From the Kitchen Table

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.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 6  Day 3

Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:11

Jesus is our judge.  When we met Jesus and knelt before Him, He washed us clean.  He judged our sins gone and our lives good.  Don’t turn the judgment of your life back over to judgment of man, lost man.  The Spirit of God now lives in you to make judgments about life and to judge sin before it gets into your life.  Remember, this life doesn’t run on the words of man but on the words of the Master, Jesus our Savior.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 6  Day 2

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Don’t judge this world by this world.  That judgment is worthless, really.  We can’t inherit the kingdom of God through the judgments of man.  So don’t make your dirty laundry public, take it to the One who can wash it clean.  Who cares what others think when all that matters is what the Master thinks.  Listen, it’s dirty laundry that is behind perversion.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 6  Day 1

Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? ² Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?

1 Corinthians 6:1-2

If you believe in God, bow before Him.  Let God be your judge, not man.  Why would you trust righteousness to the unrighteous?  It’s a mistake.  Take your struggles to the saints and seek the wisdom of God, not man.  We have the power to know what’s good and right and true because of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 5  Day 5

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? ¹³ But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

1 Corinthians 5:12-13

There is no patience for pretenders; they pervert the rest of the body of Christ.  There’s always a place for them when they end their life of perverted pretending but the church must deal with it like the Christian must deal with it or it all becomes a life of pretending and there is no power or promise in pretending. 

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 5  Day 4

But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one

1 Corinthians 5:11

Life is tough at times and relationships get difficult, we’re all people and we all must choose our way.  Sometimes it’s best to tell the pretender that you just can’t live like they do, think like they do, or even speak as they do.  Clarify the relationship but don’t coddle the rebellion.  Generally, you won’t have to walk away because they will.  Be ready to pay the price to see the peace and power of God in both of your lives.

The Kitchen Table Devotional

1 Corinthians 5  Day 3

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? ⁷ Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. ⁸ Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Don’t pretend!  Don’t mess around with sin, especially sexual sin, and pretend to love God and worship Him.  To do so is to call holy what God calls unholy and to try to appear to be someone you’re not.  Don’t just repent of wrong actions, deal with the wrong influences and be set free like Jesus made you to be free.  Don’t just deal with the iniquity, deal harshly with the influence of iniquity.  It’s worth it.