From the Kitchen Table

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 9

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.   Psalm 1:1-6

Life is lived in promises.  We live for the promises we either believe to be true or want to be true.  There are a lot of people who live in the promise of heaven but from the promises of hell.  God’s promises are not just of a future life but are for this life right here and right now.  Blessed is the one who lives in and from the promises of heaven in the here and now.  They don’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand on the same path as sinners or even sit around the table with those who mock the promises of God.  That just doesn’t work.  We can’t hold on to the promises of God with people who don’t.  The promises of God are to good and to right to just celebrate for one hour each week and forget the rest of the week.  The promises of God come with a picture for life where the promised lives out a life where she is powered, productive, and prosperous by God.  We have a choice about these matters.  Who are we going to choose to believe?  Who are we going to choose to follow?

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 8

Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”          Jeremiah 17:5-10

We have a choice and He has compassion.  We get to choose today to live under the curse or in the blessing.  We can live in our own strength and power, which the Bible calls a curse, or we can live by God’s strength and power which the Bible says is a blessing.  We can know where we’re living by what we’re living in, fear or fearlessness.  And here’s the thing, God knows our hearts and minds better than we do and He gives us what we live for, not necessarily what we think we want.  Our Father has set up a world, a life, where we work and walk with Him to live this life.  He gives us what we want, what we live for.  We must understand that truth.  God loves us and will lead us but He won’t lean on us.  We get to choose how we will live with or without Him.  Thank goodness He doesn’t give us just what we think or feel but according to how we live, according to the fruit of our deeds.  We’re not cursed or blessed just by the thoughts and feelings that swim through our minds but we find ourselves among the cursed or with the blessed by how we chose to live.  Live in God’s love and out of God’s love and we will live from God’s love and by God’s love.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 7

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.  Galatians 5:16-26

It’s not how we start but how we finish, it’s not how we dress but how we do, it’s not where we’re from but where we’re headed.  There’s no need for excuses anymore, the mature Christian burns hot for God.  He burns so hot for God that his fleshly desires are burned up in the process.  He/She doesn’t need a name tag, bumper sticker or cross neckless to be recognized as a follower of Jesus Christ.  He doesn’t just want to belong; he wants to be.  The maturing Christian walks with the Spirit, from the Spirit, in the Spirit and overcomes the skin (fleshly desires).  It’s all motivated by love for God, man and self.  Love licks our lips for living life.  What we love will wet our lips for how we live.  It’s not how we start but how we finish that matters.  We can’t fool anyone.  Maturity looks like the Savior and immaturity looks like the skin.  We will live where our love is and with what our love wants.  Mature Christians doesn’t just put on their big boy pants, it lives a big boy life with a big boy heart, and it’s shows.  Want a greater love?  Get a greater longing!

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 6

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.  ​ Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hebrews 5:14-6:12

We can’t hide maturity, it shows up in everything we see, say and show.  It gets things done.  Victory is found in maturity because maturity brings victory with it.  We can grow old and never really grow up and therein lies the problem.  Maturity happens in those who hear the word of God and honor it in their lives.  The mature hear not just the petitions, but the promises and they let those things motivate the way they think and talk and travel through life.  The Bible says that they are able to discern between good and evil.  The mature know what’s good and choose it.  They know what is good and plant it.  The mature are full of hope to the end.  Immaturity comes across as being slow spiritually, mentally and relationally and sluggish physically, socially and emotionally.  If we can’t keep up, maybe it’s because we need to grow up.  Today is our day because we have God’s promises and God’s permission to live in those promises.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 6

​ And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.  Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.  1 Corinthians 2:1-16

There’s another type of Christian known as the mature Christian.  We were all made to grow up physically, spiritually, mentally and so on.  There are mature Christians who grow up spiritually because they grow in their relationship with the Holy Spirit.  There’s nothing unusual about this, some people grow up physically, naturally, but they stay mentally where they were as a teenager or young adult.  They consider being independent as maturity.  Maturity is an interdependent thing where we rely on what the Holy Spirit speaks to us and shows us and not just on what we know or see or want.  Just like in our physical maturity we move from being dependent, to becoming independent to interdependent.  That only happens as we come to conclusions that are truthful.  The truth is that the wisdom of God is freely given to believers by the Holy Spirit so that we will not be held captive by the incomplete wisdom, wants and will of man.  The Holy Spirit matures us so that we can judge all things and not be judged by everything.  We can have the mind of Christ today but we will need to Holy Spirit showing us and speaking to us the wisdom of God to do so.  If we will live today looking for and listen to the Holy Spirit, we will judge all things rather than be judged by all things. That’s maturity.

The Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 5

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?  1 Corinthians 3:2-4

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.           1 Corinthians 3:16-17

There is a third category of persons that we must be aware of and avoid becoming or I should say commit to leaving.  There is a thing called carnal Christianity where we live in the flesh rather than in the faith.  These are people who have believed in Jesus but can’t seem to behave like Jesus.  We’ve all been there, and in some ways, we are still struggling against our old sinful nature to live for God.  Our carnality, old sinful self isn’t hard to detect, it operates in jealousy, strife, envy, outbursts of anger, sexual immorality, division, drunkenness, lying, selfish ambition, fear, wickedness and wicked associations, rebellion and so on.  The carnal Christian forgets that his/her body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.  Carnal Christians don’t realize who they or whose they are.  The carnal Christian lives in the human way rather than in the heavenly way and will reap what he sows  There’s a dangerous warning for carnal Christians.  Carnal Christians are destroying the temple of God and that’s dangerous.  Live in the truth and trust of Jesus and the Holy Spirit will put us on heaven’s way, to see heaven’s will while preforming heaven’s work in and through our lives.  We are a temple (house of worship) of the Holy Spirit.  It’s an amazing relationship and an amazing life.

The Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 4

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 1 Corinthians 3:1-4

God has made us to grow up and to rule over, but we will never rule over unless we grow up. Just as there are natural people who make their decisions based on how those decisions will affect them, there are baby Christians who will do much the same but never really want to be responsible for the decisions that are made. They want Jesus and, not just Jesus only. They have accepted Jesus as their personal Savior, but they haven’t accepted the Jesus word or way for their own lives. Here’s the thing, we can all be there. It happens when we want the rules and a reputation in life rather than the revelation and responsibility for life. Baby Christians, infants in Christ, will need the message and the ministry to be soft and easy to swallow so they will depend on someone else to be their faith, deal with their fear and excuse their foolishness to keep them from their failure. If we haven’t already, we’re going to develop teeth and those teeth are for chewing. When we start chewing on what we’re feeding from we’re going to begin to pick and process what’s coming into and out of our lives. That’s good. God has made us to grow up and rule over. We can’t be afraid to stretch our wings and fly as we grow in your faith. God will grow us from Jesus and what someone else thinks or something else does to Jesus only. We were made to rule and reign with Him, choose Him and His word for your life today!

The Kitchen Table

Victorious Living Day 3

Now, this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:17-24

The Kitchen TableVictorious Living Day 3Now, this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:17-24Winning is an inside job. Victory comes from the spirit out rather than from the skin in. We often miss it because we let our feelings command our actions rather than our faith. It’s called living in ignorance from a hard heart. An empty heart becomes an empty home denigrated from without with no one to defend it from within. An empty heart and an empty home don’t have the breath, the belief nor the bearings and bravery to be victorious. An empty home becomes the target of the rocks, eggs, and graffiti of an uncaring world. We need to let Jesus take us off the housing market and make us His new home in our neighborhood. If we’re going to be victorious then we must think victoriously and that comes from a heart revived, renewed and re-programed by the Holy Spirit. Natural man lets the outside lead him but the spiritual man operates from within by the breath, belief, and bravery of the Spirit. The victory is ours today if the voice we listen to is His today.

Now, this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:17-24

Winning is an inside job. Victory comes from the spirit out rather than from the skin in. We often miss it because we let our feelings command our actions rather than our faith. It’s called living in ignorance from a hard heart. An empty heart becomes an empty home denigrated from without with no one to defend it from within. An empty heart and an empty home don’t have the breath, the belief nor the bearings and bravery to be victorious. An empty home becomes the target of the rocks, eggs, and graffiti of an uncaring world. We need to let Jesus take us off the housing market and make us His new home in our neighborhood. If we’re going to be victorious then we must think victoriously and that comes from a heart revived, renewed and re-programed by the Holy Spirit. Natural man lets the outside lead him but the spiritual man operates from within by the breath, belief, and bravery of the Spirit. The victory is ours today if the voice we listen to is His today.

From the Kitchen Table

Victorious Christian Living Day 2

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.   2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Don’t forget, there’s more to this life than meets the eye.  The natural man lives in natural possibilities, but the spiritual man lives with infinite spiritual possibilities.  Don’t be fooled, even though this natural body and life is wasting away, your spirit isn’t.  We have a treasure inside of us, the person and power of the Holy Spirit, who always works to renew us for the revelation of God’s glory.  The Holy Spirit isn’t limited to just the seen or unseen and because He isn’t, neither are we.  God works in the eternal.  Godlessness works in the natural or temporary.  Don’t forget, there’s a whole other world of possibilities that natural man can’t see but the spiritual man can’t deny.  We’re walking around in what’s temporary, walking in what’s eternal and that means heaven is always within view.

From the Kitchen Table

Day 1

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.    1 Peter 4:1-11

Somewhere along the way we need to stop and ask, “Is it worth it?”  Remember that anyone can give up!  Victory belongs to those who don’t give up and even are willing to suffer to win.  But it takes a vision.  The victorious Christian life involves living with a vision for this life and beyond.  What is our vision for living?  If it’s worth talking about we need to believe in someone bigger with something bigger to live for than ourselves.  This is where the gospel comes in.  The gospel is God’s word for God’s way to God’s world.  And its’ good news because it offers victory and victorious living to anyone who would believe in God’s word for God’s way to God’s world.  There’s going to be a struggle and it’s going to be a struggle with our own skin as much as it is a struggle with our own kin or world.  Our skin, our sinful nature, is used to calling the shots but this life is lived from within by the spirit with the Spirit.  The beautiful thing about this big life God gives us is that He comes to us and lives in us to help us.  God’s vision for our lives is so big that we need Him to help us get there.  God is here and He’s got big plans, we just have to share His vision for our lives and that’s when things begin to happen.  And it’s worth it!