Oak Hill Baptist Church

Devotional for Wednesday October 14th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Embrace the forgiveness.”

1 John 1:9 is an important verse of scripture, one which we should all have memorized. Here John (who was known as “The Apostle of Love”) reminds us of a vitally important aspect of God’s love, His willingness to completely forgive us if we will simply and genuinely confess and repent of our sins.

God doesn’t want to hold our sins against us. He has expressed His heart about this numerous times throughout the Bible. In Isaiah 1:18 He said, “Come, let us settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be whiter than snow; though they are crimson red, they will be like wool.” He is saying that if you confess and repent you will be whiter than snow in His sight.

We read something similar in Psalm 103:11-12, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” As a function of His great love for you, He removes your sins from you as far as the east is from the west. In others words, infinity. Your sins are removed from you as far as they could possibly be. And, just to put an exclamation point on this, here’s Hebrews 8:12, “For I will forgive their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.”

Those are just a few of the many places in the Bible where God assures us of His willingness, indeed, His deep desire, to forgive us. The problem for many of us is that we don’t really and fully accept that forgiveness. We don’t embrace it and then live like we have been forgiven. Instead, we allow ourselves to wallow in guilt and regret, and we’re often haunted by our past. But that shouldn’t be. If God has forgiven us then we should forgive ourselves and move on in life.

We’ll continue thinking about this tomorrow.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Tuesday October 13th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:32 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Forgiveness and restoration is an act of love.”

Is there a pain greater than to be betrayed by someone you love and trust? I suspect not. We can accept and deal with wounds from an enemy, but the betrayal of a loved one feels like a knife in the heart. Jesus experienced this twice in His earthly ministry. Two of His closest disciples badly betrayed Him, Judas and Peter. Judas turned Him over to the religious authorities and helped to arrange for His arrest ((Luke 22:1-6). After the arrest, Peter denied three times that He even knew Jesus (Luke 22:54-62).

The difference between Judas and Peter was that Peter confessed and repented of His betrayal, but Judas never did. In Matthew 27:1-10 we read that Judas was in fact remorseful, and he did regret what he had done, but He never went back to Jesus and asked for forgiveness. Instead he went out and hung himself. Peter on the other hand went to the resurrected Jesus, professed his love for Him three times, and was fully restored in his relationship with the Lord (John 21:15-23). He then went on to have a productive life of ministry and he was a blessing to many people. That’s what Jesus had been praying for with respect to Peter in Luke 22:32.

No matter what you have done, you can be forgiven. The relationship can be restored and you can go on to great things in life. But you do have to confess, repent, and change your ways. That is certainly true with respect to our relationship with God, but it is also true in our relationships with other people – especially those we are close to and who we have wronged. Full confession with no excuses, combined with a genuine desire to avoid similar sin or betrayal in the future, and with a sincere effort to correct the damage if possible, all can lead to full restoration and a much better future. Again, that’s true with God in the larger sense, but it’s also true in our relationships with other people.

Too often we try to repent quietly and privately, in our own head, usually with a resolve to not do the thing again. But that’s only going half-way in your repentance. That makes us like Judas, being remorseful internally but without making an effort to make things right with those we have wronged. That wasn’t sufficient for Judas and it’s not enough for us either. I personally think Jesus would have forgiven Judas if he had only sought forgiveness. But, sadly, he didn’t.

Forgiveness, followed by restoration, is an act of love. But as was noted in yesterday’s devotional, confession and repentance is the prelude to restoration. God’s love for you is unconditional, that’s true, but if there is unresolved sin then the relationship is still damaged. If you don’t confess and repent, you don’t get restored. Just ask Judas.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Monday October 12th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! I say, “The Lord is my portion therefore I will put my hope in him.” Lamentations 3:22-24 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God’s love and compassion never end.”

Lamentations 3:22-24 is an extraordinary statement of faith and hope in the midst of disaster and desolation. For generations God had been warning the people of Israel that their sinful ways were leading them to terrible consequences. The prophet Jeremiah had spent his entire ministry, (almost forty years up to this point spanning the reigns of five kings) warning the people that actions have consequences and that their sinful ways were leading them to ruin. But the people didn’t listen.

