Ten Seconds of Respect

Prodigal: Give me ten more minutes and I will be right there when I finish this up.

Me: Speaking of time, that is what I am going to talk about.

This is from the book Seven Seasons of the Man in the Mirror by Patrick Morley

In June 1994, my best friend for eighteen years Tom Skinner, died suddenly of acute leukemia. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him.

After his death, those friends who knew we were close would express some form of condolence. What is particularly interesting to me is that the average length of those condolences was about ten seconds. Then the subject would change, and in most cases, that’s the last time his name was ever mentioned.

Tom was a man who always had people trying to get a piece of his time. I’m talking about hundreds of people. Let’s be honest. Most people who ask you for time don’t really care that much about you personally. I’m not blaming them. I’m simply pointing out that for most people in your life, you are good for about ten seconds of respect, and then life must go on. Only a handful of people will even attend your funeral, much less shed a tear.

Why? Because we’re on the run. When someone wants to set you to running, ask yourself, “Is this person really going to miss me when I’m gone?”

2 Corinthians 7:10

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Women Lovin’ Jesus

Prodigal: Time for a relaxing day.

Me: I agree!

This is a short video devotion on Proverbs.

click here to watch the video

Proverbs 11:5

The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness. (ESV)

Jennifer Van Allen

Your Performance

Me: I hope I can do this right.

Prodigal: Do the best that you can. Sometimes that should be the focus.

This is from the book Lead Like Jesus by Ken Blanchard, Phil Hodges, and Phyllis Hendry

If God’s love for you were based on your performance–on how well you lived up to His standards of righteousness–you would never be free of anxiety. The alternative is to accept God’s unconditional love for you: admit that you can’t earn enough, achieve enough, or control enough to get any more love from Him. In Jesus you already have access to all the love you need and infinitely more. That truth is so powerful. Once you believe that you are completely and unconditionally loved by God, you won’t be misled by earthly things that offer love, peace, safety, and security.

God sees when we stay up at night with worry. You do not have to feel shame. He has compassion on you. God love you so much and is proud of you. That is what He wants you to feel tonight when you go to bed. The performance does not change the wonderful love and relationship we have with our Father in heaven.

All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Metanoia

Prodigal: These are for you!

Me: They look delicious! I wanted to share something that made me focus on Christ.

This is from the book The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself–a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called clerical somebody), a righteous or unrighteous man….when in the fullness of tasks, questions, success or ill-hap, experiences and perplexities, a man throws himself into the arms of God….then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, that is metanoia and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian.

Psalms 37:2

For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Women Lovin’ Jesus

Prodigal: O Lord, let my soul always be serving you!

Me: Amen!

This is short video devotion from Proverbs

click here to watch the video

Proverbs 11:4 Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death. (KJV)

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounselng.org

Loss of Shalom

Me: It looks like you got a nice surprise!

Prodigal: Yes, and I will share.

Me: I will share also.

This comes from the book The Reason For God by Timothy Keller

The devastating loss of shalom through sin is described in Genesis 3. We are told that as soon as we determined to serve ourselves instead of God–as soon as we abandoned living for and enjoying God as our highest good–the entire created world became broken. Human beings are so integral to the fabric of things that when human beings turned from God the entire warp and woof of the world unraveled. Disease, genetic disorders, famine, natural disasters, aging, and death itself are as much the result of sin as are oppression, war, crime, and violence. We have lost God’s shalom–physically, spiritually, socially, psychologically, culturally. Things now fall apart. In Romans 8, Paul says that the entire world is now “in bondage to decay” and “subject to futility” and will not be put right until we are put right.

Psalms 37:4

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

A Choice That Alters History

Prodigal: That is an old house.

Me: Yes, it is. Reminds me of an old story.

This is from the book God Will Make A Way

Before William Booth became a full-time minister, he conducted religious services as a lay preacher in small rural churches At seventeen, he was made a preacher in the Methodist Church. His superintendent wanted him to become a full-time preacher at the age of nineteen, but Booth’s doctor advised him against the ministry. He told Booth that he health was so poor that he was totally unfit for the strain of being a preacher!

Nevertheless, Booth undertook a ministry among London’s poorest people, engaging in strenuous labor and long hours. He launched an international organization now called the Salvation Army, which still ministers the Gospel to the poor today. Booth lived to be eighty-three before he went home to be with the Lord.

When someone has M.D. behind their name, it means they are in the business of medical practice. A doctor’s diagnosis is always limited, and the physician’s prognosis is always clouded by human judgment. Only God knows what lies ahead for you and what you are capable of accomplishing. Whenever sickness and disease present themselves to you, listen to what the Holy Spirit tells you.

Booth chose to believe what Almighty God was speaking in his heart more than the negative and limiting report given to him by a human being. Consider what he would have missed had he built his life around man’s words instead of what God had placed in his heart. History is filled with men and women, and children who have trusted in the supernatural healing power of God to overcome natural odds and achieve great things for the kingdom of God.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:37 NKJV

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Women Lovin’ Jesus

Prodigal: Hallelujah, the Lord is good!

Me: Amen!

This is a short video devotion.

click here to watch the video

Proverbs 11:3 The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them. (NKJV)

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

A Winged Horse

Me: Does that horse have wings?

Prodigal: Not that I know of.

Me: I have a story that talks about a horse with wings.

This is from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got its wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so: and at that stage the lumps on the shoulders–no one could tell by looking at them that they are going to be wings–may even give it an awkward appearance.

Your wings are growing. You feel awkward and look awkward and people think the same. Stay steadfast on the course that Jesus is calling you. The wings are going to be so beautiful and the ride will be amazing!

Psalms 51:4

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

Women Lovin’ Jesus

Prodigal: I like the design.

Me: Yes, very beautiful.

This is a short video devotion.

click here to watch the video

Proverbs 11:2

When pride cometh, then cometh shame; but with the lowly is wisdom. (KJV)

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org