Fresh Popcorn, Old Pizza And A Tablecloth

Fresh Popcorn, Old Pizza And A Tablecloth


An Everyday Christian Devotional
By Kelli Zaniel

Last week, I had the privilege of having my friend/ social worker over to the house. It was our first home-study meeting and my goal was to impress. But of course things didn’t work out as I planned.

Spaghetti sauce dripped and popped over the edge of the skillet and onto the floor. My three girls began a hair-pulling match. A toilet magically stopped itself up. The dog decided to yank left over pizza out of the garbage, which became a gassy gift that kept on giving. Suddenly, the question ringing through my mind wasn’t “How can I impress?” but “How can I survive?”  

With five minutes to spare, I frantically wiped down the squeaky ol’ kitchen table smudged with crayon and permanent marker. I tossed on a white table cloth, threw down a couple of candles, and we were ready for a meeting.

After I bribed the kids with popcorn and flipped on Barbie’s “The Diamond Castle,” we sat down at the table and began our meeting.  The social worker asked about our lives, families, jobs, and why we would be good adoptive parents.

I answered questions about my previous marriage and divorce. I described in detail the physical abuse I endured for years. It’s a topic I don’t like to discuss. However, as soon as the words and phrases rolled off my tongue, I realized God chiseled away those chains a long time ago.

I no longer felt shame.

I no longer cared what anyone thought.

I no longer felt judged by my peers.

I knew what Satan meant for evil, God intended for good, (see Genesis 50:20).

I knew I was lavishly loved by God. Period.

  

The words from Joel 2:25 quickly came to mind.

 “The LORD says, I will give you back what you have lost.”

In that moment, God’s words of Truth came alive in a way they never had before. Yes, Lord you have restored me. Yes indeed, you have given me back what I lost.

I lost my significance but you reminded me it could only be found in you.

I lost my purpose but you created me to be your princess with more purpose than I could ever imagine for myself.

I lost my courage but you restored me to guardian girl status.

I lost divine intimacy but you showed me how to bathe myself in prayer and return to you.

I immediately felt like that old table lurking underneath the stark white tablecloth. I am just like that table stained with unwanted 3 year old murals and dried food that’s never coming off. I too may be a little creaky, extremely uneven, and slightly wobbly but the moment I said “yes,” my King covered me with his stark white rob of righteousness. But you know what the greatest news is? He not only covered up the stain of my sin, but he healed it too.

Dear Lord, thank you for restoring me. Even though I’m not the women I want to be, I’m better than the woman I used to be. Thank you for your love that endures forever. Amen.

What Does Desperation Look Like?

What Does Desperation Look Like?


An Everyday Christian Devotional
By By Lisa Phelps


In my post on Monday, I asked if we are really desperate for God.   I wrote that post because I don't think I am desperate for God; not really desperate.  So I want to know what desperation for God looks like.


In the Gospel of Mark, we read the account of a woman with the issue of blood.  We don't know exactly what was wrong with her, but we know she had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.  (Mark 5:25)  This condition made her ritually unclean.  According to Jewish law, if you were unclean, you had to avoid social contact.  And anyone who touched her (or that she touched) also became ritually unclean.  (Leviticus 15:19)  This unclean woman was willing to risk everything to get to Jesus.  She was desperate.  

 
Are you willing to risk everything to get to Jesus?

In our Bible study the other night, we were talking about giving up certain types of food in order to become healthier and grow closer to God.  It was said, I could never give up carbs, sweet, soda, dairy, etc.  Maybe you feel that way too about certain foods.  Or maybe, for you, it's something like the tv, computer, your phone, or shopping. What about your family?  If I said that you could NEVER have ________ (fill in the blank) again, would you break out in a cold sweat?  

Do you feel the same way about Jesus?

Do you stop eating on the weekend?  I bet that answer is no.  You wouldn't think of going the entire weekend without food. 

Do you go the weekend without spending time with Jesus?

Have you been in that place where there's no money and lots of bills?  Have you received that foreclosure or repossession notice?  Have you received that dreaded diagnosis from the doctor?  Have life circumstances left you feeling desperate?

Do you really feel that same way about Jesus?

We know that we need Jesus, but do we really live that way?  I don't.  Not all the time.

Maybe all this is coming from a longing for more of Jesus.  I want to feel like the woman in Mark--that I'm willing to risk everything to get to Him. 

So, what does being desperate for Jesus look like to you?  I really want to know.

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

An Everyday Christian Devotional
By Stephanie Romero



There’s an old song that I believe was by a guy named Johnny Lee about “looking for love in all the wrong places.”  But isn’t that really the way it usually goes?

I have heard many single Christian women lament their lot in life and say that they just can’t find “Mr. Right.”  I have heard many married Christian women wonder if they somehow missed “Mr. Right.”

Here is what I have discovered…true love cannot be found in any person.  The expectations that are placed on a human being to be everything we want them to be just cannot possibly be met.

There is only One who can really meet every need and desire that we have.  It is Jesus Christ, and until we really grasp that we will continue to look for love in all the wrong places.

I know what some of you are thinking, “But I need someone in the flesh, I need human love.”  Yes, we do need that.  I believe God put those desires within us but He never meant for those to replace the greatest love we could ever have.

Until we fully grasp the measure of God’s love for us, we can’t possibly understand what “true” love is.  We can’t love unless we have first been loved.  Who better to love us than the Lord?  Yet how many of us cast Him off to the side and say we will get back to Him later…meanwhile, we are looking for that person who will meet those needs we have inside.

Dissatisfied because you are single?  Dissatisfied because you are married?  Once you embrace the love of God, suddenly you don’t find yourself expecting as much from others.  You find yourself so immersed in the love of God that you stop looking for love in all the wrong places.

In Those Empty Moments

In Those Empty Moments


An Everyday Christian Devotional
By  Dionna Sanchez


Those moments in life when you just need….something.  Maybe you are feeling lonely and long for close friendships. Maybe you don’t feel as beautiful as those around you. Sometimes those moments are full of grieving over a loss of a loved one. You can feel less than happy with your current lifestyle or struggling with parenting, marriage, or family relationship issues. Sometimes those moments are merely boredom. Bored with doing the same thing in life.

I’ve had those moments. You’ve had those moments.

We all turn to something when we are lonely, depressed, grieving, or angry. For some of us, it’s food. Food can be a great companion and comforter. Just a bite here or there and before we know it, we are constantly turning to food to “fill” what is empty inside of us. For some of us, we turn to the Internet or television. We tune out and just mindlessly escape into a world that accepts us and loves us just as we are. There are other escapes too – alcohol, drugs, cutting. Some people like to stay busy so that they don’t have to think or feel. Others sleep it away. After all, dreams can be preferable to the real thing sometimes!

We all long to be filled. To feel full.

I find it interesting that in those empty, private moments in life – that we often fail to turn to the thing that will fill us up and satisfy us the most. God.

Opening the Bible can seem dreadfully boring. Listening to Christian music – mundane. Or kneeling down in prayer can seem like a waste of time. Yet it’s not.

If I can stop and have a conversation with the Lord, He can give me the strength I need to not indulge in that fried or sugary food. He can help me bite my tongue instead of lashing out on an innocent loved one and He can help me grasp peace and forgiveness in a heart that would otherwise reach for anger and bitterness.  In the quiet (or loud chaos) of my home, God can hold me up and hold me together. He can love on me in a personal way that no one else can. He can send me the most perfect song that brings tears falling from my eyes in gentle submission to His prodding. He can realign my priorities through His word in a way that makes me feel like it was my idea. He’s good and He’s good TO me.

Those empty moments in our lives will come. We will hurt. We will sigh and we will long for things and people. But nothing will fulfill our hearts or desires like Him. We just need to give Him a try.

How To Learn To Love…All Over Again

How To Learn To Love…All Over Again

An Everyday Christian Devotional
By Bob Kellemen | Founder and CEO, RPM Ministries


I’ve had scores of responses to yesterday’s post, Learning to Love…All Over Again. Some asked, “So how do we learn to love all over again?”

Anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t believe in “five easy steps,” or “seven secrets to…” You can’t replicate relationships and you can’t shoe-horn relational growth into a one-size-fits-all scheme. 

However, there are some basic principles upon which we can build and re-build our relationships. As I reflect on what Shirley and I “did,” here are some of the biblical principles we followed.

1. Change in the home starts with change in the heart (James 4:1-4).
James asks a brilliant diagnostic question. “What causes the conflicts you’re having?”

His immediately answer gets to the heart of the matter. It’s your heart relationship with Christ.” The ultimate heart issue that we all must repent of us spiritual adultery—putting anything or anyone in front of Christ in our lives. 

If we want to “fix” a human relationship, we must start with tending to our spiritual relationship with Christ. When our God-relationship is holy, healthy, whole, and growing, we then have the foundation, perspective, and strength to change our relationships with one another. 

2. Change takes candid, courageous, loving communication (Ephesians 4:25-32).
When I’m counseling couples, I never start with “communication skills.” If I help someone with a selfish, manipulative heart, all I’ve done is create a more effective, self-sufficient sinner.

However, once the heart is back on track toward Christ-centered and other-centered relating, then learning how to communicate is vital. That’s why Paul, in Ephesians 4:17-24, starts with issues of the heart, and then moves to communication issues.

Shirley and I engaged in some real and raw conversations about where we were as a couple. We faced the tension, spoke the truth in love, asked forgiveness, shared grace, and co-created new plans for a new and improved relationship. 

3. Change takes God’s perspective on who the real enemy is (2 Corinthians 10:4-8).
When I counsel couples, I try to help them to make a major mental shift. They often come to marital counseling seeing each other as the enemy.

We explore the truth that Satan is the enemy of their marriage and that they need to unite as friends to fight together against Satan. What a difference it makes in our relationships (husband-wife, parent-child, church member-pastor, employer-employee) when we shift from fighting against each other to fighting together against Satan. 

4. Change takes spiritual eyes / grace eyes (2 Corinthians 10:4-8).
When Paul talks about the weapons of our spiritual warfare, he reminds us that we tend to “look only on the surface of things” (2 Corinthians 10:7). Shirley and I had to see that our relationship growth required spiritual 20/20 vision.

Spiritual eyes include “grace eyes”—looking at one another with grace. This not only means seeing each other at our worst and forgiving one another. It also means perceiving the best in one another and nurturing those wonderful, God-given, Christ-like characteristics.

Martin Luther said that relationships are the number one spiritual discipline. In other words, if you want to grow in Christ, do it in the context of intimate, shared relationship. Marriage is God’s greenhouse for growing us into the image of Christ—if we will work together with grace eyes so we can help each other to grow together in grace.

Learning To Love…All Over Again

Learning To Love…All Over Again


An Everyday Christian Devotional
By Bob Kellemen | Founder and CEO, RPM Ministries


This week, Shirley (my wife) and I watched a show that depicted a brain-injured husband whose personality drastically changed. The show raised the dilemma of how his wife would deal with being married to a man who was very different from the man she had married decades earlier.

In the episode, they faced three logical options:
1.   Remain committed to the marriage without really knowing, liking, or “loving” each other.
2.   Divorce.
3.   Learn to love the “new you.”

Fortunately, and atypical for most TV, they chose option three.

The Mid-Marriage Years
Shirley and I reflected on the show in terms of our own marriage—now in its 30^thyear (and having known each other for 33 years—since our late teen years). We also reflected on our past five years—our empty nest years where both our children are now out of the home and on their own.

After twenty-five years of marriage as parents, Shirley and I faced the reality that we had to get to know each other all over again—not just as parents, but more importantly, as husband and wife, as soul mates, as best friends.

In our early 50s now, we are not the same people we were at 19! In fact, we are not the same people we “fell in love with” over three decades ago.

As we faced these realities, we never wavered in our commitment to our marriage. But I’m not convinced that that is “Christian enough.” We’ve all seen Christian couples remain committed to the institution of marriage for decades, while obviously not continuing to live loving lives with one another. 

Loving with the Whole Heart
The Bible calls us not only to commitment to the institution of marriage, and not only to a moralistic commitment to one person. The Bible calls us to a growing holistic loving relationship. 

God created and designed us to be relational with affections, longings, and desires; rational with thoughts and beliefs; volitional with motivations and actions; emotional with feelings and moods; and physical with bodies. Thus God calls us to love one another with the whole heart—relationally, rationally, volitionally, emotionally, and physically. 

In the past five years, Shirley and I have had to re-learn how to love the new “us.” We’ve had to get reacquainted.

We’ve worked to renew our affections (relational) for the new “us.” This is romantic love if you will—which is a biblical love (see Proverbs, Song of Solomon) just as much as “committed” love is.

We’ve worked to renew our knowledge (rational) of each other. We’ve worked to live together with our spouse according to knowledge/understanding/consideration (1 Peter 3:7). We’ve gotten to know, like, love, appreciate, and respect the people we’ve become and are.

We’ve worked to renew our committed love (volitional) for each other. We are called to love each other with Christ-like/God-like agape love—self-sacrificing, giving love (John 3:16; Ephesians 5:21-33).

We’ve worked to renew our emotional connection (emotional) to each other. I know, in “Christian circles” we act as if “emotions” are bad and we should ignore them. God, who is an emotional Being, created us in His emotional image. He calls us to develop emotional connection to one another (Romans 12:15)—to like and enjoy and care about each other. 

We’ve worked to renew our physical connection (see Song of Solomon…enough said).

We now are best friends all over again. We would marry each other again if we met today. We’ve learned to love each other…all over again.

What’s the Point?
Though this is a much more “personal blog post” than I normally share (and, yes, I did ask Shirley’s permission), this post is really not simply about my marriage. It’s about all relationships.

People change. Love needs to grow with those changes. Our relationships need to mature as we mature.

Recently married? Allow this post to be your “marital counsel” that I wish someone had offered Shirley and me decades ago.

Not married? This applies to you also. Maybe you’re a young adult or a late teen—are you working hard (relationships take hard work) to re-learn how to relate to and love your parents?

Parents, are you working hard to re-learn how to relate to and love your children? The relationship can’t get stuck in the idealized “I miss when they were little kids.” They’re not little kids—learn to love and to like the new “them.”

Single? You and your friends change. Re-learn how to love them…all over again.

Church? Oh my! Churches change. I could write a book on how people need to re-learn how to love one another in local churches as new members join, as new pastors come, as new ministries are launched.

Relationships aren’t static—frozen in time. They change because we change. Keep knowing and growing. 

Work hard each day to re-learn how to love each other…all over again.

Loving The Unlovely

Loving The Unlovely


An Everyday Christian Devotional
By Stephanie Romero


Let’s face it; life is filled with unlovely people.  It is easy to love those we care about but it becomes a much bigger challenge when it comes to those who are, well, just plain hard to love.

I used to make the excuse that I’m not Jesus so how could I be expected to love as He does?  I dismissed the idea of striving to be like Him and instead, used it as a justification for my choices.

I would reason within, how can you possibly love someone who is so difficult?  How can you love someone who is not willing to receive it?  It seemed like wasted energy and I would have rather spent it on those who would not only receive it but give some back.

Here is what I have come to realize.  The more I love Jesus, the more easily I can love others.  When I am not filled with the love of God then I don’t have any to offer.  It’s hard to give what you don’t have.

So I stopped making excuses and rationalizations and I began to focus on God’s love.  When I truly came to understand (as much as I can in human terms) the depth of His love, I was able to begin to dispense it out onto others.  Yes, even to the unlovely.

This is not something we can do in our own strength.  We need the Lord to help us.  But it is possible.  We just have to be willing to let go of the excuses and begin to live out the Word.  It became about more than just reading the Word, it became living it.

I have found that when I am able to love the unlovely, I suddenly see them differently.  I may see past their imperfections to the beautiful person within.  I may realize that they are actually hurting or in need.  I may come to understand that they have lived a difficult life.  It’s like my eyes are opened.

May all our eyes be opened and may we be equipped to love the unlovely.