Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” Ephesians 1:4-5 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Adoption is a great act of love.”   I have four adopted children. The two oldest are from my wife’s first marriage. They needed a daddy and they wanted my name, so I adopted them. Then Linda and I adopted two babies together from Korea. So, all four of my children are adopted, and that makes them extra-special.   Having biological children is a natural process that often even occurs unintentionally. But adoption is different. Much different. Adoption is intentional and difficult. You have to really want that child in order to go through the process. There are applications to complete, interviews to go through, and home inspections to submit to. The process involves administrators, social workers, clerks, lawyers, and judges. It is difficult and it takes a long time. And, it is expensive. Sometimes very expensive. If you are going to adopt a child you will have to really want that child in order to submit to everything you will have to go through for it to happen.   Adoption is an act of supreme love. It is proof of a parent’s love. The ultimate example of love like that was shown to us by God when he adopted us into His heavenly family. The process of making that happen was infinitely more difficult and more costly than that of human parents adopting a human baby. For God to adopt us into His family, Jesus had to die on a cross. The price was extraordinary.   But to God it was worth it. You were worth it. He loves you so much, and He wants you in heaven with Him so badly, that there was no price too high, no process too complicated, no effort too extreme, in order complete the adoption and bring you into His family.   God loves you. He loves you more than you realize, more than you can understand. Your adoption into His family is proof of His love for you.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “You are loved”

Our Bible verse for today: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” 1 John 4:9 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Love is an action word.”

Love is a verb. It is an action word. Okay, it’s a noun too. It is descriptive. But in its best form love is a verb. Love also is more than just a feeling. In order to be experienced by the object of your love, love must be expressed. Saying words of love is helpful, but actually doing things driven by deep love is much more meaningful.

God could have simply told us He loves us. Instead He showed us how much He loves us by actually sending us His beloved Son Jesus to give His life for ours in order to rescue us from the penalty of our sins. Words are cheap and easy; action is what matters. God’s love for us is more than just a vague and sentimental feeling hidden away in His heart. Instead, it is real and vital and vibrant, expressing itself in the ultimate sacrifice. Much more than just sentimental jargon, the demonstration of His love was physical and costly.

As we’ve learned in previous devotionals this month, God has chosen to express His love most often through the actions of His people. As has been said, we are the hands and feet of Jesus. He loves the world through us. Therefore, if other people are going to experience the love of God in real and tangible ways, it’s most likely going to come to them through your actions and through mine.

People all around you need to experience the love of God coming to them through you. I encourage you to willingly be the vessel through which His love can flow to someone else today.

And also, if you happen to be on the receiving end of such an act of God’s love, I encourage you to recognize it for what it is – God’s love. Thank the other person, but make sure you see God in that act of love. After all, the entire point of our devotional messages this month is to help us all come to a better awareness of and appreciation for our own experience of God’s love for us. So, when He loves you through the actions of someone else, thank them but see Him.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

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Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” John 15:13-14 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Jesus teaches us to love others sacrificially.”   Our Bible verse from yesterday was John 13:34-35, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” In that passage Jesus was teaching that he wants other people to experience His love as a result of having interacted with you. He was so serious about inspiring us to do that, He repeated it just a little latter in John 15:12, “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.”   Then, right on the heals of having said it a second time, He rolls right into His teaching in verses 13-14 about the greatest proof of that love being a willingness to lay down your life for another. In verse 14 He taught that the depth of our relationship with Him will be revealed by how willing we are to do what He just taught in verses 12-13.   The great Bible scholar and devotional writer from a previous generation, Oswald Chambers, offered some helpful insight into the application of Jesus’ teaching when he wrote, “The fruitfulness of friendship is described in verse 13: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” If I am a friend of Jesus Christ, I lay my life down for Him. That does not mean that I go through the big crisis of death; it means that I lay down my life deliberately … I have a day before me, and I am going to lay it out for Jesus Christ; I have my duty to perform, but I am going to lay it out in devotion to Jesus Christ all through.”   This is about sacrificial love. It is about a willingness on our part to go the extra mile, to do the extra thing, to make the extra effort – even at sacrificial expense to ourselves – to serve Jesus and to serve others. This laying down of your life is a metaphor for loving and serving sacrificially in the name of and on behalf of Jesus.   I love being around Christians who have learned to live like this. Not only do I end up being blessed by them (blessing is simply what they do because of who they are), but also, their example inspires and motivates me to want to be better than I am.   I encourage you to make it a point to find people who know how to live, and love, and serve like that, and spend time with them. Then, go and do likewise.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Jesus is the standard that our love is measured by.”   Jane was one of the kindest people I ever knew. She was a widow and for many years after the death of her husband who was a pastor, she ran a small Christian bookstore in our desert town. She was also one of the most active and faithful members of our church. If the doors were open, Jane was there. If there was an activity going on, Jane found a way to be involved and to help.   But the thing Jane was known for most was her great love for others. She genuinely, deeply, cared for others, and it grieved her to see them suffering and struggling. And when she did, if she could do something to help them, she would. She lived modestly on a small fixed income but that didn’t matter. She would give freely and generously in an effort to help and bless others. And if you asked her why she did it she would simply say, “Because that’s what Jesus would do.”   In John 13:34-35 we read of Jesus doing something He often did: He took an Old Testament precept and He raised it to a new, higher New Testament standard. In the Old Testament God’s people were told not to commit murder (Exodus 20:13); in the New Testament Jesus tells us we are to avoid even anger (Matthew 5:21). In the Old Testament we’re told we are not to commit adultery (Exodus 20:14); in the New Testament Jesus says we are not to even think lustful thoughts (Matthew 5:27-28).   In the Old Testament we are taught to love others as we love ourselves (Leviticus 19:18); here in John 13:34-35 we’re taught to love others as Jesus loves us. He raised that Old Testament standard to something higher and better. Now the measure for how much we are to love others isn’t how much we love ourselves, but how much Jesus loves us. That’s different. That’s much higher. He loves us unconditionally. He loves us sacrificially. And that’s how we are to love others.   The way the love of God is most frequently experienced is by the people of God loving other people on His behalf. That’s why Jesus told us to go out and express our love for others with the same love that He has for us. It’s a pretty high standard and it’s one that’s actually impossible for us flawed Christians to meet. But it is the standard we are to strive for. We’ll think more about this tomorrow.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “The Spirit of God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor; and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him.” Isaiah 61:1-3 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “God brings beauty out of the ashes of our lives.”   In addition to being a pastor and a writer, many years ago God gave me a jail and prison ministry. I work with young men who have been caught-up in the world of drugs and crime but who are now ready to turn their lives around. Some of them have successfully done so, but sadly others have had only short periods of success and then ended up back on drugs and back in jail or prison.   But I don’t give up on them. Even if they’ve fallen again, if they ask me to visit them, write letters to them, send them daily devotionals, take their phone calls, and visit with them, I will. I do that because nobody is beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit and everyone has the potential of being truly transformed. They might have two or three false starts, they may stumble and fall backwards, they may end up back in jail or prison and have to start all over again on the road to recovery, but the potential for true transformation always exists. If the individual comes to the point of truly and fully surrendering to Jesus and to the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, God will bring beauty out of the ashes of that life. That’s what Isaiah was writing about. He was describing the powerful difference Jesus can make in a life that is fully surrendered to Him. Beauty from the ashes.   In yesterday’s devotional I mentioned that this Sunday we at Oak Hill Baptist Church will celebrate our annual Homecoming Day. It’s the day at the beginning of the church year when we celebrate our church family and all the wonderful things God has done in us and through us in the past year; and we anticipate with eagerness what He is going to do in the year to come.   When the church family is together like that, I always marvel anew at what God can do in and through the lives of those who are truly His and who are fully committed to Him. All of us gathered there are cracked vessels, flawed individuals, people who carry with us the scars from past sins and lives that were lived far outside of God’s will. And yet, there we are, gathered with a wonderful church family, praising God for His great love, and enjoying lives that are far better than the things we were involved in in the past. God truly does bring beauty out of the ashes, and the evidence of that is all around us!   Regardless of where you are in life right now, I encourage you to never give up hope and never stop trusting God for great things. Fully surrender your life to Him and in His great love for you, He will bring beauty out of the ashes.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “But I will sing of your strength and will joyfully proclaim your faithful love in the morning. For you have been a stronghold for me, a refuge in my day of trouble. To you, my strength, I sing praises, because God is my stronghold – my faithful God.” Psalm 59:16-17 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Experience God’s love by praising Him for it.”   The Christian calendar year is structured around a series of feasts, celebrations, and special days, all of which are designed to bring the people of God regularly into the presence of God for special times of praise and thanksgiving. Depending on which tradition you belong to within the Christian community, those days may include (beginning in January): The Baptism of Jesus; Saint Valentine’s Day; Ash Wednesday; Saint Patrick’s Day; Palm Sunday; Good Friday; Easter; Pentecost; All Saints Day; Thanksgiving; Christmas; and New Year’s Eve. There are more, but those are the major ones.   Actually, we Christians adopted that tradition from our Jewish friends. There are no less than seventeen major feasts and celebrations on the Jewish calendar, and for the same reason. They are scheduled times designed to bring God’s people together to celebrate some particular expression of His great love for us. We do it because intentionally celebrating God’s love is one of the best ways to experience God’s love. At such times our minds are focused on Him, our hearts are drawn back to Him, and we are reminded in powerful ways of how much He loves us.   This coming Sunday we at Oak Hill Baptist Church will celebrate our annual Homecoming Day. It’s a Sunday at the beginning of the new church year (which begins in September) when we gather as a church family to celebrate what God has done in and through our church in the past year, and we anticipate with eagerness what He plans to do in the year to come.   This year we especially have a lot to celebrate. After eight months of going through a pandemic, we’ve had no major illnesses and no deaths from Coronavirus in our church family. And after three months of being shutdown and not meeting at all, we’re back together again and our church life is slowly returning to normal.   Yes, it will be a time of celebration and thanksgiving. It will be a time of loving God and loving each other. It will be a time of remembering how very blessed we are, and of how much God obviously loves us and cares for us. If you’re anywhere near Crossville, TN this Sunday morning we invite you to join us. One of the best ways to experience God’s love is to join with others and praising Him for it.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart be courageous. Wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “God loves you in the silence.”   Last Sunday night at Oak Hill Baptist Church we began our Fall Bible study. It’s called, “Unanswered: Lasting Truth for Trending Questions” by Jeremiah Johnston. In it the author leads us to explore some of the most difficult and troubling questions Christians contend with. The question we considered in our first session was “What do we do when God seems silent?”   It’s a good question. There are times in all of our lives when we’re struggling through a difficult issue, praying to God for understanding and clarity, asking for help and peace, but …. crickets. Nothing. No help, no answers, no comfort. Nothing. Where is God at times like that? Why is He not answering and helping? Why is He silent?   To help us understand what could be going on in situations like that, Jeremiah Johnston brings us to the stories of Abram and Joseph in the Old Testament book of Genesis. In Abram’s case, he desperately wanted a son to be his heir and to carry on his family name. In despair he pled with God, argued with God, and even challenged God a bit. But, no child.   In Joseph’s case he was sold into slavery by his hateful brothers, sent to Egypt, falsely accused of crimes he didn’t commit, and kept in a miserable prison for many years. He didn’t understand why those things were happening to him and he wanted to be delivered from his suffering but … nothing. God was silent. Or, so it seemed.   The truth was that in both of their cases God was actively at work behind the scenes of their lives, orchestrating events and bringing each of those men to the point that He was going to answer their prayers, but in bigger and better ways than they could ever have imagined. Abram did get his son. But the son would not just be Abram’s heir and carry on his family name. No, this boy would launch a dynasty that was the family line of Jesus. God needed twenty-five years to set the scene and to transform Abram into the man He needed to become in order to be the father of Isaac.   In Joseph’s case, after thirteen years of mistreatment and suffering at the hands of the Egyptians, God elevated him out of the prison to the second most powerful position in the land. Then Joseph was able to use that position to save His father’s entire family from famine, and that family would ultimately go on to become the nation of Israel. Joseph was never out of God’s sight, and never out of God’s loving care. The situations he suffered through had to take place in order to set the stage for the big work that God wanted to do through in and through him.   In your case God probably isn’t preparing you to be the father of a great nation, or to become the second most powerful man in the land. But He is up to something. He is not absent and His apparent silence doesn’t mean He has stopped loving you or that He has abandoned you. God is always up to something, and it is always good. I encourage you to faithfully wait on God as he quietly works in your life. Trust Him, and never doubt His goodness and His great love for you.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.” Psalm 42:5 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “God loves you, so don’t lose hope.”   As a parent one of the most difficult things we face is when a child (young or old) has experienced a big disappointment in life, or perhaps even a crushing defeat, and that child is feeling dejected and depressed. At such a time, as the parent, you want to comfort your child and do or say something to make him or her feel better. But often the child simply needs to come to terms with the outcome of their situation, get over it, and move on with life. And the only thing you as a parent can do is to be there for them, assure them of your love for them, and empathically grieve with them. Time will pass, the hurt will ease, and life will go on. In the meantime, you just bring the ministry of your presence to them and let them experience your love in the midst of the pain and disappointment.   That’s probably what the Psalmist was experiencing at the time he wrote Psalm 42. We don’t know for sure what his circumstances were, but we do know he was suffering and struggling, and we do know He looked to the presence of God and to the love of God for comfort and hope. This is what he said:   “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, ‘Where is your God?’ I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts. Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.”   The Bible tells us to find our hope in God, not in our circumstances. In the middle of the pain and suffering, the heartache and the disappointment, He is there for us. He may not resolve the situation, and the cloud of despair might not lift fully, immediately; but as a loving Father He will comfort us with His presence and He will lovingly walk with us through the time of healing.   Are you looking to God as you go through whatever it is you’re dealing with? Is your hope in Him? He is a good and loving Father. He cares for you, and He cares about how you feel right now.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow … Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:6-7; 10 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “Conviction is love”   Have you ever thought of conviction as being an expression of God’s love for you? It is. In Biblical terms, when we feel a sense of conviction it means that the Holy Spirit has brought to our attention something about our character, personality, or conduct that isn’t quite right and which needs to be adjusted. Sometimes the situation is flagrant sin (such as with David in Psalm 51), but many times it’s simply a character flaw that needs to change, or some aspect of our personality that needs refining, or an attitude that God’s wants us to adjust.   In the case of Psalm 51, King David was responding to an intervention in his life from the prophet Nathan. God had sent Nathan to confront David about his adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband. It was a really big deal for which David needed to repent. He did, and God extended forgiveness to him.   It’s the job of the Holy Spirit in our lives to bring that sense of conviction (John 16:8). The issue might be big or small, but the fact that God is convicting you about it means it’s important enough to God that He wants you to change it. That you’re spiritually sensitive enough to detect the conviction is a good thing, it’s a positive sign that you are aware of the activity of God in your life. Then, if you respond to that conviction and with the appropriate corrective action, it transforms you a little more into the person God intends for you to be. It also has a positive impact on your relationships with God and with others.   Conviction is the Holy Spirit’s way of calling our attention to something in our life that needs to be corrected. His motivation is always love and protection. He loves us and He wants the best for us. It has been rightly said that God loves us just as we are. But it’s also true that He loves us too much to leave us as we are. Conviction, if allowed to accomplish its purpose, will result in needed change, and it happens because God loves you.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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

Good Morning Everyone,   Our theme for this month: “You are loved”   Our Bible verse for today: “And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:3-5 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “God loves you enough to let you struggle”   Struggle produces growth. Fighting through times of trials makes us stronger and better. Have you ever been to a weightlifting gym and seen athletes struggling, sweating, and groaning to lift huge weights? The struggle of lifting the weight produces muscle growth. They become bigger, stronger, and better as a result of pushing through and overcoming the resistance.   The same is true in our lives, especially in our spiritual lives. Have you ever wondered why it is if God loves you so much that He sits back and allows you to struggle? This is why. The struggle produces growth. With the sustained effort of persevering and pushing through a tough situation, we learn important life-lessons, our character is formed, and our faith is strengthened.   God allowing us to fight through situations is similar to the experience of raising a child. As the parent you need to teach the child how to do things, but then you need to let them have the experience of successfully doing those things on their own. You stand back and observe as the child fiddles with it, struggles, perseveres, figures it out, and then eventually succeeds. You might offer some words of guidance and encouragement, but if you continually intervene and do the thing for the child, he or she will never learn how to do it themselves and they will never grow strong and competent in that area of life.   God loves us too much to allow us to be weak and incapable when it comes to dealing with life. Instead, He lets us deal with it, figure it out, push through it, and come out of it stronger and better. He will coach us and encourage us along the way; occasionally He might lend a little helping hand; but mostly He wants us to achieve it on our own because that’s how we will learn to handle life well.   If you’re going through a tough time right now remember that God is there, He is observing, and He will intervene if necessary. But mostly He wants you to stick with it, push through it, learn from it, and come out of it better and stronger.   God Bless, Pastor Jim

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