Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore, every one of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things.” Romans 2:1 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “It’s not just them, but us too”   This morning, as we continue our study of sound doctrine that contributes to strong faith, we need to remember that in Romans Paul is leading us systematically and sequentially through a study of the basic and essential doctrines upon which the Christian faith is based. The way he constructs this letter is essentially with the building block theory of one lesson being built upon and growing out of the previous one.   In chapter one the primary focus was on sin. There he made it clear that all humans are without excuse for our sins and for not honoring God with our lives. He told us that God has made Himself known to all – even through the creation itself, and therefore, we are all without excuse.   Then he presented us with a series of very graphic descriptions of how sinful we humans can get when we reject God and pursue our own passions and desires. Paul took us through an awful downward spiral into the depths of human depravity which included things like gross sexual immorality, all sorts of evil, greed, wickedness, slander, arrogance, murder, a total lack of compassion and mercy, and much more.   Those passages illustrated how bad things can get when people reject God and indulge in sin, and most of his readers would have been nodding their heads in agreement up to that point. This letter was being written to the Christians in Rome, who would all have considered themselves to be the people of God. And so, as they read Paul’s long and painful list describing the deepest depths of the depravity sin leads too, they would have been thinking about those sinners out there in the world.   But here in chapter two Paul begins to turn the tables. Having painted in broad brushstrokes a picture of humankind without God, Paul abruptly shifts the focus to a new audience. He begins to turn our attention inward, upon ourselves, and in doing so he helps us to see the truth of the old saying, “In God’s eyes a sin, is a sin, is a sin …” In other words, to God one sin is as bad as any other and although you may not be guilty of the sin of homosexuality, or adultery, or murder, you are certainly guilty of other sins. Perhaps yours is gluttony or drunkenness or greed or hypocrisy.   Paul’s point is that we too have no excuse. Sin doesn’t just effect “them out there”, it effects “us in here.” Sin isn’t just their problem it’s our problem too. And part of our sin problem is that we are much too focused on their sins and not focused enough on our own sins. Therefore, we are prone to becoming religious hypocrites as we quickly judge others for their sins while conveniently overlooking our own.   The subject of judging others is precisely where Paul is going to take us next, and we will begin to consider it in depth tomorrow. For now, I encourage all of us to spend some extra time in prayer today asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the depths of our own sin.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “… they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.” Romans 1:32 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Don’t go along just to get along”   We have already spent several days considering Paul’s strong teaching about sexual ethics here at the beginning of his letter regarding the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith (Romans). The reason Paul placed this upfront and addressed it in such strong terms is because misguided sexual passion is so bad and so tempting. Even God’s own people often give in to sexual activity that is outside of what He allows, and which then therefore breaks their fellowship with Him.   The reason I have stayed with this topic for three days now is because so many Christians in our society today are going along with, or agreeing to, the sexual norms promoted by our culture, rather than standing firm on God’s clearly articulated standards as given to us in the Bible. We are not to just go along so we can get along. Instead, it is possible to get along without going along. We can stand our Biblical ground while still being kind and respectful towards those who have strayed in this area (That this the premise of my book, “Getting Along without Going Along”.)   There are two underlying principles about this topic which we must bear in mind. The first is that God’s Word is truth. It is the only truth that ultimately matters and as Christians we must develop and maintain a Biblical worldview. Everything we see, hear, and experience in the world must be evaluated against what God tells us in the Bible. The legitimacy of any truth-claim made by the culture is determined by and measured against the Bible.   The second underlying principle, which is directly related to the first, is that as we take our stand for Biblical truth, we must do so in the way Peter instructed in 1 Peter 3:15-16, “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. However, do this with gentleness and respect …”   The better we understand our own position of what the Bible actually teaches and how that applies to the issues of our day, and the better we understand why people on the other side are taking a position that is so contrary to Scripture, the better able we will be to engage with them on it. Know what you believe and why you believe it. Also know what they believe and why they believe that. The better prepared we are to have such discussions, the more confident we will be and the more likely we are to have that encounter in a calm, reasoned and respectful manner. It’s when people are unsure of themselves that they resort to overheated rhetoric and to shouting down the other side.   