Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Trusting in God’s sovereignty makes us strong.”   The doctrine of the sovereignty of God is broad, sweeping, and all-encompassing. It means that God is supreme – He is the creator, sustainer, and ruler of all creation. But it’s also more than that. God is everywhere (omnipresent); He knows everything (omniscient); and He is all-powerful (omnipotent). That means that there is nothing in all creation that He is not aware of and which He does not have control over. That includes all the situations of your life and mine. There will never be anything going on in your life that God is not aware of, and which He doesn’t have full control over.   Beyond that, God is good and loving. He is also kind, compassionate, merciful, and He is always seeking the best for us. Combine those attributes with His sovereign rule over your life, and we begin to understand what Paul is telling us in Romans 8:28. Whatever is going on in your life at this moment God is there, He is at work in the middle of it, and He will use that situation to bring some good thing out of it. That doesn’t mean that the thing itself is good. It may not be. But it does mean that God is at work behind the scenes and in the middle of it to bring good things out of it.   When we come to the point that we understand the full scope of God’s sovereignty, along with His tremendous love for us and His infinite goodness, we realize that we can trust Him with our situations. Then, if we will release the situation to Him and trust Him with the outcome, we will find peace about it, and that will make us stronger.   Many years ago I was at a large international missions conference as a representative of the mission organization I was on staff at. It was a dark time in my personal life. There were complicated issues that were weighing heavily on me. At one point, as I was on a break from my duties at our booth in the resource/display area, I wandered into the host church and discovered they had set-up a prayer-walk (sort of a thematic maze that led you from station-to-station, each with a focal point of prayer). The entire thing was designed with people like me in mind, people who had a burden they needed to let go of. At one station there was a cross with medium-sized stones at the foot of it. A bin to the side of the cross contained more stones. The instructions at the station were to pray about the burden you were carrying, consider it in light of the sovereignty of God, and then, as an act of faith and trust, take one of the stones out of the bin and lay it at the cross as a symbol of releasing that burden (and the outcome) to God.   I did, and I was amazed at the sudden wave of relief I felt. So much so that I took another of those stones and brought it home with me to serve as a reminder to trust God for the outcome of this particular situation, and for all my situations. (To this day that stone sits on a shelf in my office. I’m looking at it now as I write this.)   Trusting in God’s sovereign goodness will bring peace and relief, and it also makes us strong. I encourage you to trust Him today with whatever difficult thing you are dealing with.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh cry out for the living God … Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” Psalm 84:1-2; 10 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “We’re better together”   The other day my personal Bible reading brought me to Psalm 84 and as it always does, the Psalm reminded me of my old friend Dick DeGrow. Dick was a retired pastor who was a member of Bancroft Baptist Church in Spring Valley, CA when I arrived there in the mid-1990s as a brand-new pastor. I was a retired Naval officer with a couple of college degrees, but I had little experience as a pastor. Dick had served many years as a pastor and at that time he was a deacon and Sunday school teacher, and he also served as the church custodian.   Dick was a kind and gentle man, soft-spoken and very wise. I quickly discovered that he would be a great source of counsel and assistance to me, and so we had lunch together every Thursday. Each of us would bring a brown bag lunch and we would go to one of the Sunday school rooms. We would eat and talk for an hour. I learned so much about being a pastor during those lunches!   All these decades later there are two specific encounters with Dick that still stand out in my mind. The first happened on a day I was in my office writing a sermon. There was a soft knock on the door, it opened, and Dick stuck his head in. He was there, as always, to clean the church. With a warm smile he said “How’s my Pastor this morning? Is there anything I can do for you?” I looked at him for a moment and said, “Dick, why are you still cleaning the church at your age? You don’t need to be doing this.” He smiled and paraphrased Psalm 84:10 by saying, “Pastor, I would rather clean toilets in the house of the Lord than to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.” Then with another warm smile he said, “Have a good day”, and he went happily about the business of cleaning the church.     The other event occurred during one of our lunches. I commented on the fact that if the doors of the church were opened, if there was any event going on at all, Dick and his wife Jean were always there. They missed nothing. To that Dick replied, “Pastor, gathering with our church family makes us stronger. The more time we spend with other Christians the better it is for us. As Christians we’re better together. We make each other strong.”   Wise words. Great truth. The fact is that we need each other. We need to be together. I encourage you to gather with your church family this Sunday. We need each other and we make each other stronger. We’re better together.