Now, in the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah is wandering the rubble-strewn streets of a Jerusalem that has been sacked, looted, and destroyed. Most of the people had been carried off into captivity in pagan lands. But despite that, Jeremiah knew that God is a forgiving God and that although the people would have to suffer the consequences of their poor choices, God was still prepared to forgive them and restore them when the price was paid and the time was right.

We all have times of failure in our lives which bring consequences we would rather avoid. Usually we have to simply pay the price for what we’ve done, then get up, dust off, and move forward in life. The good news is that God is always ready to forgive and restore us. God always has our good at heart, and He’s always ready to lead us to better and brighter days.

We’re going to spend the next several days exploring the great truth that God expresses His love for us through forgiveness and restoration. It really is true that God’s love and compassion never end but as was noted in yesterday’s devotional, it’s incumbent on us to come back to Him – full confession and true repentance is the prelude to restoration and better days. That was true for the nation of Israel in the days of Jeremiah and it’s true for you too. Confess, repent, change your ways, and then come and be restored.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Saturday and Sunday October 10-11

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Zechariah 1:3 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Return to Him”

The Old Testament prophet Zechariah began his short letter to the Hebrew people with a call from God, “Return to Me”. The people really needed to hear that. They had just come through one of the worst periods in the history of the Jewish people. Their homeland had been destroyed by invading armies, the city of Jerusalem had been looted, and most of the people had been carried off into captivity in pagan lands. Finally, after seventy long years of captivity, King Cyrus granted a group of them permission to return to Palestine and rebuild Jerusalem. So, after a long and dangerous trek, they were finally there. It was at that time God had Zechariah issue the call “Return to Me!”

God wanted His people back. He didn’t just want them back in the land of Palestine; He wasn’t just looking for a rebuilt Jerusalem and a restored Temple; He wanted the people back in right relationship with Him. That’s what this call was for.

Sadly, it’s a call God has had to issue to His people repeatedly over the course of history – both Jewish and Christian history – and it’s a call He continues to extend today. Individually, and as a church and as a nation, God’s people have continued their misguided ways and have drifted from Him, only to suffer terrible consequences for it. And so, God’s call has remained the same, “Return to Me”.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God promised that if as a nation His people would return to Him, confess their sins, and repent of their ways, then He would heal their land and pour out His blessings upon them. In the last book of the Bible, in Revelation 2:1-7, God declares that some of His people have forsaken their first love (Him) and He again exhorts them to return to Him. Here in Zechariah 1:3 the call to return to God was to the Hebrews as a group, but also to each person as an individual, “Return to me.”

Let me ask you this morning: Where are you in your personal relationship with the Lord? There’s an old and challenging question that is often asked which goes: “If God feels far away, guess who moved?” The obvious answer is “you did!” God doesn’t move away from us we move away from Him.

The Lord is calling to you personally today, “Return to Me and I will return to you.”

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Friday October 9th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “A place to heal”

As I write this it is Friday morning. On Friday’s my thoughts always turn to Sunday. Sunday is the best day of the week because it’s the day the church family gathers. One of the reasons I love it when the church family is together is because, as I’ve mentioned numerous times now in this devotional series, it’s when the church is gathered that the love of God is experienced most and best. God loves us through each other. The other day in my reading I came across a great description of church life that came from pastor and author Chuck Swindoll:

“Churches need to be less like national shrines and more like local bars … less like untouchable cathedrals and more like well-used hospitals, places to bleed in rather than monuments to look at … places where you can take your mask off and let your hair down … places where you can have your wounds dressed … it’s okay if they look like churches on the outside, just so folks don’t act churchy on the inside.”