That’s what Paul was teaching us in Romans 12:11-21 when he wrote, “Do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the Spirit; serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer …Bless those who persecute you; bless do not curse … Do not repay anyone evil for evil … If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head. Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.”   Don’t go along just so you can get along. Instead, get along without going along.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.” Romans 1:26-27 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “This is how bad it can get”   The human sex drive is strong – very strong. It drives men and women to do things that should be unthinkable, but which are in fact very common. Sexual passion, expressed in perverted and ungodly ways, has been a problem for humans since the beginning of time. That’s why God gave us clear instructions for our sexual conduct – through Moses in the Old Testament and through Paul in the New Testament, and it is why Jesus affirmed for us that God’s standard is for one man and one woman to be married for life and for sexual passion to be expressed only within the structure of that marriage.   How bad can it get if people stray from God’s pure and perfect plan? Moses described it in painful detail in Leviticus 18:6-17:   “You are not to come near any close relative for sexual intercourse; I am the Lord. You are not to violate the intimacy that belongs to your father and mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual intercourse with her. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s, whether born at home or born elsewhere. You are not to have sex with her. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, for they are your family. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your father’s wife’s daughter, who is adopted by your father; she is your sister. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your father’s sister, she is your father’s close relative. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s close relative. You are not to violate the intimacy that belongs to your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual intercourse; she is your aunt. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; you are not to have sex with her. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your brother’s wife; she is your brother’s family. You are not to have sexual intercourse with a woman and her daughter.”   And then there’s this: “You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable. You are not to have intercourse with an animal, defiling yourself with it; a woman is not to present herself to an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.”   They had to be told not to have sex with animals?? Yes, they did. That’s how bad it can get and that’s why we must live by God’s standards rather than by our own. If our conduct is governed by our passions, there is no limit to how degraded we can become.   God’s standards for sexual conduct are clearly spelled out for us in the Bible and regardless of what our society says, those are the only acceptable standards.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.” Romans 1:26-27 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “How bad can it get?”   As we continue our study of the book of Romans (thinking about how it is that sound doctrine leads to strong faith), we come to a section at the beginning of the book that addresses an issue of doctrine that many in our society struggle with – including increasing numbers of Christians.   In 2018 I published a book with the title “Getting Along Without Going Along: Biblical Sexual Ethics in An Age of Controversy and Conflict”. Originally it was a devotional series written sometime in 2016 and which I then turned into a book in 2018. This was back in the days before same sex marriage was legal nationwide and there was a raging debate in our nation regarding a whole host of sexually related issues.   Not only was there debate and confusion in our society over what should be permissible and what civil laws were or were not needed, but there was a good deal of debate and confusion in the Christian community regarding what the Christian response to it should be, and even about what exactly the Bible teaches about all this. There was also debate about whether Biblical standards on sexuality even apply anymore – including among some Christians!   To help us as Southern Baptists to get a better grip on the issue, both in terms of the Biblical standards for sexual ethics but also in terms of effectively engaging our culture on these issues, there was a conference held in Nashville that was sponsored by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. It included over two thousand church leaders from forty-eight states and five countries. It also included leaders from the Gay and Lesbian community, who had been invited to speak and to interact with Southern Baptist leaders in the workshops and in the discussion groups.   The purpose of the event was to better equip church leaders for dealing with the massive cultural shift that was underway in our nation. Part of dealing effectively with difficult issues includes hearing firsthand from those on the other side of the issues. If you want to engage effectively with people on the other side of an issue you need to understand what they think and why they think that way. That’s why leaders from the Gay and Lesbian community were included in that conference. We wanted to hear them present their own case, and we wanted them to hear us – but to do so in a calm and reasoned manner that treated each other with respect and dignity. You can read more about that in the introduction to my book. (If you would like a copy of the book please let me know and I will be happy to send you one.)   We live in an age when it is essential for Christians to be clear in their understanding about what the Bible teaches with respect to sexual ethics. If we are not, our doctrine can become twisted, and our faith can become weak. How bad can it get? We will continue considering this issue tomorrow.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts …” Romans 1:24 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “God will let you suffer the consequences”   Continuing our thinking from yesterday regarding the wrath of God directed towards those who choose idols of the world over Him, in Romans 1:24 Paul introduces another way in which the wrath of God is experienced (and it is much more immediate than those other ways we considered yesterday). In verse 24 we read that God delivers them over to the desires of their hearts. That too is an expression of God’s wrath.   The types of God’s wrath described yesterday are all evidenced in the future, either at death or at the end of the age in the final judgment. But this is a more immediate and ongoing experience of God’s wrath. The other experiences are spiritual in nature and occur in the spiritual realm, this expression of God’s wrath is for the here and now and it manifests itself in the body and the soul.   When God gives us over to the desires of our hearts that’s another way of saying that He is letting us have what we want, and He is letting us experience the consequences of those choices. Those consequences can manifest themselves in innumerable ways. They can take the form of addictions to drugs or alcohol or food. They can take the form of damaged and destroyed relationships. The consequences can come to us as sexually transmitted diseases, or crushing indebtedness, or lost jobs, or in many other forms.   The fact is that choices have consequences and bad choices have bad consequences. When God gives people over to the desires of their wicked hearts it means that they experience the consequences of their choices. God is not going to protect us from the bad results that come to us because did something we should not have been doing to begin with.   This can also mean that He has stopped trying to deter us from doing those things. In other words, He is saying, “If you are so determined to do this thing that I have expressly forbid, then go right ahead and do it with nothing held back. If you’re going to do it anyway, then go ahead and do it fully so you can experience the full impact of that bad choice. Maybe that will get your attention.” He is giving you over to the desires of your wicked heart.   This pertains not just to unbelievers – people who have never placed their faith in Christ but to Christians too. Christians experience such consequences too, and in some respects even more so. Many Christians ignore or reject certain Biblical principles, and they pursue things that God has forbid or cautioned against. Christians too sometimes exchange the glory of God for the false idols of the world – like money or possessions or achievements or power or praise or addictive substances or whatever.   In those cases, the Holy Spirit will be actively working in that person’s life to convict them of that sin and to make them miserable in it. God will let you experience the misery of it – the full impact of your sinful choices, so that you will hopefully repent and return to Him. It’s not just unbelievers who seek substitutes for God. We do it too, and it is always bad.   Beware, because God will let you experience the consequences of your sinful choices.     God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” Romans 1:22 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “It’s not wise but foolish”   As we lay the foundation for our study of how sound doctrine helps to build strong faith, we have been thinking about how and why people substitute faith in, and worship of, the One True God, for that of idols and false gods.   When people do that, they usually think they are clever and wise. But that isn’t wisdom, it’s foolishness. Like Paul wrote, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” In their human reasoning they can come up with endless clever rationalizations for why it makes sense to be so committed to their career, to their investments, to their perceived sexiness, or whatever else it is that they have committed themselves to and essentially made an idol of. But Paul says here that such thinking is worthless and it darkens the mind rather than enlightening it. In verse 21 he wrote, “Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened.”   Paul also said in these verses that such people exchange the glory of the immortal God for those worthless idols they have set up in their lives. That phrase, “exchanged the glory” means “stole the glory” – they steal the glory that rightly belongs to God, and they give it instead to worthless idols. It is an act of theft and because of that theft, they get to experience the wrath of God.  Because people voluntarily give themselves over to such things, because they use those things as a substitute for God in their lives, they get to experience the wrath of God.   Now, the wrath of God takes different forms at different times. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis, the wrath of God took the form of fire and brimstone raining down from heaven. In the closing chapters of the book of Revelation we read that one day something similar will happen at the end of the age.   The wrath of God will also be experienced on the day of judgment when it is discovered that many people’s names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life because they never placed their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. In those cases, the wrath of God will be experienced by being condemned to an eternity in hell. God is grieved that it is happening to you. He never wanted it to be that way. Peter tells us that it is not God’s will for any to be lost. But you chose this. You rejected Jesus and chose the idols of the world instead.    Those are all ways in which those who reject God ultimately experience the wrath of God. It’s insanity, sheer foolishness, to choose an idol over the One True God and the consequences of doing so are eternal.   There is another way in which such people experience God’s wrath because they have chosen idols over Him, and we will think about that tomorrow. For today, I challenge all of us to seriously consider if we have allowed any idol to take the place of God in our lives.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served what was created instead of the Creator …” Romans 1:25 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Who or what is your god?”   When it comes to a person having distorted doctrine and subsequent weak faith instead of sound doctrine and strong faith, one of the greatest dangers is the formation of idols in our lives. Idols distract us, capture our attention, and draw us away from the One True God.   What we’re reading about in Romans 1:18-25 is that instead of worshiping the Creator, with a pure heart and with a genuine desire to know Him, as Paul was writing about in the previous passage in Romans 1, the human race has historically descended into idolatry and the worship of false Gods. So, what does Paul mean when he writes in verse 20 “since they knew God?” I believe he was referring to two things. First, this is a reference to the human race in general and second, it can also be true of Christians who do know God but then seek substitutes for Him anyway.   First, let’s consider the human race in general. As Paul has already noted, they are aware of God simply through creation. Beyond that, as Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “God has set eternity in their hearts”. God created human beings with an intuitive understanding that there is more than just this lifetime, there is a supernatural world – a spiritual dimension, and there is a God. We know it in our hearts. We can see Him in His creation, and we sense in our hearts that He exists. That then should cause all humans to seek Him with a genuine desire to know Him.   But historically humans have not wanted to know the One True God. Instead, we create for ourselves gods who are more to our liking and who provide us with something we desire. Idolatry is worship. And at the heart of worship is the attribution of glory. When we worship someone or something we are attributing glory to that false god and almost always we do it because we believe that idol or false god can benefit us in some way.   That’s the motive behind all idolatry. In ancient times peopled created for themselves statues and images of gods that they thought would give them power, or riches, or fertility, or good crops. Most of us today don’t have statues in our homes that we bow down and worship, but we do have many other idols in our lives that we do worship. For many of us they are the idols of money and possessions; for some of us it is career accomplishment; for others it is physical attractiveness, or the praise of others, or political power. We all worship at some altar, we all bow down to someone or something. Those are idols too.   We will think more about this tomorrow. For today I want to call all of us to prayerfully consider if we have allowed anything to become an idol in our life. Is there something that is drawing you away from the One True God. Who or what is your god?   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” Romans 1:21-22 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Help them see the glory of God”   What Paul was referring to in Romans 1:21-22 is all the systems of idolatry that create false gods. This is also about the cultural forces that deny God and celebrate sin. That’s how this passage should be applied in contemporary terms. All those things turn people away from God and Paul tells us in Romans 1:18 that there is a special wrath from heaven reserved for those who suppress the truth about God and who lead others astray.   We need to think for just a moment about what the wrath of God is. Our understanding of wrath is colored by our experience of human wrath. When people demonstrate wrath, it often comes in the form of out-of-control anger; vindictiveness; a desire to cause pain and suffering. That’s what wrathful people are like. Therefore, people struggle with the idea of that kind of wrath coming from God.   But there’s a difference between human wrath and God’s wrath. God is righteous, which means His expressions of wrath will always be right. It will be perfect. God’s wrath will come at the right time and in the right way. Our demonstrations of wrath are seldom righteous, or right. Our demonstrations of wrath are often driven by anger, vindictiveness, and self-righteousness. And worse, we often wrongly assume that God has appointed us to be His instruments of wrath. But James 1:20 warns us that “man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness of God.”  God will take care of expressing His own wrath – in His way, and in His time, and He doesn’t need us to do it for Him.   