Our theme for this month: “A New Year, A New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Galatians 5:22-23 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The benefits of spiritual growth are enjoyed now, in this lifetime.”

Spiritual growth brings us both immediate and long-term benefits, in this lifetime and for eternity. Today we’ll consider the impact of spiritual growth for this life, and tomorrow we will shift the conversation to eternity.

As has been previously noted, the moment you place your faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins God places His Holy Spirit inside your heart, and that begins a lifelong process of growth and transformation that theologians refer to as “progressive sanctification”.

The most important result spiritual growth produces in you during this lifetime is that you come to know Jesus better. This is what the Apostle Peter was referring to in 2 Peter 3:18 when he wrote, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Your spiritual growth increases your knowledge and understanding of Jesus, and it also increases your experience or awareness of His grace at work in your life.

Spiritual growth also increases the degree to which the character of Christ becomes more and more evident in you. This is what Paul was describing in Galatians 5:22-23 by what he termed “the fruit of the Spirit”. These are attributes of Christ that progressively come to define the personality and character of the mature Christian. And think about it, aren’t these the things everyone is seeking more of in life anyway, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”? Isn’t that what people are really trying to achieve through relationships and money and possessions and alcohol and all the other things we fill our lives with? Spiritual growth fills that empty space in your heart that nothing else can fill.

In addition to the fruit of the Spirit listed by Paul in Galatians, the New Testament also describes many other benefits of spiritual growth in this lifetime. Spiritual growth teaches us how to be content (Philippians 4:10-13); it creates a purity of mind and heart (Philippians 4:8); it produces courage in us (Acts 5:29); and it empowers us to be a dynamic force for good in a broken and hurting world (Matthew 5:3-10, Acts 1:8).

The Christian life is an exciting adventure. The more spiritually mature you are, the more God will involve you in the adventure and the more you will appreciate and enjoy it. The best life you will ever have is the one lived in the center of God’s will, fully experiencing a robust and mature faith. That’s what spiritual growth does for us in this lifetime.

Tomorrow we will consider how our spiritual growth determines what eternity will be like for us.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “A New Year, A New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.” Colossians 2:6-7

Our thought for today: “Have a plan to guide your spiritual growth.”

Have you ever met a “static” person? I’m talking about someone who is going nowhere in life and they don’t seem to care. They just shuffle through their days, they’re not interested in much, they don’t do much, and they don’t change much. There’s no passion for living, there’s no effort made to grow or change or improve, they’re just static.

Many Christians are like that. They’re static Christians. They’re just shuffling through their spiritual lives with no passion, no real interest, and no growth. But it’s not supposed to be that way. Our faith should be dynamic and growing. We should have a passionate desire to know Christ, to be built up in Him, and to be in a state of continuous spiritual growth. But for that to be true of us we have to be intentional about it. We have to have a plan that will help to facilitate that growth.

The most important thing you can do to help your spiritual growth is to study your Bible every day. Get a Bible study plan. There are dozens of them available, you can even Google the subject. Just pick one that’s interesting to you and use it. Reading your Bible is even more important than praying. Why? Because it’s more important for you to hear from God than it is for God to hear from you, and the Bible is God’s primary way of communicating with us.

The next most important thing you can do for your spiritual growth is to pray. Have a set time everyday when you meet with God. Read your Bible and then have some time talking to God. It doesn’t have to be formal or flowery, just have a conversation with Him about all the things going on in your life, about the problems you are wrestling with, the concerns you have, etc.

Then participate in the full life of a good church. Not only do you need the group worship and the teaching, but you also need the fellowship of other Christians. God frequently communicates with us and ministers to us through other Christians. He will use others to speak to you and to bless you, and He will use you to do that for others. But if you’re not there, you miss all of that.

And then, be involved in some ministry activities that allow you to be a blessing to others and to serve others in need. Few things can help to spur your own spiritual growth than when you are engaged in acts of service to others.

I encourage you to have a plan for 2020 to guide your spiritual growth. Make some resolutions to study your Bible, have daily prayer time, be a full participant in the life of your church, and to be involved in ministry. If you would like to have a fuller conversation about how to develop a plan to help with any of those things, or about other aspects of spiritual growth, please send me an email or message me on Facebook and I will be happy to help.

