Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Resilience”   Our Bible verse for today: “Here I am today, eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. My strength for battle and for daily tasks is now as it was then.” Joshua 14:10-11 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Resilience is the key to a life well-lived.”   At this point in our study of resilience we’re still exploring the meaning of it and why it’s important to be resilient if you want to live a good life. Yesterday I provided some descriptive words and terms to help us define resilience. They included words like flexibility, adaptability, and rebounding. When used to describe a person, “Rodale’s Synonym Finder” also includes terms like buoyant, irrepressible, jaunty, lighthearted, breezy, perky, carefree, and cheerful.   There have been many good books written over the years intended to help Christians learn to live a resilient life. Over the course of this month, I’ll recommend several of them to you. Perhaps my favorite, and the one that I personally found to be most helpful, was written by former Navy SEAL and former Governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens. The title is “Resilience: Hard-won wisdom for living a better life”.   Greitens writes, “Resilience is the key to a well-lived life. If you want to be happy, you need resilience. If you want to be successful, you need resilience. You need resilience because you can’t have happiness, success, or anything else worth having without meeting hardship along the way.”   His point is that every life is filled with hardship, trials, and challenges. We can’t escape those things – they’re common to every life. The difference between people is found in how we handle them. It’s the old truism that “You can’t always choose your circumstances in life but you can always choose your attitude about your circumstances.” Faced with adversity some people buckle and fold; others grit their teeth and endure it – persevering through it; but a resilient person embraces the challenge, learns from it, grows through it, and comes out stronger and better. And, they might even have some fun with it along the way (buoyant, irrepressible, jaunty, lighthearted, breezy, perky, carefree, and cheerful).   Caleb was a resilient person. We read a little of his story in Joshua 14:11 (cited above). He had faced slavery in Egypt; followed by a mad dash across the desert to the Red Sea as they were chased by Pharaoh’s army; followed by forty tough years of wandering in the wilderness. But still, he was upbeat and ready for the next challenge – eighty-five years old and still kicking butt and taking names. He was resilient.   Resilience is the key to a life well-lived. It’s also a way of being. We’ll think 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: “Resilience”   Our Bible verse for today: “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Be resilient”   The attribute of resilience is a close cousin to the attribute of perseverance. And yet, it’s more than that. To persevere in something means to persist without giving up. It means that you lean into it and push through the issue or situation and you keep at it until you’ve achieved the objective. It has a lot to do with striving and enduring, and it’s an admirable quality for a person to have. In fact, it’s Biblical.   Resilience, however, is more than merely sticking with something and not giving up. It is that, but it’s also more. Resilient people have the ability to thrive and grow as they persevere. A resilient person does lean into hardship and keeps pressing forward without giving up, but that person also learns and grows and becomes stronger, tougher, and better as a result of the experience. A resilient person has the ability to recover quickly from difficulty and setbacks.   Synonyms for resilience include words like flexibility, pliability, adaptability, and rebounding. Interestingly, when used to describe a person, “Rodale’s Synonym Finder” also includes descriptive terms like buoyant, irrepressible, jaunty, lighthearted, breezy, perky, carefree, and cheerful. (This is sounding a lot like victory in Jesus). Our goal as Christians is not to just get through the tough times of life, but to thrive as we do so.   All this month we’re going to consider the attribute of resilience. We will explore the character traits that combine to make a person resilient; we will consider what resilience looks like in actual day-to-day life; and we will talk about actions we can take and disciplines we can develop in order to become more resilient individuals.   As Paul tells us in Philippians 1:6, God is in the process of developing us into the persons He wants us to be. We aren’t supposed to simply endure the days of our life and the experiences we have, we’re to enjoy them, learn from them, grow from them, and thrive. We’re to be resilient people.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “You made it!”   As I write this it is New Years Eve 2020, the last day of what turned out to be an extremely difficult year. The COVID 19 pandemic and all of its associated issues have caused untold hardship and stress on all of us. In addition to the sickness, death, inconveniences, and the economic hardships caused by the pandemic, there was the social unrest, the nasty political season we just went through, and all of the unique individual personal issues each of us also had in our lives. 2020 was a tough year.   But we made it! Here we are at the last day of the year and we’re ready to move into 2021. That’s something to celebrate. I have full confidence that 2021 is going to be better and brighter than 2020, and I’m looking forward to it. I hope you are too.   Isaiah 46:4 is one of my personal life verses and it’s one that brings me great comfort. It speaks of how God guides us and carries us through the days of our lives, leading us to all of the tomorrows He has for us. And when we get to tomorrow, He will already be there waiting for us, and He will guide, protect, and provide then just as He has in the past. I’ve actually rewritten that verse in order to make it more personal for me. In “The Bible according to Jim” that verse reads: “Even to your old age and gray hairs, Jim, I am He. I am He who will sustain you. I will sustain you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.   There’s another verse I love which is also very appropriate as we approach the New Year, and it goes hand-in-hand with the truth expressed in Isaiah 46:4. It comes from the pen of the Apostle Paul and is found in Philippians 3:13-14, “… one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”   The reason we can leave the past in the past and stride forward into the future with confidence and boldness (as Philippians 3:13-14 describes), is precisely because Isaiah 46:4 is true. God watches over us, He cares for us, He protects us, and He provides for us. That has been true in the past and it will continue to be true in the future.   2020 is over and you made it! I encourage you to celebrate that fact, and then get ready for a great 2021!   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.” Deuteronomy 29:29 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Celebrate your partnership with God in life.”   This past Sunday (December 27th) I preached our New Year’s sermon at Oak Hill Baptist Church. The title was “Give an account, then move forward into the New Year”. The premise was that as we end 2020 and as we begin to move forward into 2021, we should pause to review 2020 and learn what we can from it. But then we need to move forward into 2021 with courage, boldness, eagerness, and anticipation of good things to come. If you would like to watch that sermon you can do so by going to our website at www.oakhillbaptist.net.   In that sermon I quoted numerous passages of scripture but the bulk of the sermon was built upon the lesson Moses taught to the nation of Israel in Deuteronomy 29:29 (quoted above). There Moses told them that as they prepared to move forward into the Promised Land, they needed to keep in mind that there are many things about the future that are “hidden things” which belong to the Lord, but there would also be “revealed things” which would belong to them.   The hidden things are the mysteries and unanswered questions, the unknowable things about the future. Those things belong to God and we can trust them to Him. This brings us back to the issue of the sovereignty of God which we discussed two days ago. When we arrive in the future, God will already be there because He is omnipresent (everywhere, all the time); and He will already know everything about the future because He is omniscient (He knows everything); and He will have complete control over the future because He is omnipotent (He is all-powerful). So, we can trust those hidden, unknowable things to Him.   The revealed things are the things that God makes known to us and which we therefore have some responsibility to do something about. This includes His will and His ways as revealed to us in the Bible, and it includes the circumstances of life that we can see and which we can do something about. God will help us with deal with those revealed things, but because they have been revealed to us, we have a responsibility to get involved and do something to help ourselves and others. Dealing with those things is not all up to God.   As we go through life we do so in partnership with God. It’s not all on us, but it’s also not all on Him either. We do this together. That will continue to be true in 2021.  Take some time this morning to celebrate your partnership in life with God.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “For we are God’s coworkers …” 1 Corinthians 3:9 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Celebrate your involvement.”   Yesterday we celebrated the sovereignty of God. We rejoiced in the knowledge that as we move forward into and then through the New Year, God will already be there waiting for us. He will be there with full knowledge of what awaits us, and He will be there with complete power and total control over all things.   Today we will celebrate the fact that when we get there and we discover what awaits us, we will have a role in dealing with it. It’s true that God is sovereign, but it’s also true that He doesn’t work in this world, or in our lives, in isolation. He doesn’t work in our lives independent of us but with us and through us. He involves us in the things He allows us to be faced with. But He doesn’t have to. He could do it all by Himself and we could just be puppets on a string dancing to His tune. However, that’s not the way it is.   Jeremiah 29:11-13 assures us that God has a plan for each of us that He is in the process of working out in our lives, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord …” But those plans don’t unfold without our involvement and cooperation. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared ahead of time for us to do.” Psalm 90:17 reads, Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us; establish for us the work of our hands – establish the work of our hands.” In 2021 God intends to do stuff – big stuff – great stuff – and He intends to do it not only in us, but through us and with us. However, it requires us to get involved and to cooperate with Him.   I encourage you to give careful thought to how you plan to approach it the New Year. Will you just wander through your days without purpose or vision, and without really participating and cooperating with God in any meaningful way? Or will you approach it with a determination to make the most of the days, weeks, and months God will grant to you? Benjamin Franklin once posed the challenging question, “Do you value your life? Then value your time, because time is the stuff that life is made of.”   Don’t waste your time in 2021 on things that don’t really matter. God wants you to be involved in meaningful things. Your life will be fuller, richer, and much more enjoyable as a result.   