Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “For the love of Christ compels us …From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective …” 2 Corinthians 5:14; 16 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Let the love of Christ control and guide you.”

As we continue to grow in our understanding of God’s perfect love and the impact that reality makes in our lives, it changes our perspective (the caterpillar and the butterfly illustration from a previous devotional). That then will change how we see the world around us and how we interact with the people we encounter. God’s love will change how we deal with people and with circumstances, because it will change how we see them, think about them, and feel about them.

In 2 Corinthians 5:14-16 Paul writes that the love of Christ “compels” us. Other translations say it “controls” us. “Compels” communicates the idea of being driven by the love of Christ. “Controls” speaks of being guided by the love of Christ. The Amplified version of the Bible says, “For the love of Christ controls and compels us …” I like that better. As we walk through this world encountering people and situations, we are both driven by, and guided by, the love of Christ.

What does that mean in practical terms? Paul tells us in verse 16: “We do not know anyone from a worldly perspective …” In other words, we don’t think about and attempt to understand people and situations from a worldly perspective. That’s caterpillar thinking. That’s viewing people and circumstances from a lowly perspective as we crawl along the ground. Instead we see them as Christ sees them. Like a butterfly (a transformed caterpillar), the love of Jesus allows us to soar above circumstances and view it all from an elevated perspective.

So, we stop evaluating others from a human perspective and we see them instead as a person Christ died for, as a spirit-being who is going to spend eternity in either heaven or in hell. We recognize that their sins are leaving them confused and lost in darkness, but we can shine the light of Christ to penetrate that darkness. When it’s the love of Christ that controls and drives us it changes everything about how we understand and deal with people and events.

I encourage you to let the love of Christ control and guide you today.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” Psalm 56:3-4 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Remember His promises to you.”

Having the knowledge of God’s perfect love for you is good for starters, but in order to be an actual practical help in daily living that knowledge needs to make a vital eighteen-inch journey from your head to your heart. Knowledge by itself isn’t very helpful if it doesn’t have a practical impact in the real world.

One of the best ways for a promise from God to become a heartfelt reality in your life rather than simple head knowledge, is to memorize it, recite it numerous times, meditate upon it, and then recognize the fulfillment of that promise in your life. A great tool to help us quickly identify God’s promises is “The Bible Promise Book: One thousand promises from God’s Word” published by Barbour Books. We give them away free at Oak Hill Baptist Church but you can easily get a copy at Amazon.com.

This little book arranges 1000 promises from God, by category, for quick and easy reference. I encourage you to get a copy, open it to page one, and then put a check mark next to each promise of God that you know has already come true in your life. You’ll be amazed at how many of God’s promises have already been fulfilled in your life. I also encourage you to select promises that are special to you at this time in your life, write it down on an index card, and carry it with you. Memorize that verse and recite it to yourself over and over and over again. As you do that the verse will be embedded deep in your heart. It will quickly go from being simple head knowledge to a heartfelt reality. With respect to the perfect love of God driving fear out of your life (1 John 4:18), here are a couple of other promises from God you can memorize, recite, and meditate on:

“Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

“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)

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” Matthew 6:33 (Read the entire passage 6:25-34)

I encourage you to remember His promises to you. His love for you is perfect and His promises are always true. A heartfelt understanding of that truth will help to drive fear from your life.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.” 1 John 4:18 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “What do you fear?”

What are the things in life that you fear the most? Almost all of us worry about what other people think of us (you would be surprised to learn how seldom other people actually do think about you. It’s much less than you suspect). Others worry about their income and financial security for the future. Some parents obsess about the safety and well-being of their children. People worry and are fearful about health issues, the economy, terrorism, the outcome of elections, and so much more. Life is full of issues for us to worry about and to be fearful of. But in 1 John 4:18 the apostle tells us that perfect love drives out fear. What could he mean?

Let’s consider some of the things we’ve learned so far this month. First, we’ve learned that God’s love is perfect, and that He loves us with that perfect love. Beyond that, if we only allow it to be so, our lives can be lived out of the reality of God’s perfect love for us. So following John’s train of thought in 1 John 4:18, this must mean that the perfect love of God in our lives should drive out the fears that we have.