Tomorrow we will begin to consider the benefits of spiritual growth, both in this lifetime, and in eternity.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “A New Year, A New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you keep away from sexual immorality, that each of you knows how to control his own body in holiness and honor …” 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Cooperate with God”

Yesterday I encouraged you to make some New Year’s resolutions regarding your spiritual growth. I even used the term “apply yourself”. Does that surprise you? Some Christians believe that spiritual growth is something the Holy Spirit does in us and there is therefore nothing we can do to make it happen. Well, it is true that it’s the Holy Spirit who produces spiritual growth in us, and it is also true that we cannot force the growth, but it is not true that we have no role in it or that there’s nothing we can do to help bring it about.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about spiritual growth in us, but we have to cooperate with Him. We have to intentionally place ourselves in a position before God every day so that the Holy Spirit can work in us to bring about the changes that God desires. That’s what Paul was referring to in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 with respect to sanctification.

“Sanctification” is a theological word that means “To be set apart for God and made holy.” The Bible describes three stages of sanctification. “Positional” sanctification happens in the moment of salvation and is closely related to justification. It is that moment when we place our faith in Christ and we are therefore declared to be holy and righteous in God’s eyes because of our relationship with His Son. There are many verses which teach this, Ephesians 2:5 is one of them.

“Progressive” sanctification is the ongoing transformation that takes place in our lives as the Holy Spirit works to progressively change us into the man or woman God wants us to be. This is what Paul was writing about in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 and it is the stage of sanctification I’m referring to here as well. The third stage of the sanctification process is known as “Final” or “Ultimate” sanctification. It occurs when we are finally in heaven with the Lord and we are the people we will be for all eternity. 1 John 3:2 is one of the verses that refers to this last stage of sanctification.

Although the entire process of sanctification, from start to finish, is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we do have a role to play as well. We have to choose to place our faith in Christ to begin with, and then we have to place ourselves in a position before God each day whereby the Holy Spirit can accomplish His work in us. It is in this respect that the believer can actually influence the pace and degree of their spiritual growth. The more you do your part, the more opportunity the Holy Spirit has to do His part.

Tomorrow we’ll consider some of the actual practices, or spiritual disciplines, a Christian can choose to incorporate into his or her life which will help to facilitate the ongoing progress of their sanctification. Then on another day we will consider the “why” of it all. What difference will sanctification make in your life now, and for all eternity? Stay tuned. We’re going to get to that.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “A New Year, A New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” Matthew 6:33 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Be faithful and trust God”

In yesterday’s devotional I made the statement that the most important step any of us can take in order to handle our finances better is to put God first on your prioritized budget list. Make tithing and generous giving your number one budget priority and then trust God for the rest. The way that God has chosen to finance His work in this world is through the faithful and generous giving of His people. And if you will be one of those people, He has promised to care for you in return.

This is a subject I personally struggled with for many years, first as a new Christian, and then when my family and I answered the call to full-time ministry. As new Christians, we didn’t have much room in our budget for tithing and sacrificial giving. It was something we had to work at and continue to increase over time as we cleaned up our finances and learned to put God at the top of the list. And then, when I accepted the call to full-time Christian ministry, it was with the understanding that for the rest of my life I would be earning significantly less than I could have in some other, higher paying profession. I struggled with that for a while.

But Linda was much better with it. She adopted Matthew 6:25-34 as a promise from God to her. That is what we call the “Do not worry” passage of the New Testament. It’s where God tells us to simply honor Him with our finances and with our lives, and then to trust Him for the rest. I can’t count the number of times over the years that she reminded me of this passage. And lo and behold, it has always proven to be true. We’ve never been rolling in the dough, but we’ve never been homeless or hungry either. Our needs were always met and we were always comfortable. God provides.

But please understand, when it comes to “God providing”, it’s true that God will always do His part, but it’s also true that we have to do our part. We have a responsibility to handle our finances well. We are to give generously; we are not to be frivolous or extravagant with our spending; we are not to create lots of debt in order to get things we don’t really need; and we cannot expect God to step-in and magically clean-up the messes we have irresponsibly created. God will do His part but we have to do our parts too, and that requires personal discipline, smart decisions, and often, sacrifice.

One of the best resources available today to help Christians establish and maintain good money management skills is “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. The strategies Dave teaches in that book are proven methods for getting and staying financially sound. If your money management skills could use some improvement, I encourage you to consider making “The Total Money Makeover” one of your goals for 2020.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “A New Year, A New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Let’s do a better job of managing our money.”

When it comes to making New Year’s resolutions in an effort to improve some aspect of our lives, there will be more resolutions made about diet and exercise than any other subject. That’s the number one subject for New Year’s resolutions. But the second most common resolution is usually about money. People resolve to be better money managers, to pay off bills, to increase savings, to reduce expenses by downsizing, and much more. This tends to be the case because by and large, the average American is not a good money manager.

Although we live in the most affluent society on earth, and although middle-class Americans have the highest standard of living of any middle-class in the world, most of us are not satisfied with what we have and we’re constantly yearning to have something more, something bigger, something better. And as a result, we live beyond our means. We spend too much, we buy things we don’t have the money for, and we end up getting ourselves into deep debt.

What we’re supposed to do is live below our means. In other words, whatever your current income is, structure your lifestyle so that your living expenses are comfortably less than your income. That means the home you live in, the car you drive, the luxuries you treat yourself to, all add up to less than your income. That way each month you always have a little bit more than you need. And, don’t buy things you don’t actually have the money for. Instead, save for what you want and buy the thing when you have the cash to pay for it. But, that’s not how most Americans live. Instead, the average American spends more than they earn and they live in deep debt.

The Bible teaches that money is neutral. It’s just a tool that’s necessary for living, and it comes to us as a gift from God. But like every other gift we receive from God, we are to use it wisely and we are to be good stewards of it. Interestingly, there are few subjects the Bible teaches more about than money and possessions:

• Nearly half of the parables Jesus taught had to do with money and possessions.
• Almost 25% of all the words Jesus spoke had to do with some form of stewardship.
• 1 out of 10 verses in the Gospels deal with money.
• And although I haven’t counted them myself, I have heard and read numerous times that more than 2,000 Bible verses pertain in some manner to tithing, money, or possessions – more than twice as many as prayer and faith combined.

Since how we handle our money is obviously important to God; and since it is the second most common category of New Year’s resolutions; and since it’s an area of life where most of us need to be doing a better job; we will spend the next few days considering it.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “A New Year, A New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:27 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Exercise your body”

I have a friend who is a medical doctor. He’s a good doctor but he has a little bit of a sly and even warped sense of humor. I was in his office one time and noticed that taped to the wall was a cartoon he had cut out of the newspaper. It showed a very old man sitting on the exam table in his doctor’s office. He was shirtless, hunched over, wrinkled, shriveled, obviously arthritic, and he gave the impression of being weak and very tired. The doctor said to him, “Do you remember those ten extra years of life you were hoping to get from all that exercising and nutritious eating? These are them!”

That’s funny, but it’s also similar to what we hear said by many people who don’t exercise or take care of themselves. They say things like, “It doesn’t matter how much you exercise or how good your diet is, you’re going to die eventually anyway!”. True enough. But that’s no reason to neglect your health. Not only do I want to live as long as I can, but I want to be as healthy as I can for as long as I can. Regardless of my age, whether it be forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty, I want to be as healthy as I can be at that age, enjoying life and living it fully. Bad health makes it harder to really enjoy life and to do the things you would like to be able to do.

In 1 Corinthians 9:27 the Apostle Paul wrote about the efforts he made to discipline his body. In his writing he frequently used military and athletic metaphors to describe the disciplined lifestyle he urges all of us to adopt. I believe he was writing first and foremost about disciplining the body for holy living, but as we have already learned, we also have a stewardship responsibility to take care of ourselves physically.

As I noted yesterday, good nutrition is two-thirds of the health and physical fitness equation and exercise is one-third. We need to eat right, but we also need to exercise our body. The more you move your body, the healthier it is going to be. The more sedate you are, the weaker and less healthy your body will be.

I urge you to have a regular daily exercise routine. Many people find it helpful to join a local gym. There you can find all the right equipment, there are also trainers to guide you and give you advice, and there are other people to work out with and who will help to keep you motivated. If you want to workout at home, there are many video programs available to guide you. The website http://www.beachbody.com has an entire series of them for all ages and fitness levels.

Although ideally your workout routine should include a mix of cardiovascular and strength training, even a brisk and vigorous 30-45 minute walk each day will go a long way towards improving your overall health and fitness.

