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

Our Bible verse for today: “God is love.” 1 John 4:9b (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Love begins in God.”

The apostle John tells us that “God is love”. It’s not just that God loves, which He does; nor is it just that love comes to us from God, which it does. John’s point is that God “is” love. It is His very nature – it’s who He is.

When it comes to defining love, the dictionary is really kind of lame. It simply says that love is deep affection and warm feelings for another person. “Rodale’s Synonym Finder” is a little more helpful. There we learn that synonyms for the word love include “affection, fondness, warmth, cherishing, adoration and devotion.” That’s better but it still misses the mark. We don’t really begin to understand the depths of love until we understand it as it applies to God.

The highest form of love, and the word used most often in the New Testament to refer to love, is “agape”. Agape is perfect love. It is unconditional love that it is freely bestowed upon the object of the love whether it is deserved or not. It is also a love without limits and therefore without end. It is perfect.

Since God “is” love, then agape describes His very essence. That means that God Himself is perfect love, He is complete love. His love could not get any better than it already is because He is perfect in all His ways, and love is who He is. That therefore means that His love is perfect. And as we learned a couple of days ago, when God expresses love for us it is an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). That means that He loves us not only perfectly, but also without limits and without end.

Agape describes God, but it also describes what we experience from God. Agape is the highest expression of love. It is how God loves us and it is how we are to strive to love others. Also, it is how we are to love ourselves. Does that surprise you? Does it sound narcissistic? It’s not. As we will learn on another day, we have to learn to see ourselves as God sees us. And if He loves us with a perfect love, then that’s how we need to love ourselves. Not narcissistically, but perfectly.

Love begins with God because God is love. God’s love is perfect. It is without limits and it never ends. We must first learn to allow ourselves to be loved like that by God, and then we in turn must strive to love God, others, and ourselves in the same way. Those are theological truths that are important to know. Throughout the month we’ll focus on the practical application of those important truths.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “Suddenly, a violent storm arose on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves – but Jesus kept sleeping. So the disciples came and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to die!” He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” Matthew 8:24-26 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The love of God brings us peace in the storms of life.”

As we think about “living a life of love”, we’re going to spend some time this month learning about what love is, where it comes from, and the different ways in which love is expressed. But our primary focus is going to be on the practical application of love, and the difference it should make in our lives. Right here at the beginning of the month, before we cover much of anything else, I want to give you a glimpse of where this is going, and the real difference the love of God can make in our lives when we understand it and trust in it.

In this scene from Matthew 8:24-26 we find Jesus and His disciples in a small boat out on the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly they’re engulfed by a massive storm and the boat is being swamped. The disciples are freaking out, but Jesus is sleeping peacefully, apparently undisturbed by the storm. The disciples wake Jesus up and frantically declare that they’re all going to die unless He performs some miracle to save them. But Jesus isn’t frantic at all. In fact, He’s amazed and disappointed that they are. After voicing a word of rebuke to them, He casually performs the miracle and calms the storm.

Of this scene author Ted Dekker astutely observed, “The great miracle in this story isn’t that Jesus calmed the storm; it’s that He was asleep in the boat and at complete peace in the middle of the storm.”

The circumstances for Jesus and for the disciples were exactly the same. They were all in the storm. The difference was how they viewed the storm. Jesus knew that His Father loved Him fully and unconditionally. He also knew that God is sovereign (all-powerful and in full control) of all situations, including the storms. Also, God is always with us, everywhere, including in the storms of life. Beyond that, Jesus knew that even if the storm resulted in His death, He would still be okay because He would then be in Heaven with the Father. So Jesus had no fear of this storm or of any other trial He would face. Instead He trusted in the goodness and mercy and supremacy of God. And, He was at peace.

The disciples however were focused on the storm, and they didn’t think their little boat could get them through it. Their faith had been in the boat not in God and when the boat started to sink, so did their faith.

The lesson for us is to understand what Jesus understood so that we can face our storms the way that He faced His. God loves us completely and unconditionally. His mercy is great and His intentions are good. He is present with us in all situations, and He has power over all storms. That includes the storms of nature and the storms of life. Jesus was secure in His understanding of the Father’s love for Him and therefore He knew that He really didn’t have anything to fear.

I encourage you to fully embrace the love of God for you. Trust in His goodness. And then, be at peace in the middle of your storms.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued to extend faithful love to you.” Jeremiah 31:3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Understanding and embracing God’s love is the starting place.”

God loves you with an everlasting love, and He never stops extending that love to you. That’s the great truth communicated in Jeremiah 31:3. Those words were first spoken specifically about the nation of Israel, but that verse also expresses an overriding Biblical principle that’s true for all of God’s people. He loves you with an everlasting love.

This is important. There’s no greater truth in your life than the truth that you are loved by God. And not just a little bit either. You are loved fully, completely, unconditionally, and just as you are. 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 also nothing you can do to cause Him to love you less.

The fact that you are loved like that by God is tremendously significant. If you were to truly understand and fully embrace that love, it would radically alter your life. I’m not talking about salvation. There are multiple millions of people who have placed their faith in Christ and therefore are saved, but who are not living life in the fullness of God’s love.

If you understand and fully embrace God’s love for you it will change your perspective about everything, and that will then change your life. God’s love illuminates all that it shines upon. It is light that chases away darkness, and that then helps us to see people and events as they appear to Him. Fully embracing the love of God will change how you think and feel about God and about yourself. It will also change how you think and feel about others, and it will change how you interact with the world.

Learning to accept and fully embrace God’s love for you is the starting place for living a life that is based in love. All this month we’re going to explore the Biblical understanding and application of living in love. I’m looking forward to exploring this important subject with you.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Creation Care”

Our Bible verse for today: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “This is my Father’s world.”

All throughout this month I’ve been using the phrase “This is my Father’s world” to help emphasize the important truth that all of creation belongs to God and that we, His children, have been given the task of taking good care of it for Him. In Genesis 1:1 we’re told that God created it all, and in Genesis 2:15 we learn that God gave Adam the task of caring for His creation. That assignment has been handed down over all the generations since then, and now it belongs to us.

I’ve also mentioned that the phrase “This is my Father’s world” actually comes from an old Baptist hymn by that name. It was written around 1880 by a preacher by the name of Maltbie Babcock. Babcock was an impressive man. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular. He was a gifted athlete who excelled in baseball and competitive swimming, and he was also an outdoorsman who loved to hunt, fish, and hike. One church member wrote about him that he was “a superb specimen of physical manhood” and “a manlier man never stood in a Christian pulpit.” We laugh at that description but in his day that was a high compliment which shows how much he was admired and respected. (Babcock also had the reputation of sometimes using his size and strength to teach bullies a lesson. If the bully didn’t respond to verbal correction and warning, Babcock would take him around back of the building and use a little more forceful persuasion).

The inspiration for the song “This is my Father’s World” came from Babcock’s love for God’s creation. He thoroughly enjoyed being out in nature, encountering God in His creation, and marveling at the majesty of the hills and trees, the streams and rivers, the birds and animals. “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears, all nature sings, and round me rings, the music of the spheres …”  

Maltbie Babcock was a Christian who understood and appreciated the magnificence of God’s creation. He enjoyed it, he celebrated it, and he cared for it. May the same be true of us.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Creation Care”

Our Bible verse for today: “Where were you when I established the earth? … Have you ever in your life commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place? … Have you traveled to the sources of the sea or walked in the depths of the ocean? … Have you comprehended the extent of the earth? Job 38:4; 12; 16; 18 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Creation is amazing beyond our understanding”

The concluding chapters of the book of Job are by far the most powerful chapters in the book. For four chapters (38-41), 129 verses, God lists for Job mysteries about creation the neither Job nor we have any control over nor can even begin to understand. How God determined the dimensions of the earth, the boundaries of the seas, or the placement of the stars in the sky; the inherent natures of a lion on the hunt, a raven in search of food, a deer giving birth, or a wild donkey running free; the strength of a horse, the leap of a locust, the flight of a bird, or the majesty of “Behemoth” (dinosaur?) On and on it goes as God recites realities of nature that were created at His good pleasure, and which mankind has little understanding of and even less control over. It’s all a divine mystery.

In my many years of traveling around this amazing planet I’ve had the privilege to see some incredible sights like the majesty of the open ocean extending endlessly in all directions; the Northern Lights in the Artic Circle; the Grand Canyon; a huge iceberg off the coast of Alaska; flocks of colorful macaws in the skies above the Amazon Jungle; and much more. Then I realize that God sees all of that, and so much more, in a single glance, all at the same time, always.

God’s creation is indeed magnificent. We need to spend more time enjoying and appreciating it.

Throughout this month we’ve considering many difficult aspects of the creation care issues of our day – beginning with the problem of perception and the political biases that distort it. We’ve also considered common sense solutions that will help us to make good use of the resources God has provided us with, while at the same time being good stewards who don’t waste resources and who don’t create more pollution than we should. We’ve thought about things like the use of fossil fuels, the blessings and problems of plastics, alternative energy sources, emissions controls, and new technologies. We’ve also addressed hot button issues like climate change and the Green New Deal. All of that has been covered, and therefore I’ve chosen to end the month by focusing on the creation itself and what a beautiful, amazing, and enjoyable gift it is to us from our heavenly Father.