I smiled when I read that because it sounds so much like our church life at Oak Hill Baptist. We’re not like a local bar to the extent of hanging out in the Fellowship Hall drinking beer and sipping wine, but we are like a bar in that we are relaxed and social, with lots of laughing, a bit of crying, and people freely and comfortably sharing their joys and sorrows. We care about what’s going on in each other’s lives, we help where we can help, and the rest of the time we empathically listen. And yes, it does look like a church on the outside, but the people inside are not real “churchy” – there’s not a lot of stained-glass prayers or superficial Christian cliches or modern-day Pharisees. You can come bleeding, have your wounds treated, and take some time to heal.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Paul described Christians who have themselves been wounded and healed, and who now use their own experiences as the basis from which they understand, commiserate with, and minister to others who are experiencing similar things. That’s what church life should be like. It is a deep and rich and glorious expression of the Father’s love for us. I encourage you not to miss it. Your church is a gift from God, and there you will experience His great love for you.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Thursday October 8th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is, love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:30-31 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Not all love is the same.”

Would you agree that there are degrees of love? There are. I love ice cream, but I love my dogs more. I love my dogs, but I love my wife more. I love a crisp Fall day, but I love life more. And, I love myself, but I love God more. Not all love is the same. There are degrees.

In the ancient Greek language which the New Testament was written in (Koine Greek), there were four common words for love: “eros” (which isn’t used in the New Testament) is a possessive and sexual expression of love that is physical and often selfish; “storge” is the idea of family love or strong family-like affection for someone; “philos” defines love between close friends; and “agape” is the highest form of love. Agape is unconditional love that is not deserved or merited but which is freely bestowed, without restraint, and without limit. Agape is the best and purest expression of love.

Some form of the word “agape” is used over two hundred and sixty times in the New Testament. Most often it is used to describe God’s love for us. God’s love is unconditional, unlimited, and perfect. Other times however, agape is also used to describe the love we are to have for God and for others. That’s what Mark was describing in Mark 2:30-31 above.

Interestingly, the word “agape” is also sometimes used by New Testament writers in a negative way to illustrate a seriously misplaced love for something of this world. That was the case in 2 Timothy 4:10 where Paul tells us that Demas loved the things of the world so much that he deserted Paul and left the work of ministry. Demas had an “agape”, or all-consuming love, for the things of the world. His love for the things of the world was so strong that he was willing to sacrifice other things (like ministry and his friendship with Paul) in order to get it.

Agape love expressed fully and perfectly describes only God and is beyond the reach of us mere humans. And yet, it is the standard for which we are to strive. Family love and friendship love are admirable qualities, but it is “agape” that is the gold standard for love, and that should be our desire as we express our love for God and for others.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Wednesday October 7th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” Romans 8:35 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Nothing can separate you from God’s love.”

Romans 8:35-39 is one of the most reassuring and comforting passages in the New Testament. Paul assures us that the love of Christ is so complete and so secure that we can never lose it. Here’s some more of what he wrote:

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The meaning of this passage is foundational to an accurate understanding of our relationship with God through Christ. Once we belong to God through faith in Jesus, we possess a depth and degree of His love that is as complete and as secure as it could possibly be. Paul explains that once we have come to the Father through the Son, there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from Him. Nothing in life and not even death itself can separate us from God’s love. There are no angels (not even demonic angels) who can take God’s love away from us; there are no powers strong enough to do it; there is no height or depth extreme enough to separate us from Him; there is nothing in all creation that can do it.

Once you belong to God by means of having been adopted into His family through your faith in Christ, He will never let you go. That’s the theological doctrine known as “the security of the believer” and it teaches “once saved always saved”. There’s nothing that can now separate you from God. You’re too important to Him for Him to ever let you go now that you are His.

That even means that your sinful behavior can’t separate you from Him. Of course, there are consequences for sinful behaviors, you do lose blessings and you do suffer in many ways in this lifetime as a result of sinning, but God doesn’t love you any less and you can never lose your salvation because of it.

Be assured today that God loves you so much that there is nothing in this world or the next, in the physical realm or in the spiritual world, in the present or in the future, that can separate you from Him.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Tuesday October 6th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “It’s up to you”

We began this devotional series about experiencing the love of God more than five weeks ago with a discussion about how difficult it sometimes seems to experience God’s love in real and tangible ways. I used the illustration of a young man I know who was concerned that the love of his girlfriend often seems more real to him than does the love of God. I explained to him it’s because his girlfriend is a flesh and bones person who he can see and hold, but God is a spirit.