That being the case, we no longer fear what other people think of us because the only thing that really matters is what our heavenly Father thinks of us (we are precious to Him and He loves us unconditionally, beyond measure). We now know that we don’t have to be a success in the world’s eyes as long as we are successful in the things that are important to our Father. We also  don’t have to fear health problems, or financial insecurity, or terrorism, or the political situation in our nation, or any other issue, because we know that our God is sovereign (not just over the affairs of the world, but more specifically, over each and every moment of our individual lives). He is large and in-charge. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. Nothing escapes His attention and nothing is out of His control. If you do truly believe that His love for you is perfect, and if you trust Him, then your knowledge of His perfect love should drive away your fears.

Still need more convincing? Tomorrow we will consider some of the many specific promises from God regarding fears we allow to control us, and how it is that His perfect love for us should drive those fears away.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in the world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.” John 16:33 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The war is over”

I want to borrow another story this morning from author Ted Dekker. He writes about a Japanese soldier during World War II who was stranded on a remote island in the Pacific by himself. His fellow soldiers had all been killed in battle and he alone survived, isolated from the world.

He stayed on that island for more than twenty years believing that the war was still raging. When rescuers finally discovered him his first impulse was to fight, to engage them in battle. But imagine his shock when he was told that the war had ended. There were no more battles to be fought. The war had been over for a long time, but his personal experience of the war continued for all that time because of his ignorance of that truth.

In John 19:30, as He hung on the cross and just moments before He gave up His spirit, Jesus declared, “It is finished!” What was finished? The war against sin was finished! Jesus won that war once and for all with His sacrifice on the cross. Satan was defeated. The war was over. We have the victory in Christ. It is finished!

Dekker’s point in telling that story is that many of us act like that Japanese soldier. We apparently don’t realize that the war has been won, so we allow ourselves to be dragged into battles that don’t need to be fought.

The only battle that remains to be engaged in is your personal battle of awakening to the truth that you have victory in Christ. You are now involved in a progressive awakening to who you are in Christ and the impact His victory has in your life. The victory is a gift from God to you and comes as a result of His great love for you.

Remember the story of the caterpillar and the butterfly from yesterday? The caterpillar has tunnel vision and therefore a very limited understanding of the reality of his situation. The butterfly has a greatly expanded perspective and can therefore see the reality of things much more clearly. As we spiritually soar above the circumstances of life, viewing it all from an elevated perspective, we can see that the war has indeed been won and Satan is a defeated foe. We can now live in the reality of the victory we have in Christ.

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in the world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.” The love of Jesus did that for you, so embrace the victory, live like the victor that you are.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:2 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “It’s time to fly”

From the beginning of this series I’ve been saying that when we learn to accept and fully embrace God’s love for us, and when we learn to love and accept ourselves the way that God loves and accepts us, it will change us. It will change how we think about God, and how we think about ourselves. It will also change how we see and interact with the world around us. It’s time now to begin exploring the practical impact of the love of God for us, in us, and through us.

In his great little Bible study, “The Way of Love” author Ted Dekker offers a wonderful illustration that helps us to understand the transforming impact God’s love can have in our lives. Ted asks us to consider the caterpillar and the butterfly. The caterpillar crawls along the ground, and its understanding of the world around it is limited by its low view of the world. The butterfly however, soars high above the ground and is able to see that same world from a completely different perspective.

The caterpillar and the butterfly are the same creature, just in different stages of development.  They are seeing the same world and the same circumstances, just from very different perspectives. Once the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly and is therefore able to fly high above his world, his entire perspective of that world changes. The difference isn’t found in the circumstances, but in the perspective of those circumstances.

As Christians we’re like the caterpillar or the butterfly. We’re either crawling along on the ground, limited in our perspective and with a very low view of the world and of our circumstances, or we’re like the butterfly – we’ve been transformed, we can fly, and we are therefore able to soar high above the world around us seeing it from a higher, elevated perspective.

It’s God’s love that brings about this transformation in us. As we fully embrace and accept His love for us, as we relax in it and align our sight with His, our will with His, it changes our perspective. We’re learning to fly -and that changes everything.

Spiritually are you like the caterpillar, crawling along on the ground with a low and limited perspective of the world around you and of your circumstances in it? Or are you like the butterfly, soaring high and seeing things from a higher, elevated perspective? To live a life grounded in the love of God we have to learn to see our world and our circumstances with that higher, elevated perspective.

More about this tomorrow.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)

Our thought for today: “Keep thinking about God’s love for you.”

Accepting and embracing God’s love for you, and then keeping your mind focused on how much He loves you, will change the way you think about yourself and it will change the way you see the world around you. God’s great love for us changes everything.

As we’ve continued our discussion about living a life based in love, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that there’s a progression unfolding here. We started with the truth that God Himself is love, it’s the essence of who He is. He is the personification of pure and perfect love. That pure and perfect love extended to you as God gently and lovingly formed you in your mother’s womb, knitting your body together and creating your human form.

But then, once you placed your faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and Jesus began to live in and through you, then the Father’s love for you expanded way beyond the fact that you are His creation. From that moment on whenever He looks at you, He sees His precious Son living in you, and that just melts His heart. His love for you knows no bounds. Now it’s a matter of realizing how great and complete and all-consuming the love of God for you is, and then to accept it and fully embrace it. That will change how you think and feel about yourself.

That’s where we are in the progression right now. Soon we’ll be move into considering how that reality changes how we see and interact with the world around us. But for now, we’re still thinking about seeing ourselves as God sees us, and learning to love ourselves as He loves us.

It really is important to think a lot about God’s love for you. Keep coming back to it. When your mind drifts to other things, bring it back to the love relationship you have with your heavenly Father. Doing so will bring you a great sense of peace. That’s what Isaiah was writing about in Isaiah 26:3. The one who has learned to keep returning his or her thoughts to their relationship with God will experience great peace of mind. And rightly so! There’s nothing more important than God’s love for you. There is no force more powerful, no thought more comforting, no reality more real. Everything else you encounter in life pales in comparison to God’s great love for you.

I encourage you to spend some time today sitting quietly with the Father. Just enjoy being with Him. Relax in His love for you. And then be at peace, secure in that love.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.” John 15:5 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The life of Jesus flows in you and works through you.”

At this point in our discussion about “living a life of love” we’re still learning how to love ourselves. We’ve spent some time gaining a better understanding of the truth that God loves us, but the next step is to really begin to love ourselves as God loves us. Yesterday we learned from Galatians 2:20 that Christ lives in us and that when the Father looks at you, He sees His beloved Son alive in you. That causes His heart to melt and His love to just overflow. Today we will think a little more about what the life of Christ in us really means and how that should impact how we feel about ourselves.

In John 15:5 Jesus used the illustration of a grape vine and its branches to help us understand our relationship with Him. Just as the life of the vine flows through the branches, and the fruit of the vine is produced out of the branches, so too the life of Jesus flows in and through His followers, and His fruit is produced in the world through the lives of His followers.

That’s true of you and of me. The life of Jesus is in you, it is flowing through you, and the fruit of Jesus is being produced in and through your life. What is that fruit? Paul describes it in Galatians 5:22-23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” That’s what Jesus is doing in you and through you. As you continue to grow in your relationship with Him those attributes become more and more a part of who you are as a person, and they become more and more what other people experience as a result of being around you.

You are a conduit through which the fruit of Jesus flows to a hurting and bleeding world! People are blessed and their lives are better because of Jesus in your life. That should cause you to feel pretty good about yourself. Not only are you blessed because Jesus is in your life, but others are blessed because Jesus is in your life! That’s how God sees you. You are a healthy extension of His Son’s life in this world.

We have to learn to see ourselves as God sees us, and then we have to rest in the reality of that identity – every minute of every hour of every day. You are an extension of the life of Christ in this world, and the world is a better place because of it.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Love yourself because Jesus lives in you.”

Today we will continue thinking about why it is so important that we learn to love ourselves the way that God loves us. Remember, God loves you with an everlasting love. He loves you unconditionally, without limits, and without end. God’s love for you is so perfect and so complete that there’s nothing you can do to cause Him to love you more, and there’s nothing you can do to cause Him to love you less.

Why does God love you like that? Why are you so precious to Him? Do you remember our devotional message from two days ago, the one where I described the deep meaning behind John 3:16? God loves His Son Jesus in ways we cannot begin to fathom. And now that you are a Christian, Jesus lives in you. When God the Father looks at you, He sees His Son Jesus alive within you. This is what Paul meant when he wrote “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

God loves you first of all simply because He created you. We saw that yesterday in the sampling of Bible verses I cited. But now that you are a Christian and you have the Spirit of His beloved Son Jesus living within you, you have become precious to the Father beyond measure. His heart overflows with love just thinking about you.

I know a young mother who is infatuated with her little daughter. Almost every day she posts pictures on Facebook to show the world how beautiful and special her daughter is. “Cuteness personified” is how this mother describes her. Actually, I’m Facebook friends with numerous other young parents who feel that same way about their children and who are constantly making Facebook posts about it. I love it! It’s heartwarming to see a parent so in love with their child.