Activity is a sign of life. A lack of activity closely resembles being dead. In my opinion, the more active you are the more alive you are, and the less active you are the closer to being dead you are. I encourage you to move that body! Plan to incorporate a good daily exercise program into your new healthy lifestyle in 2020.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “A New Year, a New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “God also said, ‘Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you …” Genesis 1:29 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Avoid the bad food”

Good nutrition is two-thirds of the health and fitness equation. Exercise is the other third. If you have a good diet you will maintain a healthy body weight and your blood chemistry numbers will probably be within the proper parameters. Exercise then, will help burn additional calories, it will improve cardiovascular function, and it will strengthen muscles and improve muscle tone. But having a good diet is the most important factor when it comes to getting and staying healthy.

The fast and simple rule of thumb for having a good diet is “Just eat moderate amounts of reasonably healthy food.” That’s it. Just eat foods that are good for you, and in the proper proportions. Simple, right? No. Not so simple. Since we have to contend with the conditioning and chemistry issues that we thought about in the previous two devotionals, maintaining a good diet is not easy or simple. We need help.

I have already noted in a previous devotional in this series that prepackaged meals like Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and Weight Watchers can provide a helpful kick-start to getting us back on track with respect to good eating habits. They provide complete nutritious meals in the right proportions. It’s easy and it takes all the guesswork out of it, and you don’t have to stay on those diets long-term. You can use them for a shorter period simply to get the weight off and to reestablish proper eating habits, then you can transition to one of the other eating guides I will list below.

“The Daniel Plan” by Rick Warren is instructive and helpful. For me personally, the most insightful lesson taught in that book is that the closer our food is to its natural state, the better it is for us. The more a factory has been involved in the production and processing of that food, the more additives and artificial ingredients it will include and therefore the unhealthier it is likely to be. That’s true whether we’re talking about fruit, vegetables, meat, and certainly, sweets.

The “P90X Nutrition Guide”, available from Beachbody.com, is pretty straight-forward and easy to follow. “Body by God’, by Dr. Ben Lerner is good too.

“Simple Ideas for Healthy Living”, published by Gospel Light, is a neat little book with lots of practical suggestions. Did you know that if you drink an eight-ounce glass of water 15 minutes before your meal it will have the effect of decreasing your appetite and you will therefore eat less? Try it!

Often, especially early-on as we’re trying to correct our eating habits, we need a little help to take the edge off of our appetite. Many people have found a natural appetite suppressant known as “Green Coffee Bean Extract” to be helpful. Of all the appetite suppressants on the market today, this one seems to offer the greatest help with the fewest side-effects. You can Google it to learn more.

Your body is a gift to you from God. We have a stewardship responsibility to take good care of our bodies, and good nutrition is perhaps the most important factor to being healthy. I encourage all of us (me included), to resolve to eat better in 2020.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “A New Year, A New Beginning”

Our Bible verse for today: “Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God has made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Processed food can be addictive.”

Since the Garden of Eden, Satan has been trying to get people to eat things they shouldn’t eat. Yesterday we considered how manufacturers and marketers of food products condition us to overeat. We’re constantly inundated with advertisements for food; food itself is available everywhere; and portions sizes are far too big. Over time, all of that conditions us to consume much larger portions than our bodies really need.

However, in addition to the marketing strategies and the intentionally large portions, chemistry also plays a role in getting us to eat more. In his ground-breaking book “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite”, Dr. David Kessler provided substantial researched-based evidence which proves conclusively that the food industry has colluded to intentionally make processed foods addictive in nature. Dr. Kessler is a highly respected medical doctor who has served as the Dean of the medical schools at Yale University and at the University of California San Francisco; and he has served as the Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under two Presidents. His credentials are impeccable.

In his research, conducted over decades, Dr. Kessler discovered that the food industry learned how to scientifically manipulate certain elements in processed foods in order to make the food addictive. What they did is similar to what the tobacco industry did with nicotine in order to make cigarettes more addictive. His findings have been validated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; by the U.S. Surgeon General; by the Center for Disease Control (CDC); and it has spawned investigations and hearings in the U.S. Congress.

Dr. Kessler’s book is a fascinating (and somewhat infuriating) read. It will inform you, but it will also make you mad. Fortunately, just as in the case with the addictive nature of cigarettes, there are steps we can take and strategies we can employ to combat and pushback against the schemes of the food industry. Dr. Kessler dedicates much space in his book to that subject. I encourage you to read it.

So, when it comes to gaining control over and cleaning up our diet, we will have to be intentional about it and we will have to have help. Conditioning and chemistry can be tough factors to fight back against. Tomorrow, as we conclude the dietary part of our thinking about possible New Year’s resolutions, I will suggest some additional resources that you might find helpful.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim