Prodigal: I worked like a dawg all day long.
Me: Let’s watch a video for a break.
This is a short video on Proverbs.
Proverbs 5:13
And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: It looks like we are all alone out here.
Me: The Lord is with us.
Prodigal: That is the key!
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in still another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an intinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a house.
He didn’t go to college.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of these things one usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He was only 33 when public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
When he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race, the leader of mankind’s progress.
All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on earth as much as that One Solitary Life.
Mark 2:7
Why does this man speak against God ? Who can forgive sins but God only?
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: It is amazing what God will do with our lives.
Me: That is true we just have to trust Him with our lives.
This comes from the book The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
….In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually, it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart–and through all human hearts….So, bless you, prion, for having been in my life.
Having a rough day? The Lord can use anything and we can turn around and thank God for it. It may take time, It make take letting go of selfish ideals and replace them with obedience to the Lord’s plan, but He can turn around anything.
Mark 2:5
When Jesus way their faith,he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Where does the time fly!
Prodigal: I know, but let’s enjoy today.
Me: I am going too!
This is a quick video devotion on proverbs
Proverbs 5:12
And say, How have I hated discipline, and my heart despised correction.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: I think I found a beam.
Me: That one looks good, just make sure there is not one in your eye.
Prodigal: I need to check for that.
This is from the book Bold Love by Dr. Dan Allender & Dr. Tremper Longman III
Jesus instructed us to take the beam out of our own eye before we take the speak out of our brother’s (Matthew 7.5). In this way, He told us that the battle is not only against other, it is also within ourselves. Facing the deeply embedded evil of our own hearts is where the most bitter fighting occurs. It’s like a civil war. Your enemy, your old self, is a dearly beloved friend you really don’t want to kill.
This is one of those verses we do not quote when we try to justify a reason for a decision that we have made. We can think of a million others. Really though this is the verse we should start with. Remember those people who said they were only looking out for your good, when all they did was verbally attack you because they forgot to look in their own eye. Remember from them, learn from the bible and take a look in the mirror.
1 Thessalonians 5:15
See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: My friend has been hurt.
Me: I am so sorry to hear that.
Prodigal: I think she needs encouragement.
This is from the book Reclaiming Your Heart: A Journey Back to Laughing, Loving, and Living. by Denise Hildreth Jones
For too many of us, church has been the very weapon that caused us to shut down our hearts. It is where we have been judged the most, criticized the most, or encountered the majority of our wounds. It is also where we might have seen the critical spirit modeled and developed a critical spirit of our own.
It’s been happening since the time of the Pharisees. People who are hungry for God come up against a version of religion that focuses most on what they do or what they look like and binds them with a collection of rules instead of freeing them to live out their hearts. This misguided view relegates the beauty of a relationship with God to nothing but a set of regulations, leaving people lost in a maze of negativism and criticism.
I am with you and have been hurt by the church and rules that are not of God. Don’t think this is God though. He has people all over the world that are still fighting for His truth and want to show how a relationship with God is more than rules of man. We don’t give up on doctors because there are bad doctors. We just find the good ones. Don’t give up on God. Find people who really have a heart of God.
Mark 2:2
And immediately many were gathered together, insomuch that was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Pumpkin season is back!
Me: Yes, but I like the look, but not the taste.
Prodigal: More for me then!
Me: You can indulge yourself.
This is a quick video devotion on proverbs
Proverbs 5:11
And at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, (ESV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Sometimes your up and sometimes your down.
Prodigal: Very true, and I need the cross.
Me: I do too.
This is from the book Bold Love by Dr. Dan Allender & Dr. Tremper Longman III
It is nearly impossible to wrap words around the wonder of this event. Death on a cross was considered to be an ignoble, shameful death, reserved for the most despicable criminals. The Cross appeared to be the Evil One’s most successful, glorious moment. He’d destroyed God; he’d disrupted the one relationship–The Trinity–that seemed to be independent of his control. The satisfaction in the heart of the Devil as he shamed glory must have been beyond measure.
But the Cross, like a brilliant conundrum, was, in fact, the height of glory. What appeared to be the death of God, the shaming of the prized only begotten Son of the Most High, and the dissolution of the Trinity was actually the most glorious interplay of justice and mercy, worked out in perfect harmony by all members of the Godhead. It was the powerless disarming the strong, and the shameful shaming the proud.
This is the heart of the gospel, and it is based on a tremendous irony. God won the greatest war of all–the war against the Devil himself–not by killing, but by dying. When Jesus died on the cross, He incisively defeated Satan and all his evil hordes.
Jesus is not walking the earth dying on the cross today and Satan is not trying to stop Jesus. The battle still exits though and we are the players. You have been shamed by doing what is right. The devil used his players to make it seem that you are not doing the right thing and have loss touch. Guess again, Jesus will use you to die to self and then the battle will be won!
2 Corinthians 3:4-6
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Me: Look at all those helmets!
Prodigal: Yes, they really wanted protection.
Me: Well I can discuss with you another type of helmet that is mentioned in the bible.
Prodigal: Let’s hear.
This is from the book Overcoming Spiritual Blindness by James P. Gills, M.D.
Paul tells us that the helmet of salvation represents hope (1 Thess. 5:8). Hope is the sure confidence and expectation promised to the believer in God’s Word. It is worked in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Many believers’ heads have sustained, and survived, heavy blows because they knew that God the Father Almighty works for good in their lives. Hope, as armor, gives us the assurance that the Son of God will not fail to shepherd us through our trials. God will prevail for us, and through us, not in our own strength but that which He supplies.
The helmet of hope protects our heads from mortal wounds, and it also allows us to advance with our hands and free. Rather than covering our heads with our hands in fear, we can proceed with our heads up, hands ready–courageous and confident. Our King and Captain urges us on as He speaks to us through the Word: “For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, “Fear not, I will help you” (Isa. 41:13). “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” ( Rom 15:13).
Mark 2:45
But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Is it already time for a rest?
Me: Sometimes you are a lot slower than other days. That means more rest.
Prodigal: I am happy for God’s grace.
This is a video devotion on proverbs
Proverbs 5:10
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