That’s how your Father in heaven feels about you. If there is Facebook in heaven, and if the Father has a Facebook page, your picture is plastered all over it!

How does that make you feel? Do you feel loved, valued, treasured? You should. It’s been my experience that when a child knows how deeply they are loved by a parent, that knowledge goes a long way towards helping that child to feel good about themselves, to be happy and well-adjusted. That should be true of you and me as we consider how loved we are by our Father in heaven. His love for us enables us to love ourselves, to feel good about ourselves.

I encourage you this morning to spend some time thinking about who you are in the Father’s eyes. Let the warmth of His love wash over you. And then spend some time feeling good about yourself.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

Our thought for today: “You are a masterpiece”

Okay, tell the truth, are you uncomfortable with the thought of loving yourself? I’m guessing that the question itself makes you uncomfortable. You might even answer it with a resounding “no” because you don’t want to sound like a narcissist. However, hopefully you do love yourself.

I want to tell you this morning that you should love yourself – and it’s more than just okay, it’s good and it’s healthy. It is also vitally important. How we think and feel about ourselves determines everything else about us. It determines not just how we see ourselves, but it also colors our outlook about others and the world. It determines how we think, how we act, and how we interact with others. A healthy sense of self-worth and self-esteem is crucial to being the person God intends for you to be.

This is so important that God has gone to great lengths in the Bible to communicate this great truth.  He wants you to understand and appreciate how special He created you to be. Here are just a few of the passages that prove this to be true:

“For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made.” (Psalm 139:13-14). While you were in your mother’s womb, God was lovingly and carefully forming your body and making you into the beautiful creation you are.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Not only did God create you to be a beautiful physical creation, but in the moment you placed your faith in Christ, He formed you into a new spiritual creation as well.

“Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?”  (1 Corinthians 6:19). God brought the beautiful physical you together with the beautiful spiritual you to become a walking, talking, mobile temple of His Holy Spirit. That’s who you are and that’s how He sees you!

“The second (great commandment) is, love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:31). The assumption Jesus was communicating here is that you already love yourself; now He wants you to love others like you love yourself. God expects you to love yourself!

Now go back and reread Ephesians 2:10 (above) and gain a new understanding of why God calls you His “masterpiece”. It’s because that’s how He sees you! And the reason He has communicated all of this to you in the Bible is because that’s how he wants you to see yourself.

Please do not be reluctant to see yourself as God sees you. He created you. You are His masterpiece. Love yourself for who He has made you to be in Christ.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Living a life of love”

Our Bible verse for today: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God loves you sacrificially”

As promised, tomorrow we will begin a discussion about how important it is to love yourself. Not in a narcissistic way, but the way that God loves you. We’ll get into that tomorrow, but for today we need to think a little more about just how deeply and completely God does love us.

John 3:16 is without question one of the most important verses in the Bible. But in some respects, it has almost become a throw-away verse. I mean that it is used so often and so casually, often superficially, that it has lost much of its impact in the minds of people. So let’s take a moment this morning to really plumb the depths of the incredible truth that’s being revealed to us in this verse.

John tells us here that the Father’s love for us is so great, that He gave His Son as a sacrifice in order to save us so that we can one day be in heaven with Him too. Those words are intended to mean something to us. They were intentionally chosen by God to evoke images in our minds that we can relate to, images that will tug at our heart strings and help us to understand how important we are to God.

Are you a parent? Do you have a child you love so much that words can’t describe how precious he or she is to you? That’s how God the Father feels about His Son Jesus, only infinitely more so. The depth of your love for your child can’t even begin to approach the depth of His love for His Son. Now imagine giving your precious child to a vicious and cruel man to be abused, tortured and killed right before your eyes. Can you stand to even think about it without your jaw clenching and your blood pressure going up?

But this is what God did for us. That is what was necessary in order to rescue us from our sins. How precious to God must you be for Him to allow His Son to suffer like that in order to rescue you? The Father must love you much, much more than you realize. You must be precious to Him beyond words!

God doesn’t just love you. He loves you sacrificially. He loves you to the point of suffering for you. He loves you with agape love – unconditionally, without limit, and without end. I encourage you to spend some time this morning thinking about His great love for you and praising Him for it. Tomorrow we will begin thinking about learning to love ourselves the way that God loves us.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim