Author: Pastor Mike

The Kitchen Table Devotional

2 Corinthians 10 Day 3

For even if I boast somewhat further about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be put to shame, ⁹ for I do not wish to seem as if I would terrify you by my letters 2 Corinthians 10:8-9

When our thoughts are taken captive for God, our words can be used by God.  There is no shame in the words God gives us to know or to share.  Shame isn’t in God’s repertoire and it doesn’t belong in ours either. 

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2 Corinthians 10 Day 2

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, ⁶ and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete

2 Corinthians 10:5-6

You know what we’re doing?  We’re taking ungodly words & thoughts captive; that’s what we’re doing.  Because the root of a thing is a thought.  If we never deal with the thought of a thing, we will never deal with the thing that contaminates and controls us.  When we deal with, and repent of, the thought of a thing, we will know the truth to walk away from what is false and into the life of what is real.

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2 Corinthians 10 Day 1

I ask that when I am present I need not be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous against some, who regard us as if we walked according to the flesh. ³ For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, ⁴ for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses

2 Corinthians 10:2-4

Don’t worry about meeting me in the flesh, worry about meeting me in the Spirit.  And don’t worry about meeting people in the flesh but wait till you start meeting people in the Spirit.  The Spirit of God operates with divine power for the destruction of fortresses, hellish ways, where people are hold up in sinful thoughts.  The Spirit of God in us has the sight and the strength to take out our enemy’s ways and works.

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2 Corinthians 9 Day 4

Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; ¹¹ you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.

2 Corinthians 9:10-11

The One who supplies what we have to give is the One who supplies what we get.  We can’t out-give God, He is the Lord of more than enough.  Don’t be afraid to give, it’s an act of trusting Him who has it all.

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2 Corinthians 9 Day 3

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed; ⁹ as it is written,
“HE SCATTERED ABROAD, HE GAVE TO THE POOR,
HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS ENDURES FOREVER.”

2 Corinthians 9:8-9

To live in the love of God we must live in the love of God!  Grace is the undeserved and unreserved love of God always touching the lives of those who love God.

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2 Corinthians 9 Day 2

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. ⁷ Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver

2 Corinthians 9:6-7

God loves a cheerful giver!  But this giver doesn’t just throw seed here and there randomly, he sows with purpose and passion in his giving.  He gives because he gets it.  He sows because he wants to see it.  What do you want to see in your life, your family, your city, and your world?  We sow, we give, cheerfully into those things that we really want.  What do you want to see?  God can make it happen.

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2 Corinthians 9 Day 1

For it is superfluous for me to write to you about this ministry to the saints;

2 Corinthians 9:1

It’s hard to give.  It’s also a joy.  But it’s hard to give beyond our initial reaction to a need, especially when the gift goes to a person or place I don’t see every day, but money needs a mission bigger than our own selves. We can agree to pray and praise and even put in a good word but when it comes to paying, that goes deeper and reveals the real motives of our hearts.  This ministry?  It’s about giving to the needs of the saints in this context.

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2 Corinthians 8 Day 4

But now finish doing it also, so that just as there was the readiness to desire it, so there may be also the completion of it by your ability. ¹² For if the readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

2 Corinthians 8:11-12

This love that God has stirred up in your heart, let it live.  Those things this love has inspired, do them and do them all the way to the end.  Before we give a gift, we have to go get a gift, but the celebration isn’t over until we give the gift.  Where we are ready to give, we won’t be the regretful of not.

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2 Corinthians 8 Day 3

But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also. ⁸ I am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also.

2 Corinthians 8:7-8

Don’t be afraid to prove your love and don’t settle to just profess it.  If we can’t prove it, what good does it do to profess it.  Where there is no effort, there is no earnestness.  If we’re going to say it, we need to show it

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2 Corinthians 8 Day 2

For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, ⁴ begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, ⁵ and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God

2 Corinthians 8:3-5

Real love begets real love.  These believers who were touched by the love of God gave according to their ability and beyond their ability.  They were able to give and they were able to give beyond what they were able because they were able to think beyond what they were able.  This privilege only belongs to those who haven’t spent their love on themselves thus creating a disability to give to God and others.  The real love we have in our hearts shows up in both our ability and disability to give.