Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”   Our Bible verse for today: “Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?” John 14:9 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Jesus and the Father are One”   Today is December 1st and we’re now beginning Christmas month. The weeks leading up to Christmas are known in Christian circles as “advent”. It’s the season of the liturgical year that is a time of expectancy and preparation as we approach the celebration of the birth of Christ.   When we think of the birth of Jesus, and the reason for it, we remember that God sent His Son to earth to rescue us from the penalty of our sins. First, foremost, and primarily, this was a rescue mission. But another reason Jesus came was to show us what God is like. Not just to tell us, but to show us. Jesus Christ of Nazareth was God in a human body and He came to show us, in physical form, in ways we can easily relate to, what our Heavenly Father is like. That’s the great truth Jesus was explaining to Philip in John 14:9. Jesus and the Father are One. Jesus was God showing Himself to us in the body of a man. So, if you want to know God, study Jesus.     There’s much we cannot know about God. That’s to be expected. God is far too glorious and expansive and complex for my human mind to grasp or comprehend. If that were not true, if God could in fact fit into my puny little human brain, He wouldn’t be much of a God.   But there’s also much we can know about God. There is much that He has revealed to us. And, it’s imperative that we do wrestle with and come to an understanding of the great truths about Him that He has chosen to reveal. If we don’t do that, shame on us. What a great loss. There will have been things about God that we could have known and understood but didn’t, because we didn’t try.   Throughout the course of this Christmas month, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, we will think a lot about what Jesus Christ revealed to us about the nature of God. But we will also use this as an opportunity to go beyond just what Jesus Himself revealed. Scripture is packed full of deep, profound revelations about the nature of God, and we will explore many of those truths too.   I look forward to this month of exploring and discovering God with you.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up …” Luke 18:1 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Pray and don’t give up.”   Throughout this month we’ve considered numerous examples of mighty prayer warriors who persisted in prayer until they prevailed in prayer. Their persistence was the key to their prevailing. They refused to give up. Sometimes they had to pray for years without ceasing, but they refused to give up.   That was the lesson Jesus taught in Luke 18:1-8. It was the story of a poor widow who needed justice. The person she was appealing to was an unkind and uncaring judge who didn’t want to be bothered. But because the widow refused to give up, the judge ultimately granted her request just to make her go away.   The point of Jesus’ story was that if someone as unkind and uncaring as that judge would ultimately honor persistence, how much more will our kind and loving and compassionate heavenly Father do so? Luke even tells us in verse 1 that the point of the story was to teach us to persist in prayer and not give up. Jesus ended His parable in verse 8 by saying that such persistence is a sign of the faith that God is looking for.   Throughout the month we’ve also considered multiple reasons why God sometimes delays answers to our prayers. One is simply to hold us in prayer. Often the only time we pray with passion and fervor is when we need something. But ultimately, we need fellowship with God more than we need the specific answer to prayer. So, sometimes He will delay the answer just to keep us there with Him in prayer longer.   Other times there are things in the life of the one we’re praying for that need to happen or need to change before the prayer can be answered, and that change can take time – sometimes a lot of time. And also, there are often things in our own lives that need to change before God will grant the request.   All of us have things going on in our lives that we wish weren’t there; or we have loved ones we’re praying for; or there are numerous other prayer requests that seem vitally important to us and which we desperately want an answer to. The key is to keep praying. Don’t give up. It may take years. It may take a lifetime. It may turn out that we are better off that God doesn’t grant the request. We don’t know. What we do know is that Jesus teaches us to pray and to not give up. Persist in prayer until you prevail in prayer.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed.” Luke 5:16 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Structure and consistency are important”   Have you seen the 2015 movie, “The War Room”? Or, perhaps you’ve read the book. Both are excellent. The main character in “The War Room” is an older Christian lady by the name of Miss Clara. Clara is a committed prayer warrior and her practice of persistent prayer is powerful and contagious.   Clara’s “war room” is her place of prayer. It’s a special little room that’s reserved for her prayer time. It is secluded, quiet, and personal. In it she has lots of notes and pictures and stories about the people she’s praying for, and she also has mementos, pictures, stories, and letters regarding answered prayers and the resulting spiritual victories. As the story unfolds, we see Clara’s intercessory prayers for others having a powerful impact in the lives of numerous people. And also, her example inspires others to establish their own “war rooms” and to become powerful pray-ers themselves.   One of the keys to Clara’s success as a mighty prevailing pray-er was structure and consistency. She had a regular place to pray, she had regular times of prayer, she had lists and pictures and notes to guide her praying, and she was faithful to it. The structure and the consistency were keys to her effectiveness in prayer.   