Instead, we are to be God’s advocates in the world. We are to call people’s attention to the glory of the God creation, as revealed by general revelation. And we are to go beyond that. We are to share the Good News of the Gospel, thereby imparting special revelation. And when we do that, we reinforce the truth being taught by Paul in Romans 1:20 that all people are without excuse because there has been revelation.     The idols offered to us by the world are cheap substitutes for God. They are designed to distract people and to either lead them away from God, or to keep them from ever turning to Him at all. It’s up to us, the people of God, to help people see past the idols and idolatrous systems of the world, and to see God in all His glory.   God bless, Pastor Jim     (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Some people are willfully blind”   God’s wrath is expressed towards anyone who ignores the obvious truths about Him and His ways. His wrath is also expressed towards those who would suppress that truth and hinder others from seeing it. To understand the point Paul is making here, we need to have a basic understanding regarding the difference between general and special revelation. The term general revelation refers to the way God reveals the truth about Himself to all human beings in general. This is the self-revelation of God to all human beings.   Special revelation refers to when God reveals Himself to certain individuals for a specific purpose, but not to everyone. Moses had an experience of special revelation at the burning bush. Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, Mary, Joseph the Carpenter, and many others had special revelation by means of dreams.   As Christians we experience a form of special revelation by means of the Holy Spirit living in our hearts and working in our lives. He gives us understanding of spiritual truths that can only come as the result of His work in our lives. That kind of revelation isn’t available to unbelievers – it is special and is reserved for those who have placed their faith in Christ.   In this passage here in Romans 1:18-20, Paul is referring to general revelation. His point is that God is so evident in the creation itself that all people are without excuse. Psalm 19:1 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God. You can know just from the creation itself that there must be a Creator and that then should lead a person to seek Him.   And in Jeremiah 29:13 God assures us, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” This is why we hear so many testimonies from places like closed Muslim countries where there is little or no presentation of the gospel because it is so effectively suppressed, yet even there, people manage to come to faith in Jesus anyway, often through a vision in a dream.   The creation itself attests to the reality of God, and that general revelation will serve to draw an open heart to search for God. God will honor the heart that is truly searching for him.   Mankind’s problem has never been that God is not accessible or available. Mankind’s problem is that we are sinners by nature, rebels at heart. The history of the human race is that we ignore God, we reject His revelation, and we even make determined efforts to obscure His revelation and to lead others away from Him as well. This is willful ignorance. It is being willfully blind to the evidence that is all around you.   There’s more to be said about this and so we will return to it tomorrow. For now, I encourage you to open your eyes to God’s revelation which is all around you. Don’t be willfully blind.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “… since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.” Romans 1:19 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Seeing with the eyes of your soul”   D. L. Moody lived in the mid-to-late 1800s and he was the Billy Graham of his day. He traveled the world holding huge evangelistic events, even speaking to Kings and Queens and Presidents. He also wrote many books and established a Bible college known today as The Moody Bible Institute.   He told the story of how he was once at a large meeting in London and one of the other speakers was a blind evangelist. He had been born blind, but he was a powerful preacher. He had also led a team that had translated the entire Bible into Braille so that blind people could read the Scriptures for themselves. That Braille translation had, at that time, been produced in twelve different languages.   As he thought about that, it occurred to him that for these blind people (people who did not have natural sight), the Scriptures were coming alive for them, and they were seeing it all with the eyes of their soul.   What a great thing – to be able to see with the eyes of your soul! How many people who have natural sight are blind by comparison to those blind people who, although they could not see with their eyes, they could see with their souls? This is a concept and metaphor that Jesus used often in His own teaching. In John chapter nine we read of Him dealing with a blind man who had faith, and religious hypocrites who did not. The blind man couldn’t see with his eyes, but he could see with his soul, and consequently he was saved. The Pharisees could see with their eyes but not with their souls and consequently they were lost.   This example illustrates perfectly the point the Apostle Paul will make in the section of Romans chapter one that we are going to spend the next couple of days looking at. People are often willfully blind to the truth about God and therefore they are without excuse. We must learn to see with both our physical eyes and with the eyes of our soul.   How well do you see with the eyes of your soul?   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571