Prodigal: Time for a relaxing day.
Me: I agree!
This is a short video devotion on Proverbs.
Proverbs 11:5
The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness. (ESV)
Jennifer Van Allen
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
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
Prodigal: O Lord, let my soul always be serving you!
Me: Amen!
This is short video devotion from Proverbs
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
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
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
Prodigal: Hallelujah, the Lord is good!
Me: Amen!
This is a short video devotion.
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
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
Prodigal: I like the design.
Me: Yes, very beautiful.
This is a short video devotion.
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
Me: Ready for our bible study?
Prodigal: Yeah, but you gotta shoot straight with me!
Me: Lol….very funny!
This is from the book Just Enough Light for the Step I’m on by Stormie Omartian.
More and more, God is teaching me to trust Him for every step I take. He constantly calls me to stretch beyond what’s comfortable. To walk through new territory when I would rather stay with the familiar. To face difficult physical, mental, and emotional challenges. To do things I know I can’t achieve by myself without His power. Each time something is required of me that I’m certain I am unable to accomplish in my own strength, I see a picture of just one or two steps being illuminated, while those before and after are engulfed in darkness and cannot be seen. This describes my walk with God. I trust Him for each day of life, grateful for every breath, determined to look for the blessing in the moment, no matter what the circumstances. I follow His lead–even when I can’t see where I’m going, even when it scares me to do so—because deep within my spirit I know that these simple steps of faith are preparing me for eternity.
Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise; when I sit in darkness, The LORD will be a light to me. Micah 7:8
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
