Oak Hill Baptist Church

God has emotions

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it …” Luke 19:41 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God has emotions”

This morning I want us to continue our thinking from the past few days about the love, mercy, kindness, and compassion we experience with our Father in heaven. As was noted, that’s what He wants His default mode to be in His relationship with us. That’s how He wants to be known by us.

Unfortunately, all too often, people think of God as some kind of celestial rule-making notetaking scorekeeper at best; or as a cold, stern, and sometimes harsh disciplinarian at worst. But although He does have standards of conduct He expects us to obey, and although tough love is sometimes what is called for, His preferred role with us is that of warm, comforting Father.

People are sometimes surprised to discover that God has emotions just as we do, and those emotions of God are often expressed in surprising ways. The parable of the Prodigal Son is just one example. The scene in Luke 19:41 (above) is another. In this case Jesus (God in a human body), weeps. He cries.

There are actually three occasions in the New Testament when we read of Jesus weeping. In this case, He was weeping about the pain and suffering the people of Jerusalem were bringing on themselves by their poor choices. They were not being faithful to God and were instead living in ways that were harming themselves and others. They were bringing pain and suffering upon themselves, and the thought of His people suffering like that caused Jesus to weep. He was grieved at the thought of what they were doing to themselves and what they were bringing into their lives as a result of such conduct. (I think you can see the application here for us and for our lives).

We also read of Jesus (God) weeping in John 11:35. This time He was weeping because His friend Lazarus had died. Some Bible commentators believe his tears were the result of His own grief over the loss of His beloved friend. Others believe His tears were for the grief Mary and Martha were experiencing. Others think Jesus wept over His sadness that death exists at all. My answer is “Yes – probably all three.” The point is that God feels your pain, because it’s His pain too.

The third time we read of Jesus (God) weeping is in Hebrews 5:7-9. That passage reveals that in the Garden of Gethsemane, as He was pleading for the Father to allow Him to avoid the suffering of the cross, Jesus wept for Himself. He wanted to avoid it so badly, if at all possible, that He wept.

What’s the lesson in all of this? Just that God is not some cold, stoic, unfeeling, and distant celestial scorekeeper. Instead, His emotions of love, kindness, compassion, and mercy are on full display all throughout Scripture – and that’s how He wants us to know Him.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

The love, mercy, and compassion of God

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.” Psalm 103:8 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The love, mercy, and compassion of God”

Yesterday we spent some time thinking about the parable of the Prodigal Son. To help set the scene and the tone for that devotional, I asked us all to first listen to the Chris Tomlin song, “Good, Good, Father”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak0OoFBw3c) It would be helpful to listen to it again this morning because it’s such a beautiful and touching portrayal of what a loving, kind, merciful, and compassionate Father we have in heaven. There’s a good reason Jesus chose to describe the Father like that to us. It’s because that’s how He wants us to know Him.

Many people have trouble imagining God like that because that’s not the kind of relationship they had with their human father. The kind of relationship we had with our human fathers often sets the tone for the way we think about our Father in heaven. Sadly, all too often, our human fathers were stern and demanding, often angry, and sometimes worse. Those memories can color how we think of God as Father.

Beyond that, the Bible itself provides us with other attributes of God that we sometimes find troubling. In some places we read of his anger and wrath, of judgment and discipline, even of hellfire and eternal damnation. So, what do we do with that?

First, we need to realize that the attribute of God that we get to experience in any given moment is the one that is most appropriate to our situation at that time. Sometimes anger, wrath, judgment, or discipline is what is called for. But that’s not God’s default mode with us. Those things only happen when absolutely necessary and when we have left Him no other way to deal with us.

The reason Jesus chose to show us the Father the way He did in the story of the Prodigal Son is because that’s how God wants us to know Him. That’s His default mode with us. The overwhelming weight of Scripture reveals to us a God who loves us eternally, grieves for us when we suffer and struggle, cares about us, reaches out to us, draws us to Himself, and wants us to be with Him in a deep and intimate love relationship. That’s the great truth being communicated in Psalm 103:8 (above). This is how God wants to be known by us.

We’ll think more about this in the days to come. For now, I encourage all of us to spend some time just being with God and enjoying our relationship with Him. You might even want to listen to the Chris Tomlin song again.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

He’s a good, good Father

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “He is a good, good Father”

Have you heard the song by Christian singer / songwriter Chris Tomlin called, “Good, Good Father”? I encourage you to take a few minutes to listen to it. You can Google it or click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak0OoFBw3c It’s a beautiful song which reminds us of what a warm, loving, kind, compassionate, and merciful Father we have in Heaven. Listening to that song now will set the tone for the rest of what I want us to think about this morning.

In yesterday’s devotional I noted that in addition to coming to earth to die upon the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, another reason Jesus came was to live among us and to help us better understand who our Heavenly Father is and what He is like. Probably my favorite parable from Jesus which shows us the Father is the story of the Prodigal Son, found in Luke 15:11-32.

In that story we’re introduced to a rebellious son (sometimes me and you), and to another son who is cold and hard (also sometimes me and you), and to a loving, kind, and compassionate father (God). At one point the rebellious son gathers up all that is his, leaves home, and goes off to live a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (or the first-century equivalent).

Finally, this younger son, stuck deep in the muck and mire of life, comes to his senses and decides to go home to his father, ask for forgiveness, and offer himself to his father as a slave. His thinking was that his father deserved a much better son than he had been and because of what he did he was completely unworthy of even being called a child of the father – much less enjoying the privileges of being part of his family.

But we discover that the father didn’t see it that way at all. It turns out that the Father had been deeply concerned about his missing son. Each day he had scanned the horizon praying and hoping that one day his son would return to him; and when that day came, that honored, dignified, highly respected father hiked up his robe, tucked it between his legs, and ran down the road to embrace his son and welcome him home. Such a scene would have been shocking in that culture. Men of his stature didn’t hike up their robes, and they didn’t run, and they didn’t simply welcome back a rebellious child like that.

But the point of Jesus’ story is that our Father in heaven loves us that much. He is that concerned about us, He wants us back with Him, and He will forgive us and welcome us home. He is a good, good Father. He is kind, compassionate, merciful, and forgiving. He loves us.

Do you know Him like that? I hope you do because that is who He is, and that’s why Jesus told this story about Him, so you can know Him like that.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Jesus and the Father are One

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 1^st 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

Pray and don’t give up

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

Structure and consistency are important

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

Be among people who pray

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

Learn to want what God wants

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

Don’t let feelings fool you (11/24/21)

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

Thankful for you

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 21^st, 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