Since then we’ve also learned that the most common way in which God expresses His love for us so that we can experience it in a palpable and easily perceived way is through the actions of other Christians. He uses us as a vessel through which His love flows to others. That being the case, it means that other people are depending on you for their experience of God’s love. That’s why so many of the Bible passages about love focus on how we are to love each another.

In 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter), Paul provided numerous descriptors illustrating how God’s love manifests itself through us. There is no envy in it; there’s no boasting, arrogance, or rudeness; it is not self-seeking; and it keeps no record of wrongs. Instead, it rejoices in truth, it willingly bears hardships, it is filled with hope, it endures, and it never ends. Those are all descriptions of human behaviors based in God’s love, and it is how God wants us to interact with each other.

Yesterday we all sat around the campfire, held hands, and sang the song, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love”. (Okay, we didn’t actually sit around a campfire holding hands but admit it, you sang the song in your head as you were reading the lyrics). And that’s good because it really is true that what this world needs now is a whole lot more of God’s love being shared among people.

I encourage you to go out there today and allow others to experience God’s love coming through you. To a large degree it’s up to you whether or not others will have a tangible discernable experience of God’s love.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Monday October 5th

Good Morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love – but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”

Okay, you had to know it was coming. We’re into our second month of devotional messages about God’s love and I have yet to mention “the love chapter” of the Bible (1 Corinthians 13), nor have I referred to the classic song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, and sung by Jackie DeShannon, “What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love”. So today you get them both in a single message. First, here are some of the lyrics to the song:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No – not just for some but for everyone;
Lord, we don’t need another mountain,
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb,
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross …
Enough to last ‘till the end of time.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love;
No – not just for some, but for everyone
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

I know, the song’s a little sappy but yet, the message is true and it was Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 13. The love of God is perfect in all its ways and it is exactly what the world needs more of. Especially our world today. There’s so much anger and bitterness, so much hate and vitriol. Our country seems to be seething with dark passion over many issues and sadly, some Christians are being part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Some Christians have joined the chorus of angry voices and snarky social media posts. It’s okay and appropriate for us to have opinions about important issues and to express them, but how we say it is at least as important as what we say.

We actually don’t need more hot opinions right now. What we do need is more of God’s love injected into the middle of all the hot and emotional confrontations. It really is true that what the world needs now is love, sweet love – God’s love, and it needs to be expressed through you and me.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Saturday and Sunday October 3-4

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.” Luke 10:36-37 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “We need more than lessons and proclamations.”

Kosuke Koyama was an unusual and interesting man. He was a Japanese Christian who spent many years living and working as a Bible scholar and teacher in Thailand. He then became Dean of the South East Asia Graduate School of Theology in Singapore, and then he taught philosophy and religion at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

He once wrote a book with the title “Three Mile an Hour God”. Three miles an hour is the average walking speed of a healthy adult. The premise of Koyama’s book was that God walks with us through life at our speed. God is patient and unhurried with us, and He is perfectly content to walk with us through life at the speed we can handle. As He walks goes along with us, He guides us, teaches us, and bestows many blessings upon us. He also brings other brothers and sisters alongside to make the journey with us. And that thought brings us to the subject of today’s daily devotional.

Today is Saturday. Tomorrow you will gather with your church family for worship and fellowship. One of the reasons God will have us all together is so that we can support, encourage, and bless one another on His behalf. As we’ve already learned in this devotional series, one of the primary ways in which God expresses His love and care for us is through the actions of other Christians.

Unfortunately, as Kosuke Koyama points out in his book, far too often we teach lessons about love and blessings, and we make proclamations about love and blessings, but we don’t actually bestow love and blessings. But we need more than just lessons and proclamations about love and blessings. We need to actually be loved and blessed. That was pretty much Jesus’ point in the parable of the Good Samaritan cited above. He doesn’t want us to just learn the lesson and then teach it to others, he wants us to “go and do the same”.

We’re all walking together with God on this journey through life. It’s like a group of Boy Scouts out on a hike together. God is the Scout Master, the guide, and He is teaching us to look out for each other and to help each other as we travel along the way. I encourage you to be alert tomorrow for those in your church family who are in special need of experiencing God’s love and blessings. God wants to use you to lift up and encourage them.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim