From the Kitchen Table

Kitchen Table Devotions

James

Day 20

If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,” you are doing well. ⁹ But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.             James 2:8-10

Loves creates life, always has, and always will.  Love works!  What doesn’t work is legalized love or anything we do to put limits on love.  We put limits on love when we write laws for love.  When we put laws on love we create conditions for how our love will work and when it will work.  Love wants life, the life of God for every person it runs into along the way.  We get in trouble when we put conditions on love because we’re cautious that there isn’t enough love to go around.  Don’t be afraid.  Living in love is about giving what He has, doing what He wants, and sharing what He says.  It’s about being a steward of God’s love for ourselves and others and that love has no limits.

Kitchen Table Devotions

James

Day 19

But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? ⁷  Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?                James 2:6-7

It’s funny thing how the sin of selfishness and superiority shows up in our relationships with others.  And if we don’t let God’s word reflect the condition of our spirit, we just accept the nasty as normal.  The truth is that we dishonor people when we disrespect their opportunity to believe in God.  The picture on the outside doesn’t determine the possibilities on the inside.  How we approach others can affect how others approach God.  True religion knows that; bad religion ignores it.  The evidence of our faith can be seen in how we see the face of the one in need.  It’s easy to like people who seem to have everything; they make it easy to believe their lies.  True religion looks past the outside to see the inside, personally and publicly, and looks for the possibilities of God.

Kitchen Table Devotions

James

Day 18

Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

James 2:5

We can tell how we live life by how we look at life.  If we make it about our world, we’re going to miss His world.  People who are in need, need Him and look to Him, for Him.  Don’t judge and dismiss those in need, they are at the precipice of possibilities in God.  Never lose sight of your poverty without God.  We don’t look for things we have, but we search for things we need.  We need God and His goodness.  A selfish and superior mindset is a poor man’s coat.  God choose, He didn’t make, the poor of this world to be rich and heirs of His kingdom through faith.  Never lose your hunger for God for yourself or for others.  That hunger will keep you hunting for Him and His possibilities.  Don’t judge those who are hurt, hungry, and hangry, offer them His possibilities in their poverty.  We don’t just need God in our lives, we need God in this life.

Kitchen Table Devotions

James

Day 17

For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in  fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, ³ and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there or sit down by my footstool,” ⁴ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?

James 2:2-4

You know, it’s amazing what happens when we get the relationship issues corrected in our lives.  Restoring & renewing our relationships will always involve recognizing and repairing our own lives with Jesus’ help.  God once told me that when I sin, I don’t hurt my relationship with Him but I hurt my relationship with myself.  When I sin, He keeps loving & liking me, but I don’t love & like myself.  With that in mind, watch out for the dilemma of distinctions.  The dilemma of distinction happens when we look at and judge others by what we like rather than who He loves.  It’s the sin of selfishness & superiority again.  Bad religion labels and leaves people while true religion loves and leads all people to Jesus.  Yep, good religion takes all people by the hand and helps them find love with a new label for a new life.  If that’s not who we are then something evil is motivating our lives.

Kitchen Table Devotions

James 2

Day 16

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism                    James 2:1

There’s no greater problem to the Christian life than continuing to try to play God.  That’s what personal favoritism is and does.  The problem with stains is that they keep us selfish and superior in our own eyes.  One of the most beautiful things about Jesus is that He came to us, to live with us, and to die for us and He did it all without staining Himself even once.  That’s what you call glorious and beautiful and we can know that same glory if we are willing to let the Scriptures and the Savior deal with the stains of sin that leave us selfish and feeling superior.  There’s no love in a selfish and superior feeling life.   And Jesus made that glorious life our life if we will only request and receive Him and His word into our lives. 

Kitchen Table Devotions

James 1

Day 15

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

James 1:27

The world doesn’t have to steal us, it only needs to stain us to sabotage the work of God in our lives.  Keep yourself unstained by the world.  We will find out in chapter two that involves the motives, not just the mind.  Only the Scriptures can reveal the stain and only the Savior can remove it.  Bad religion tolerates stains, good religion tackles it.  Don’t be afraid to let the Scriptures reveal the stains of sin and don’t be afraid to let the Savior remove them, it’s painless. He paid the price for our cleaning; we just need to receive it because we want it.  Want to really live in the power of God, with the passion of God for the pleasure of God?  Deal with even the stains of sin by listening to and living by the voice of God.

Kitchen Table Devotions

James 1

Day 14

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

James 1:27

Pure religion comes from a pure relationship with God.  No hidden sin or situations, we’ve come to trust God enough to be truthful with Him.  Being honest with ourselves and others begins with being honest with God.  We’ve been in His word and let His word be the mirror to our spirit and soul.  A pure heart makes for a pure head with pure hands.  Our minds and motives become pure, with no second guessing or paranoid thinking, we are loved by God and given life from God.  By choice, we can live clean and clear of guilt, shame, man-made religion and expectations.  Pure religion flows from a pure relationship with God.  Don’t be afraid to be authentic.

Kitchen Table Devotional

James

Day 13

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

James 1:27

Real faith looks like real love.  Pure and undefiled religion (worship) doesn’t let what others have done determine what we will do.  Real faith looks like real love for others and from God.  We believe God for the healing of our flesh, but we don’t always look for the healing of our friendships.   That’s just as important and without that healing, we will live hurt.  And hurt people hurt people.  Love for God, self, and others is pure worship of God.  That kind of love will keep you from this kind of life that we are surrounded by in this fallen world.  This kind of faith for that kind of love will keep us from those kinds of things that stain the heart and mind of man.  Living through the trials of life will require living in the love of God every moment of the way.

Kitchen Table Devotional

James

Day 12

If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.                          James 1:26

This life in Jesus comes with the power to praise Him.  Worthless worship is weak worship, and it comes from a deceived heart.  This life comes with the power to praise the Giver of life with our own tongue.  Worthless religion or worship proceeds from a deceived heart that speaks lies, saying the right words and doing the right things (it thinks) but missing the right life.  Worthless worship lives for appearance but not authority.  Worthless worship springs from a deceived heart that has neglected and rejected the reflection of God’s word in its own life.  The truth is that this life comes with the power to praise from a pure heart and there is nothing worthless about that.

Kitchen Table Devotional

James

Day 11

But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does     James 1:25

We don’t know our ability or our inability without knowing the cause and condition of our spirit.  Our spirit is God-given, created (Zach 12:1) and only the Scriptures enable us to see our spirit.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not otherwise.  Our spirit lives by faith in what it believes to be true.  The blessed man has a spirit that believes God’s word and he lives in that word from his heart or spirit.  God’s word speaks to the wounds, wrongs, and wants of our hearts and will work wonders in our lives by faith.  It’s so important to let God’s word reflect the condition of our spirit or heart.  Don’t wait for others to embarrass for bad you but let God’s word embrace you for good.