We’ll think more about this tomorrow. For today, I encourage you to celebrate the fact that God chooses to involve you in what He’s doing in the world all around you. Celebrate your involvement in life.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord is the one who will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.” Deuteronomy 31:8 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Celebrate the sovereignty of God”   In the book of Deuteronomy, the nation of Israel was facing a challenging but exciting time. They were completing forty-years of wandering in the wilderness. They were on the cusp of crossing over into the Promised Land, which they had longed for and anticipated most of their lives. It was an exciting time, but it was also a moment of anxiety and doubt. Moving forward wasn’t going to be a walk-in-the-park or a tiptoe through the tulips. They knew there were big challenges awaiting them. Their future was promising but they were going to have to work for it; they were going to have to fight for it.   However, in Deuteronomy 31:8 Moses assured them that God would go before them into the Promised Land. When they got there, He would already be there waiting for them. Then, He would be there with them as they faced those challenges, and He would not leave them or abandon them. Therefore, there was no need for them to be afraid or discouraged at the prospect of what was ahead of them as they moved forward into the future.   What Moses was assuring them of is what theologians refer to as “the sovereignty of God”. This means that God is the king and supreme ruler of the universe. He is all-powerful (omnipotent); all-knowing (omniscient); and all-present (omnipresent). He has power over everything; He knows everything; and He is everywhere – all the time, always.   What was true for the Israelites and their relationship with God is also true for us in our relationship with God. He is the same God and He is still sovereign. As we move forward into the New Year there are many unknowns for us, and there will be many challenges. But the good news is that when we get there, God will already be there waiting for us. And, He will have full knowledge of the situations we will face and He will be in complete control over them. So, we can and should take comfort in and celebrate the sovereignty of God.   However, there is more to this equation. God is indeed sovereign, and that is something to celebrate. But, just as there were things the Israelites had to do in order to be in the center of God’s will and to be in-synch with Him as they moved forward into their future, so it is true for us as well. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow. But for now, I encourage you to celebrate and take comfort in the sovereignty of God.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Get ready for the New Year”   I’m sure most of us are more than ready to celebrate the New Year. We’re ready for 2020 to be over and we believe that 2021 will surely be better. Therefore, we should be eager to move forward into it. I think we still have a couple of tough months in front of us with respect to the pandemic but after that, surely things will get better.   This past week I’ve been working on the New Year’s sermon which I will preach at Oak Hill Baptist this Sunday (the 27th). In preparation, I’ve spent some time thinking and praying about Paul’s great declaration in Philippians 3:13-14 about leaving the past behind and pressing forward into the future (what a great New Years theme!).   Another statement I came across which was enlightening and helpful came from a book a friend gave to me recently. The title is “The Valley of Vision.” It’s a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions, most of which were written in the 1600s. They are deep, profound, and powerful. At the end of one of those prayers (a prayer which contained a lot of big requests made by the man doing the praying), he concluded with the declaration, “I ask great things of a great God.”   Yes, what a mighty God we serve! He does truly great things. And so, we shouldn’t hesitate to ask great things of Him. However, … the truth is that God seldom sits on His throne in heaven, waves a magic wand, and instantly and miraculously brings about stupendous changes in our lives. Instead, the way such things almost always happen, is with a combination of God’s power and our personal responsibility. God combines His power with our participation and together we move forward accomplishing wonderful things according to His will. So yes, we do ask great things of a great God, but then we must also roll up your sleeves and put some effort into doing our part to bring such things about.   2021 certainly can be better than 2020 for all of us, but it will take great works of God’s mighty power, along with prayer and vision and effort on our parts.   I invite you to join us at Oak Hill Baptist Church for the New Year’s message this Sunday. Our worship service begins at 10:00. You can join us in-person, or online on the Oak Hill Baptist Church Facebook page, or on our website at www.oakhillbaptist.net. The service will be live-streamed on Facebook beginning at 10:00, and it will also be recorded for later viewing on Facebook and on the website.   Let’s begin to celebrate the New Year by getting our minds and hearts ready for it.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.” Luke 2:15-16 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Go, tell it on the mountain”   The message of Christmas is a birth announcement: “Jesus Christ is born!” That’s the good news that the shepherds had to share in Luke’s version of the Christmas story as told in Luke 2:1-20. The angel came to them at night in the field as they were watching over their flocks, announced that the Messiah had been born, and told them how they could go and see for themselves. The shepherds went, saw, and then left there telling others the good news. And we read “… all who heard it were amazed …”   Along with His resurrection, the birth of Jesus is one of the two most important events in the history of the world, and the story needs to be told. One of the most upbeat, joyful, and celebratory hymns that we sing at Christmas is “Go, Tell it On the Mountain”. “Go, tell it on the mountain, Over the hills and everywhere; Go, tell it on the mountain, That Jesus Christ is born!”   I’m sure I’ve sung that song a hundred times, and I’ve probably heard it sung by others hundreds of times more. My favorite version of “Go, Tell it On the Mountain” was recorded by the band MercyMe on their Christmas album a few years ago. It is by far the funkiest version of the song I have ever heard – you can’t help tapping your foot and singing along. Here’s a YouTube link to it if you would like to take a couple of minutes to listen to it yourself. Just copy and paste the link into your browser (I encourage you to do it. You’ll be glad you did): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xTTBI1zxL4   My family and I would like to wish you and yours a happy, joyful, blessed, (and funky) Merry Christmas.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “In the same region, shepherds were staying in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people; Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:8-11 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Celebrate the night of nights”   As I write this it is Christmas Eve 2020. I love Christmas, but I especially love Christmas Eve. I love the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church, followed by a family meal at home, and then a comfortable evening in front of the fireplace anticipating the celebration of the birth of Christ. It’s a celebration, but a warm, soft, quiet, and relaxed celebration.   There are some problems of chronology and sequence associated with the celebration of Christmas Eve which I believe, as intelligent thinking Christians, we do need to acknowledge. First, Jesus almost certainly was not born in the winter but in the spring. Sheep don’t spend long cold winter nights out in open fields, they spend them in shelters of some sort. They’re out in the fields in the spring and summer. Second, as we read in verse 2:11 of Luke’s Christmas story, the angel appeared to the shepherds and said “today” a Savior “was” born for you. In other words, the scene in Luke 2 with the shepherds took place on Christmas night after the birth, not on Christmas Eve before it.   But none of that really matters much to our celebration of Christmas Eve. The intent of our hearts is more important than the season or sequence. Our objective is to quietly reflect on the profound theological importance of what the birth of Christ meant. For thousands of years the world had patiently waited for a Savior. Now, on the eve before His birth, we wait in eager anticipation of the most important and significant event in all of human history. God Himself was about to come into the world as a human baby to live among us, and then to one day die for us.   Christmas Eve has been called “the night of nights” because there is no other night like it. That first Christmas Eve was the moment before the world was about to change forever. The birth of this long-awaited baby would change everything, and the world would never be the same again.   On this Christmas Eve I encourage all of us to spend some quiet time reflecting on the significance of what Christmas means. “For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   That’s something to be thankful for. It’s something to celebrate.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Celebrating is good for us”   Our Bible verse for today: “But the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Jesus is for everyone.”   Billy Graham told the story about a conversation he once had with the famed movie director Cecil B. DeMille. Billy asked him about the blockbuster film “The King of Kings” which DeMille had made about Jesus, but which was produced during the silent-movie era. It was estimated that the film was eventually seen by over 800 million people around the world.   Their conversation was taking place many years after the movie’s release and Billy commented that he was surprised that DeMille never updated the movie and re-released it with color and sound. But DeMille replied, “I will never be able to do it, because if I gave Jesus a southern accent, the northerners would not think of Him as their Christ. If I gave Him a foreign accent, the Americans and the British would not think of Him as their Christ. As it is, people of all nations, from every race, creed, clan, can accept Him as their Christ.”   I love that story. And I think DeMille had it exactly right. Jesus is for everybody. He’s not a white Jesus or a black Jesus. He isn’t an American Jesus or an African Jesus. He didn’t come only for the Jews, or just for the people in Biblical Palestine of that day. Jesus is for everybody. He came for the whole world. The message of salvation is applicable and relevant in every culture, and that must mean that the Christmas story is applicable and relevant in every culture as well.   It’s interesting that the secular aspects of Christmas vary considerably from culture to culture. In some parts of the world we have Santa Claus, in other places he is Father Christmas. In some places kids sing about Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but in other places they have no idea who those characters are.  However, the Biblical truths of the incarnation remain the same no matter where the story is told. No matter where you go around the world, the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus is the same. That’s because there is only one Bible and it tells the same story in every language.   The great truth of Christmas is that Jesus came as the Savior of the whole world, He is for everyone – and that’s something to celebrate!   God Bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2020 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.