We humans thrive on structure and consistency in all areas of life, and that applies to our prayer lives too. Although we can and should pray spontaneously as well, it helps immensely if we also have regular times of scheduled prayer. And, it helps to have a designated place you go to for your prayer time – a place that is secluded, quiet, and conducive to prayer. Keeping a prayer list with notes is very helpful, and looking at pictures of the people you’re praying for adds depth and meaning to your prayers.   Luke 5:16 tells us that Jesus often withdrew to secluded places for sustained times of prayer. That means that it was His habit to do so. There was a time, there was a place, and there was consistency.   Structure and consistency are two of the elements that help to make a person a mighty prevailing prayer warrior. You will be a better pray-er if you are structured and consistent about it.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “Brothers and sisters, pray for us.” 1 Thessalonians 5:25 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Be among people who pray”   One of the ways to learn to be a mighty prevailing pray-er is to be among people who are. A great truth about human nature is that over time we become like those we associate with. If you hang around with bank robbers long enough, pretty soon you will probably be robbing banks too. If you spend a lot of time with people who like the Tennessee Titans, pretty soon you will be a Titans fan too. Likewise, if you spend a lot of time with people who believe in the power of prayer and who are committed pray-ers, soon you will be praying more too. We become like those we associate with.   At Oak Hill Baptist Church we believe in the power of prayer, and our congregation is made up of people who are committed to the ministry of mighty prevailing prayer. We’re one of those churches that still has a weekly prayer meeting. In fact, we have two of them – Sunday morning at 8:30 and Wednesday night at 6:00. We also have a prayer request list which is published in the Sunday bulletin each week and which many of us take home and use in our personal prayer time.   We also do something we call “prayer letters”. Often, when we pray for someone, we then write them a short letter telling them that we prayed for them, and it is signed by everyone who prayed. Those prayer letters are sent not just to our own members, but to their family members, friends, co-workers, and to people in places all around the country. We frequently get replies from people informing us of how touched they were to know we prayed for them.   Another thing that happens at our church because of our prayer ministry is what we read of Paul doing in 1 Thessalonians 5:25 (above). In that case, Paul knew the Thessalonian Christians were mighty pray-ers, and so he asked them for their prayers. We get that all the time too. People frequently contact us asking us to pray for them. And, we’re happy to oblige. Intercessory prayer is a privilege. We’re eager and willing to bring others before our heavenly Father’s throne of grace and to make requests on their behalf. If you attend our church for any length of time you’ll hear a lot about prayer, prayer requests, prayer letters, and answers to prayer.   I encourage all of us to be among people who pray. And if prayer is not a prominent part of the life of your church, then you be the one to begin changing that. You be the mighty prevailing pray-er, and then invite others to join you.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Learn to want what God wants”   In James 4:3 the Apostle tells us the primary reason our prayers do not get answered is that we ask with wrong motives, “You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” In 1 John 5:14-15 (above) we’re taught how to pray correctly – we’re to pray according to God’s will rather than our own.    This is an important passage of Scripture and it’s crucial for our understanding regarding mighty prayer that ultimately prevails. We are to pray according to God’s will. If the thing we’re asking for in prayer is in accordance with God’s will, then He will grant that request because it’s what He wants to have happen anyway.   So, the key to answered prayer is to shape our prayers to conform to God’s will. Simple, right? No. Not so simple. For one thing, often we don’t know God’s will for a given situation. That’s why we’re praying about it to begin with. Also, as was noted in a previous devotional in this series, our feelings and desires are devious little suckers. It’s pretty easy to convince ourselves that what we want must be what God wants, otherwise, we wouldn’t want it. We convince ourselves that our thoughts must be God’s thoughts, otherwise we wouldn’t be thinking them.   This is where persistent prayer becomes so valuable. God uses our time in prayer to draw us closer to His own heart. He uses our prayer-time to transform not only our thinking, but our heart and therefore our desires. As Richard Foster notes in the chapter about prayer in his great book “Celebration of Discipline”, “To ask rightly involves transformed passions. In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after him; to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills. Progressively, we are taught to see things from his point of view.”   The key to answered prayer is to ask rightly – to want what God wants. My problem is that I want what I want, not necessarily what God wants. So, in prayer I ask God to change my want-er. I want my want-er to be changed so that what I want is in line with what He wants. And the longer He holds me in prayer – the longer I stay right there with Him, drawn close to the heart of God, the more my want-er will change and the more I will want the things that He wants. I will be seeking His will instead of my own.   Prayer helps us to think the thoughts of God, it helps us to see things from His perspective. And the more we pray, the more we see it His way and the more we will want the things that He wants.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”

Our Bible verse for today: “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Don’t let your feelings fool you”

Have you ever heard the audible voice of God? No? Neither have I. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has. God doesn’t typically speak to us audibly. “So then”, you might wonder, “what was Isaiah referring to in Isaiah 30:21 when he told the Jews that their ears would hear a voice behind them saying …” What voice were they supposedly hearing if not the voice of God?

Good question. Personally, I think it was what 1 Kings 19:12 refers to as “the still small voice of God”. Some translations refer to it as “a divine whisper”. But that doesn’t mean audible. The still small voice of God is more of a subtle awareness of thoughts being impressed upon you by the Holy Spirit. It’s the slow dawning of understanding that God is putting His thoughts in your mind. However, it is subtle and it is easily misunderstood. All too often we confuse our feelings with what we believe to be a word from God, and we then go off convinced that we have heard from God when in fact, we have only heard from ourselves.

Over time, as we grow in spiritual maturity and our relationship with God deepens, we can learn to distinguish between our feelings and God speaking to us, but we have to be careful. Our feelings and desires are devious little suckers and they will mislead us if we let them. It’s easy to conclude that because we want something, or because we think something, that something must be from God. Many times, it is not.

The way we guard against that is by utilizing the other methods of hearing from God that we considered in yesterday’s devotional. Don’t just rely on what you think you may be hearing from God in prayer. First, check it against Scripture. Remember, prayer is the primary way we speak to God, but the Bible is the primary way God speaks to us, and God will never lead us to think, do, or say anything that in any way is in conflict with His written Word to us. Also check your understanding by seeking the counsel of other Christians whose judgment and spiritual maturity you trust.

The voice of God is almost never audible to our ears. And that “still small voice” or “divine whisper” is subtle and can easily be confused with our feelings. Don’t let your feelings fool you. Ask God to confirm His word to you in one or two other ways. He does and will speak to us, but we have to understand how He speaks, and then we need to listen in those ways.

God bless,

Pastor Jim  

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:3-6 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “Giving thanks for you”   I love the joy and the sense of thanksgiving that Paul expressed for his Philippian brothers and sisters as he opened his letter to them in Philippians 1:3-6. And I want you to know that what Paul felt for the Philippians, I feel for you. I thank God for you, the faithful readers of these daily devotional messages. I pray for you frequently and I consider you to be partners in the gospel ministry (especially those of you who share these devotional messages with others each day by reposting them on your own Facebook page, and by forwarding them to others in your email address book.) And I too believe and pray that God will continue to poor out His blessings upon you as He continues the good work He has been doing in your life. May you be richly blessed.   This morning I also want to share another Thanksgiving thought with you, and a Thanksgiving concern – a concern that is a deep burden for me as a Christian, as a Pastor, and as a citizen of the United States of America.  This past Sunday, November 21st, at Oak Hill Baptist Church, I preached a sermon about being thankful for the church. I spoke about the role the Church of Jesus Christ has played in the history of the world over the last 2000 years, and why it is that everyone everywhere should be thankful for the profound positive impact the Church has had, and continues to have, on the entire world.   I also spoke about the role the Church has had on the history and development of our country, and why it is that every American, regardless of their personal faith, should be thankful for the positive impact the Church has had in our society over the course of our history. But then I ended with my concern about the state of the Church in our nation today. My friends, the Church in our country today is struggling and it is in trouble. And that means our nation is in trouble. This is something that should greatly concern all of us and we should all want to do something to help correct it.   The good news is that there are things that all of us can do about it and I hope and pray that we will. That sermon is available on our church website at www.oakhillbaptist.net and I would encourage you to watch it. The church is a blessing to the world, to our country, to our communities, to our families, and in our individual lives. We should all be thankful for it and we should all want the church to be healthy and strong and making a positive impact for the cause of Christ.      On this Thanksgiving morning, my family and I want to wish you and your family a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Persistent prayer can be a journey of discovery”   Persistent prayer over an extended period of time regarding a specific issue can be a time of discovery for us. Often, as we spend time with the Lord thinking and praying about a person or situation, the Holy Spirit will lead us to greater and greater understanding about it.   Perhaps it would be helpful to visualize your journey of discovery as the descent into a deep cave. The deeper you go the more you discover. That’s what persistent prayer about a person or situation can be like. Yesterday we considered the five ways in which God typically speaks to us. Today I want to briefly comment on each of them and show how each can add to the depth of our journey of discovery.   Prayer is the starting place. But prayer can and should consist of more than just us speaking to God. When seeking answers in prayer, we can supplement it with a prayerful search of the Bible as we look for verses and passages that pertain to the issue we’re praying about. Prayer is the primary way we speak to God. The Bible is the primary way that God speaks to us. Combine the two and you’ve got a conversation going on.   God also speaks to us through the circumstances of our lives. Carefully and prayerfully consider if perhaps God is telling you something by the circumstances you find yourself in. Was there inappropriate conduct or bad decisions that brought you to this point and if so, does something in your life need to change? Also, if the circumstances require that a decision be made and action be taken, remember that God is amazingly consistent in our lives. Almost always one thing leads to another, like stepping stones. So, if you’re looking for the way forward, take a moment to look backward and consider how the choices you are faced with now line up with what God has already been doing in your life. That then will often point you to the way forward.   God also speaks to us through the wise counsel of other Christians. Ask others to pray for you and with you about your situation. Then ask them to share their thoughts with you about it. Finally, sometimes God uses the entire church to speak a word of affirmation, such as a call to ministry or perhaps to missions, or it could be a word of caution and correction.   All of the steps we’ve just considered take time and effort. And typically, the answer or revelation we’re seeking unfolds progressively over time. But as has been previously noted, one reason God does it that way is to hold us in prayer, and therefore in fellowship with Himself. Mighty prayer that prevails is often mighty prayer that first persisted.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart. I will be found by you – this is the Lord’s declaration.” Jeremiah 29:13-14 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “How serious are you about hearing from God?”   One of the most exciting truths I have ever learned about God came to me when I was a fairly new Christian. In the Bible study “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God”, Henry Blackaby taught that one of the greatest truths revealed in Scripture is that God wants to be heard and understood by His people so we can then obey Him.   That made so much sense to me. Obviously, in order for us to obey God He first needs to make Himself heard and understood by us. That must mean that God does speak to us and that we can learn to understand Him. Evidently, hearing from God isn’t as mysterious and difficult as it might at first seem.   But it does take time. We have to want to hear from God and we have to spend the time to place ourselves in a position before Him whereby He can and will speak to us. That’s the thought He was expressing in Jeremiah 29:13-14. You will seek Him and find Him when you search for Him with all of your heart. In other words, no half efforts. Hearing from God and connecting with Him must involve more than a quick mumbled prayer as you rush out the door in the morning. It must involve more than just absent-mindedly reciting the Bible verse scribbled on the note card pinned to the sun visor in the car.   If you were to study Henry’s Bible study Experiencing God (I hope you will), you will learn that God typically speaks to us in five basic ways – through the Bible, through prayer, through the circumstances of our lives, through the counsel of other Christians, and through the testimony of the church. Almost always, when He’s trying to get our attention so He can say something to us, He will say it more than once and in more than one way. And, He will typically reveal it to us progressively, over time. Henry writes, “He is more likely to call you to follow one day at a time than He is to spell out all the details before you begin to obey Him.”   In other words, as we’ve already discussed in previous devotionals in this series, God wants to hold us in prayer so we will continue to have fellowship with Him. If He were to quickly reveal the full answer to us, we would probably go on our merry way and forget all about Him.   So that then begs the question, “How serious are you about hearing from God?” Serious enough to spend the time and to make the effort to seek Him with all of your heart and in multiple ways? Serious enough to persist in prayer until you prevail in prayer? He does want to be heard and understood by us, but we do have to make the effort. More about this tomorrow.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Mighty Prevailing Prayer”   Our Bible verse for today: “Be still, and know that I am God …” Psalm 46:10   Our thought for today: “Be still”   For the last ten days I was supposed to have been being still. I’m recovering from surgery and my instructions were to minimize all activity for the first week, and then take it easy for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, there have been a couple of complications. Nothing serious, but my recovery isn’t happening as fast as I want it too. During the follow-up appointment the other day my doctor told me my problem is that I’m not resting enough and I’m not letting my body heal. I’m trying to do too much too soon.   I realized after the appointment that that’s always my problem. I never rest enough and I’m always trying to do too much. That’s just my life. It’s been obvious during this time of recuperation (painfully obvious) that I simply cannot sit still. I need to be active.   Honestly, I have tried to be still and to take it easy. Right now, during my time of recovery, I’m actually reading a book about slowing down and resting. The title is “When Strivings Cease” by Ruth Chou Simons. In one respect, it’s a little funny because it’s a bona fide chic-book. It is. The thing is all soft pastel colors with frilly illustrations and curly-Q doodles all throughout. It was written by a woman for women and she unapologetically makes no effort to include men in anything she says. But even as a man, I’m enjoying it anyway.   The title of chapter three is “Just Amazing Enough to Not Need Grace”. Ruth writes about her own over-achiever tendencies and how she is always striving to do just one more thing, and to do it a little better than the last time she did it. She writes, “If I am honest, I’d say I spent much of my early Christian life singing ‘Amazing Grace’ while living like the words were actually ‘God, let me be so amazing that I won’t need grace.” Uh huh. That’s me. I fully trust God, while attempting to do it all myself anyway. I love the song “Amazing Grace”, but I often allow little room in my life to simply relax and enjoy the graces of God.   Psalm 46 (above) is about a world in chaos, and it describes striving on a global scale. But verse 10 calls a halt to it all. Verse 10 demands that we take a breather and reflect on the profound truth that God is God and I am not.   Sometimes mighty prevailing prayer involves just being still and doing nothing – and that’s exactly what I’m going to do today – nothing, right after I send out this devotional, finish my sermon for tomorrow, walk the dogs, pay the bills, and rake some leaves (my wife says I’m hopeless but I don’t know what she’s talking about).   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2021 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.