The Home Devo (Page 48)

                              Years ago instead of going “out” to eat, people would invite others over to their home for dinner.  As a child when that would happen I can remember my mother frantically cleaning the house because we had, as she called it, “BIG COMPANY” coming.  She wanted to make sure that she had cleaned the bathroom, dusted the furniture, mopped and vacuumed the floors and prepared the food, so the “BIG COMPANY” would see us at…

                                               As a product of the Eighties, we had our own little language.  The word “bad’ became something that was “good”.  The word “cool” became something that meant “hot” or “trendy” and the word “gay”, which used to mean “happy” became someone who was homosexual.  Every day at school you could hear words like “like”, “gnarly” or “psych”.  Another word that became very popular that you don’t hear much today was the…

                     “God’s Promises are Sure! God’s Promises are Sure! He Speaks, and It Shall Be; God’s Promises are Sure! Those are the words to a song that sister Jewel Kenderick wrote almost fifty years ago that have been sang in elementary chapel for years.  The idea for the song comes from the Promise of Abraham that is mentioned in Genesis 12 and reaffirmed in Genesis 15.  The rest of the Bible…

  DISCUSSION:                                 We have all done it! Some of us more than others, but we have all done it; opened our mouth and said something we wish we hadn’t.  The millisecond it rolls off of our tongue, we wish we could reel it back in.  Then in the following moments we feel embarrassed and humiliated.  Imagine if you had done that to God and then God called you on it.  Within our readings, we have an…

                                 As we come to the conclusions of all of the various speeches from the “so-called” friends of Job, they all offer little insight and do very little to comfort him.  However, this last speech from Elihu offers some wonderful words of wisdom for us to think about.  In Job 37, Elihu proclaims the majesty of God in very descriptive form.  Read it again aloud and slow and see the Awesome Majesty of God.  “Awesome” meaning “to fear or…

                  When I was a young boy growing up at Atlas Church of Christ, I can remember it being a big deal to get to go into Mrs. Selma Wallace’s Bible Class.   I can’t remember what class it was that she taught, but back then, in my eyes, it was “big kids class”.  She was a wonderful Bible Class teacher and in just about every class we would sing a few songs before we got into the day’s lesson. …

                  We all love to reminisce and somewhat embellish a little about the good ol’ days.  Whether it is how great of an athlete we were or how far we had to walk to school in the snow, it seems every generation likes to reminisce about days gone by.  Job is no different. In fact, that is exactly what he does in Job 29. He even uses the phrase, “as I was in my prime”.  He talks about the…

                                        Believe it or not a professional basketball player, Kyrie Irving, stated in an interview, that he believed that it was possible that the world was still flat.  I hope he stated this as a publicity stunt, because no one in their right mind would still believe that the earth was flat.  However, up until the 3rd century BC, that was the common thought.  Aristotle first theorized that…

                   As Job continues to struggle and seek understanding as to why he is consumed with suffering, he still trusts that God is aware of his situation (Job 23.10) and that he continues to follow in God’s steps.  Job also continues to believe that when all is said and done he will “come out as gold”.   The reason he believes that will be the case is because he has “treasured the words of His mouth more…

                         Ever since I was at child at Atlas Church of Christ, I can remember hearing brother Elmer Harris leading the congregation in the song “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”.  I have always understood that to mean that my Redeemer, Jesus, the one who paid my debt with His blood, has been risen from the dead and is still alive today.  The song implies that it is this Redeemer (Jesus), who offers to…

  DISCUSSION:                                                   “I hate my life!” have those words ever been uttered from your lips?  Regrettably, many of us have to say yes.  There have been times when we are in that deep pit of depression and the clutches of self-pity seem to have their claws clamped down on us.  It is during those times we may utter those words, “I hate my life!”  It is times like this when…

  DISCUSSION:                                As the story of Job continues, Job has been hit with devastation like no one has ever been hit before.  He has lost all his children; his body being covered in boils and even his wife is encouraging him to just give up and die.  All this suffering has led to changes in Job’s appearance, so much that not even his friends can recognize him (Job 2.4).  They are so taken back by…