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “When the Philistine started forward to attack him, David ran quickly to the battle line to meet the Philistine.” 1 Samuel 17:48 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Do something rather than nothing.”   In these last few devotional messages, I’ve stayed with the story of David and Goliath because it’s such a great example of being strong in the Lord and experiencing victory as a result. In today’s verse, 1 Samuel 17:48 (above), we find David demonstrating one of the keys to being strong – he did something about his problem. For forty days the rest of the army of Israel had been looking at this same problem (Goliath) but not doing anything about it. Consequently, the problem didn’t get solved. David viewed the exact same problem, gathered some stones for his sling, trusted in the Lord for victory, and then went forward and did something about the problem.   In his great little book “Overcomer”, Dr. David Jeremiah challenges us with the thought, “No matter what the world throws at you – anxiety, fear, confusion, temptation – you have a choice on how to respond. You can concede defeat or live in the victory God promises you.” Wise words. You have a choice to make. Will you shrink from your challenges, procrastinate, rationalize about why it makes sense to do nothing rather than something, or will you take action and do something about it? Even if you don’t have the entire problem figured out from start to finish, almost always there is something that can be done to make the situation better.   Procrastination in the face of problems and challenges is usually a spiritual issue first. We need to come to the point, as David did, that we trust God to provide us with the wisdom and strength needed to deal with it. Get that straight in your head and in your heart and the battle is half-won. Then if you actually take that faith in God and turn it into action on your part, you’re well on your way to victory.   How should we deal with our challenges in life? The story of David and Goliath teaches us to run toward our problems rather than away from them. I encourage you to take action. Doing something is almost always better than doing nothing.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “In Your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale a wall.” Psalm 18:29 (NLT)   Our thought for today: “Pray to become a stronger person”   This morning I want to take us back to the scene from yesterday’s devotional from 1 Samuel 17:45-46. There we read about how the boy David ran forward to engage the giant Goliath in battle. The entire army of Israel had spent weeks shrinking back from and cowering before Goliath, but David boldly went forward, engaged him in battle, and defeated him. David made it clear from the start that it was in the power and strength of the Lord that his victory was achieved. It was God who gave him the courage and the strength to prevail in the face of overwhelming odds.    Many years later David wrote the words of Psalm 18:29, “In Your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale a wall.” What David wrote in Psalm 18:29 was the truth he had experienced in his battle with Goliath, and then in multiple other battles over the unfolding years. David had learned, through personal experience, that as long as he was standing with God the odds against him didn’t matter. And the more David experienced that, the more he learned to rely on God.   What was true in David’s life is true in ours too. We learn to trust in God rather than in ourselves by trusting in God rather than in ourselves. But here’s an important truth about that: In order to experience those victories, we have to engage in the battles. Any member of the army of Israel could have experienced the victory over Goliath that David had if they had done what David did. But they didn’t. They shrank from the challenge and cowered in fear while David trusted in the Lord, boldly went forward, engaged in the battle, and experienced the victory.   Too often we pray for God to take our challenges away rather than asking Him to give us the strength to deal with them. The great pastor and leader from another century, Philipps Brooks, once urged his people, “Do not pray for easy lives. Pay to be stronger people! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks.”   If God were to take all your struggles away you would never learn to trust Him for the victory and you would never get bolder and stronger. So rather than asking Him to take your challenge away, ask Him instead to give you the strength to handle it and then go boldly forward and deal with it.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “David said to the Philistine: ‘You come against me with a sword, spear, and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel – you have defied him. Today, the Lord will hand you over to me.” 1 Samuel 17:45-46 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “If you’re standing with God then the odds don’t matter.”   I love the way Dr. David Jeremiah describes the encounter between David and Goliath in his book “Overcomer”. Goliath was a giant in the Philistine army. The Bible tells us that he was nine feet tall, bulging muscles, covered in armor, a seasoned warrior, and carrying the most advanced weapons a solider in that day could possess. David was a puny teenager, short and slight, and he had no weapons of any significance. The passage in 1 Samuel tells us that he was “just a youth, healthy and handsome.”, and when Goliath saw him, he scoffed and despised David.    David went out to meet Goliath in battle and should have been in fear for his life, but instead he was bold, confident, and courageous. You can read what he said about that in 17:45-46 (above). The difference between David and Goliath, as noted by David Jeremiah, was, “… the three terms describing Goliath are all physical: size, sight, and shout. But the three terms describing David are all spiritual: conviction, courage, and confidence.”   Goliath was relying on his own strength, but David was relying on the Lord. Goliath was confident in himself, but David was confident in God. And although by worldly standards Goliath should have easily won this battle, if you know the story then you know it ended with Goliath dead and David the hero. Goliath’s mistake was that he relied on himself. David’s key to victory was that he relied on God.   What was true for David in his battle with Goliath is also true for us in our own battles. As we learned in yesterday’s devotional, if God is for us who can be against us? What can men do to us?   In His sovereign wisdom and according to His plan, it was God’s will for David to defeat Goliath. David did his part – he showed up for the battle despite the odds, he turned the outcome over to God, and then he boldly went forward and engaged in the fight. Likewise, God can slay your giants, part your Red Seas, defeat your enemies, and overcome your obstacles. You just do your part – show up, be bold, engage, and then trust Him for the outcome.   If you’re standing with God, then the odds don’t matter.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” Isaiah 40:29 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “Since God is for you, it doesn’t matter who or what is against you.”   Sometimes, when we speak of God being the source of our strength, I think we do so in an off-handed and casual manner, without really giving much thought to what it is we’re claiming to be true. If we’re not careful, it can become one of our throw-away lines, something of a cliché. That’s unfortunate because the strength of the Lord can and should be a very real and very powerful force in our lives.   Not long ago a friend gave me a copy of the little prayer book “The Valley of Vision”. It’s a collection of prayers from Puritan leaders, most of them written in the mid-to-late 1600s. I read one the other day which speaks in a direct and personal way about the power of God in our lives:   “O Lord God, thou art my protecting arm, fortress, refuge, shield, buckler. Fight for me, and my foes must flee. Uphold me, and I cannot fall; Strengthen me, and I stand unmoved, unmoveable; Equip me, and I shall receive no wound; Stand by me, and Satan will depart; Anoint my lips with a song of salvation, and I shall shout thy victory.”   What great truth! If the Lord fights for me, my foes are defeated. If He upholds me, I cannot fall. If He strengthens me, I am strong and unmoveable. If He protects me, I’m bulletproof. And if He stands with me, Satan and his minions are powerless.   As Christians this is the power and strength that is ours, and it is exactly the point the writer of the letter to the Hebrews was making when he wrote in Hebrews 13:6, “So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can men do to me?’”   There is nothing you will face today that you and God cannot handle together. If He is for you, it won’t matter who or what is against you.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength. He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in heaven …” Ephesians 1:18-20 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “The power of the risen Christ is in you”   The same power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in you. That’s what Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:18-20 (above). He taught the same truth in a slightly different way in Romans 8:11, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.”   What an astounding thought. The miraculous power that God used to restore life to the physical body of Jesus and to raise Him from the dead, is the same power that is at work in each of our lives. Incredible!   If you’re a follower of Christ then that power is in you, but it gets manifested in each of our lives in more subtle, less dramatic ways than being raised from the dead. The power of God at work in us is usually more a matter of a slow, steady, and lifelong transformation from the person we used to be into the person God wants us to be (I know I’m not yet who I should be, but thank God I’m not who I used to be!). It also manifests itself in progressively changed values and perspectives (a Biblical worldview). And sometimes we see it in bigger ways like being cured from a serious illness, or a returning prodigal child, or a new and better job exactly when we needed it.   Also, how much of His power we experience in our lives is determined by how close we stay to Him and how much opportunity we give Him to work in our lives. You do have to place yourself in a position before God whereby He can have His way in your life.   This Sunday is Easter Sunday. We will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and we will talk about the miraculous power of God that restored Him to life, and which is also at work in each of our lives. I invite you to join us at Oak Hill Baptist Church, either in-person or online at http://www.oakhillbaptist.net. We will have a COVID-safe Easter breakfast buffet at 9:00 in the Fellowship Hall, and then our Easter celebration service will begin at 10:00.   Christ is risen! And the power that raised Him from the dead is also at work in us. This is a truth we need to celebrate. It’s something we need to worship Him for. I encourage you to join us.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “Do not grieve, because the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “The joy of the Lord will be your strength.”   I once had a co-worker by the name of Bob. Bob had a sports accident as a teenager which broke his neck and rendered him a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. With the exception of limited use of both hands, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He spent his days in a motorized wheelchair and needed assistance with almost all daily tasks.   However, Bob was one of the most determined, irrepressible, and joyful people I knew. When I knew him he was in his 40s, and had been in that wheelchair for almost twenty-five years. But he never allowed that to stop him from living a full life. He learned how to drive his own specially equipped van; he worked as a Marriage and Family Counselor in a counseling center; he was a committed Christian who sang in the choir and sometimes taught adult Bible studies; and despite his limitations and restrictions, Bob glowed with optimism and joy. He often told me what a blessed man he was and how much he enjoyed living.   His secret? Bob stayed close to the Lord, and as a result, he had the joy of the Lord – and that made him strong. Rather than lamenting what he couldn’t do and what he didn’t have, Bob was grateful for the things he could do and for all that he did have. That attitude, and that continuous focus on the Lord, made Bob joyful and strong.   In Nehemiah chapter eight we’re reading about a time when some of the dispersed Jews had been allowed to return to Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the city and the temple. Seventy years earlier they had all been taken into captivity and the city had been destroyed. Now, as they viewed the ruins and the huge task in front of them, they could have been depressed and they could have been lamenting all that they had lost. Instead, Ezra the priest read to them from the book of the law of Moses, and then he told them to be grateful for the fact that they were back in Jerusalem. He said they were to celebrate and be joyful, because being joyful in the Lord would provide them with the strength they needed to deal with the challenges in front of them.   What was true for those ancient Israelites and for my old friend Bob is true for us as well. Regardless of what you are facing, give thanks to the Lord, stay focused on Him, find your joy in Him, and that will make you strong.   The joy of the Lord will be your strength!   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Stay strong”   Our Bible verse for today: “Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Find your strength in the Lord.”   Throughout most of my twenties and thirties I was a committed weightlifter. I spent two hours a day in the gym, six days a week. My hero was Arnold Schwarzenegger. My bible was his classic book “The Education of a Body-Builder”, which was an excellent guide for an aspiring body builder.   In truth, I was never really that big. I was never even close to being a competitive body-builder. But I did have big biceps, and I could lift hundreds of pounds of weights, and I did have that silly habit so many body-builders adopt of wearing tee-shirts one size too small in an attempt to make their muscles appear to be exploding out of their shirt. (Don’t judge. You’ve done embarrassing things of your own and you know it. Remember those short-short hot pants from the 70s?)   While it is true that maintaining a reasonable amount of physical strength is important at all stages of life, getting carried away with it isn’t necessary or helpful. In later years I discovered that there’s a different kind of strength that’s much more necessary and infinitely more helpful. It’s spiritual strength. While being strong in your body is important and needed, being strong in your spirit is even more important.   All this month we will explore the topic of being and staying strong. We will briefly discuss various aspects of physical strength, and the stewardship responsibility we have from the Lord to take good care of the body He has given us, but most of our discussion will be about spiritual strength.   It is important to be strong, but as Isaiah teaches in Isaiah 43:30-31 (above), we need to find our strength in the Lord. I’m looking forward to exploring this important and helpful topic with you.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “The power of hope”   Our Bible verse for today: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “This is our hope, our confident assurance.”   Psalm 46:1 has long been a favorite of mine. The Psalm is a great source of hope and assurance as it reminds us that God is always with us, He is always for us, He is sovereign over all the events of our lives, and He is our refuge – especially during the worst of times. That’s what verse one tells us.     The Psalmist goes on in verses 2-3, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” Here he pictures cataclysmic events. The worst of times. And yet, we do not fear, because God is our refuge and strength.   Verses 4-7, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” The city referred to here could be Jerusalem of old, but the real point of these verses is to emphasize the refreshing rivers of blessings being poured out by God in the midst of the uproar and turbulence of the world.   Verses 10-11, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” Be still and know that He is God. He is with you, He is powerful, and He is sovereign over whatever it is you are dealing with. This is our hope, it is our confident assurance. Jesus said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Hebrews 13:5-6   Hope is a powerful force. It enables us to live boldly, and with confidence and peace even as we face tough times and an uncertain future. It’s my prayer that this month of devotional messages about hope have been a blessing and encouragement to you. It really is true that the Lord is our hope – our confident assurance.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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