all dead in our trespasses and sins.  Sin operates in the appetites and attitudes of our sinful nature.  We can want to do what is good because our spirit, which is formed by God, is hungry for what is good and right and true but the sinful appetites and attitudes and even anxieties of our own skin overpower our will to do and be good.  We need help and that’s what Jesus brings us.  The Spirit of Jesus steps into our hearts and walks hand in hand with our spirit.  But there is going to be some suffering as we chose to rule from the inside out and overcome the situation on the outside  We will have to learn to starve the skin in the strength of God’s Spirit which lives in us.  To know and do the will of God, which is powerful and pleasurable, we must turn the operation of this life over to the Spirit and learn to breathe the breath of God as we go.  It’s a mystery but it’s marvelous.

The Kitchen Table

Day 36

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”   Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”  And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:57-62

The kingdom of God is the will of God.  Some people will be constantly looking for the will of God because there are constantly leaving the will of God for everything else under the sun.  Jesus sends out the twelve and later the 72 to do what?  To bring heaven here.  In Luke 9 there are all sorts of things that get in the way of God’s will for the disciples, such as  5,000 hungry people,  fear of death, a sick boy, disrespect, worry about who’s going to be first, competition, anxiety, inheritance and family.  Things will always get in the way of God’s will until we let God’s will get in the way of all those things.  That only happens where there is not only faith in God’s will but faith to DO God’s will.  We will see the power of God when we decide to serve the purposes of God first and foremost in our lives.  Don’t be one of those who die for lack of doing.  Bring heaven here today in the littlest of things and you will see heaven, here today, in all things.

The Kitchen Table Day 35

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. Jeremiah 29: 10-14

I’m not sure why but it seems we often must lose everything before we can gain anything. I think that’s probably our plan, not God’s. But He waits for us with plans that are good and not evil. He has plans for a future and a hope. We don’t just wait around wallowing in our disbelief and disobedience and find God’s will. God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” When things aren’t what they should be or could be, seek God for what can be. There’s something about prayer that changes us, renews our head and our hope. When we learn to walk with God in prayer we will begin to see and discover the power and the promises of God personally. It’s too bad that too many of us neglect prayer until we’re in peril and poverty. God has great big plans for us, and we find out what those plans are as we spend time walking and talking with Him along the way.

From the Kitchen Table

Day 34

So here’s what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart’s been in the right place all along. You’ve got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can’t. The heart regulates the hands.  2 Corinthians 8:10-12 msg 

When our heart is a right place with God, our life will be also.  This life is lived from within: From faith with hope in love.  Once we have let our hearts fall in love with Jesus we can live from our hearts for Jesus.  This love involves a choice and a commitment.  When we choose to believe Jesus, not just believe in Jesus, we can commit our hearts’ love to Jesus.  We choose to love Him because He chose to love us, and we love that love God has for us.  This is essential to knowing and living in God’s will.  Doing God’s will requires that we desire God’s will.  Desire is what happens in love.  If we know what love is, we will reserve our love for what is true, trustworthy and timeless.  Jesus told us that out of the heart we speak and where our treasure is there our heart will be also.  When our heart is in love with Jesus, we can be free to follow it’s desires fearlessly.  God has made us to love fully, freely and fearlessly.  That only happens when His love fills our heart.  Be honest with what’s in your heart and you can be honest from your heart.

From the Kitchen Table

Day 33

​ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.       Romans 12:1-2

There’s this thing called the “mercy of God” that changes everything for us.  God loves us!  And it’s His love that convinces us to leave this life of sin.  We offer Him our lives by His love.  This thing about exchanging our will for His will is motivated by love, not the law.  The law shows us that we cannot live in His love on our own.  It’s not a rules thing; it’s a revelation thing.  When we begin to live in the revelation of God’s love, we will leave this world for rules to live in the reality of His love.  Our will is shaped by our love or who or what we think loves us.  Fall in love with Jesus today.  Love His will, His word, His work.  And if we fail, we get up and run back into His arms of love.  His will for us is good, pleasurable and mature.  We’re walking away from the immature love of this world to live in the mature love of God.  That’s what will transform the will of a believer.

From the Kitchen Table Day 32

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:23-27.

One last thing as we look at this incident one more time but this time from Luke. Where we are ashamed, we will be afraid! In dealing with our will, the real deep thoughts of our heart, we will know what we are afraid of by recognizing what we are ashamed of. When God’s word and will are fully accepted into our hearts we won’t be afraid to stand on it, speak it or serve it. That is what happens as the Holy Spirit gives us revelation of it as we come to Him daily and receive His word and will as the key to living this wonderful life that God gives us. It’s a daily decision to delight in God’s word, God’s will & God’s way that leads to eternal life. Fall in love with Jesus and we will fall in love with His word, His will and His way.

From the Kitchen Table

Day 31

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”  And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”           Mark 8:31-38

I want to say it again, remember that God is more interested in our “will” than our “walk”.  Being precedes doing and how we think will determine what we do and how we do it.  The Holy Spirit tells us in Romans 8 that the mind set on the flesh is death and the mind set on the spirit is life.  We will travel where our thinking takes us.  We cannot serve two masters and we cannot work two wills.  We end up trying to please those different wills and miss the pleasure of both.   I’m sure that there are some people who take pleasure in their own will to their own destruction.  They just don’t think about the end or the goal.  They don’t worry about God’s will because they don’t believe in God but man, left to his own devices, will find death, disaster and disappointment.  We’re just not as smart as God, the creator and giver of life.  It doesn’t take smarts, it takes trust but if we trust in Him, He will make us smart for life and give us the pleasure of enjoying His beautiful will today and tomorrow.

The Kitchen Table Devotions

Day 30

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Matthew 16:24-26

Always remember that God is interested in our “will” more than our “walk”. We can walk ourselves to church, to the corner, and across the country to be good but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are in God’s will.  People have changed careers, changed jobs, changed neighborhoods and changed churches and have pointed to God’s will when they did it, but they never changed their will for His will.  We’ll even bring in and blame the devil in defending our life’s choices BUT unless we surrender our will for God’s will it won’t really matter.  Peter, in this passage, had just confessed Jesus as the Christ and then tried to persuade Jesus out of the cross.  If Jesus would have listened, we all would have missed out on the will of God.  Denying ourselves involves dying to our will in order to discover His will.  Making this decision is an inside job where we decide in our hearts to live for God’s will rather than our will.  The will of God is a beautiful thing that saves the soul, giving us the right mind with the right motive and the right morals we need to live a fulfilled life.

The Kitchen Table

Day 29

Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.” So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said:  “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ​‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.  Acts 13:13-23

The will of God is something that we do, not just believe or think and talk about.  In the end, it’s something that we do.  If our heart has really been touched and transformed it will show up in what we do and how we do it.  It’s in what we do that we discover the true desires of the heart.  This isn’t a life that we get by works but it is a life that we live by will.  Acts 13:36 says that after David had served God’s purposes in his generation, he passed away.  David accomplished his work because of his will.  We just can’t hide our will, it comes out in what we do, how we talk and where we go.  We know how this works; we must want what Jesus wants and that only happens as we believe and behave in Jesus.  Changing our will requires complete and total surrender to God.  It’s something we will deal with all of our lives but it’s also something God will develop in our of our lives as we trust and obey Him.  Can you imagine a world where everyone does the will of God because everyone desires the will of God?  That’s heaven!  That’s God’s will for here.