I encourage you to marvel at God’s creation, appreciate it, enjoy it, and please, take care of it.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Creation Care”

Our Bible verse for today: “The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord; for he laid its foundation on the seas and established it on the rivers.” Psalm 24:1-2 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “It all belongs to God”

The other day, on my day off, I wanted to go for a long motorcycle ride. It’s the end of August and motorcycle season is drawing to a close. I haven’t been on too many day-long rides this year and so I was looking forward to it. But it rained that day. And not just a little. It rained hard, all day long. It was also cool. The high temperature for the day was only 64 degrees (odd for August) and the wind was blowing.

As I was moping around the house looking for something to do my wife told me I should go hiking instead. I reminded her that it was raining outside, raining hard. She said, “So, you can hike in the rain, can’t you?” I felt like my manhood was being called into question so I pulled on my hiking boots, drove to one of my favorite trails, and went hiking in the rain.

At first my mind was on that bright sunny day I didn’t get, and the beautiful winding country roads that I was not riding on. But then the Lord called my attention to the lush greenness of the deep woods. He pointed out to me the bubbling creek, the turtles perched on the fallen trees, the crispness of the air, and of how the rain made everything seem so fresh and clean. He reminded me that I have always liked hiking on cool overcast days, especially in a misty rain, and I remembered that “Laughter in the Rain” by Neil Sedaka has always been a favorite song of mine (as sappy as it is!). I distinctly sensed the Lord telling me “Jim, the bright sunny days and the country roads are mine, but so are the cool rainy days and the wet trails and bubbling creeks. It all belongs to Me and in their own way, each is a gift to you.”

God owns it all. He owns all of creation. The country roads, the wet trails, the bubbling creeks, the sunny skies and the rain clouds, it is all His and it is all beautiful in its own way. It’s all part of our Father’s world.

My prayer is that through this month of thinking devotionally about caring for God’s creation, we have all become a little more sensitive to environmental issues and the responsibility we all have to do our parts to take good care of this planet. It all belongs to God and we have been tasked by Him to be good stewards of it.

Enjoy this beautiful creation. It’s a gift to us from our Father. And I encourage you to do your part to take good care of it.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Creation Care”

Our Bible verse for today: “Maintain sound wisdom and discretion. My son, don’t lose sight of them.” Proverbs 3:21 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Just use common sense”

As we begin to conclude our month of thinking Biblically about the subject of creation care, I want to emphasize again the importance of common sense and balance in our thinking. The biggest problem we have today regarding environmental issues is the extreme thinking on both ends of the political spectrum. On the far left they are promoting ridiculous and unworkable proposals like The Green New Deal. On the far right they scoff at environmental concerns and refuse to even acknowledge that climate change is real.

As God’s people, the ones who have been tasked by Him to take care of His creation for Him, we have to use common sense. We have to introduce reasonable balance into the conversation. God gave us resources like oil and coal so we can use them. They serve no useful function if they remain buried under the ground. However, it makes sense to use them in the safest and cleanest ways possible. Emissions controls, increased fuel efficiency, Clean Coal Technology, are all good things. They allow us to use the energy resources God has given us while at the same time producing as little pollution as possible. It is simply common sense.

Likewise, to deny that climate change is real is just silly. Climate patterns are cyclical not static, and they are always changing. The earth has gone through at least seven major climatic changes over the course of history, the ice age being the most dramatic. The earth has been in a slow but continuous warming trend now for over 100 years. It is well documented. The question isn’t if the climate is changing, but why. Much of it is simply the natural cycles of changing weather patterns, and some of it is manmade.

Plastic is a manmade substance that we have introduced into God’s creation. In many ways it makes life better for humans, but it is also a problem because it takes so long to degrade and decompose. The more organic materials used to create the plastic, the faster it decomposes. The more synthetic materials that are used, the more durable the plastic is but also the longer it lasts in landfills and oceans. Some of the most durable plastic lasts for hundreds of years. Many millions of tons of plastics enter our landfills and oceans each year. The most organic of the plastics (shopping bags), take 10-20 years to decompose. The more durable plastics (soda bottles) can take up to 400 years, and some plastics can take up to 1000 years to decompose. So common sense dictates that we minimize our use of plastic where we can. We don’t have to eliminate plastic, but we do have to be responsible in how much of it we use.

Don’t be an environmental extremist on either end of the political spectrum. Common sense and balance are what’s called for.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Creation Care”

Our Bible verse for today: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.” Colossians 4:6 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Don’t slander the opposition”

I’m a fan of the nightly news show “Special Report: with Bret Baier” on the Fox news channel. His motto is “Fair, Balanced, and Unafraid”. I’ve tried watching nightly news shows on other networks but I’ve discovered them to be too biased in their reporting. I realize that Fox News has the reputation of having a conservative bias, but that’s mostly true of the opinion shows (which I don’t watch). I think Special Report really is fair and balanced. The other thing I appreciate about Brett and his panel of commentators is that they are respectful and temperate in their language. They don’t engage in overheated rhetoric or hyperbole, and they are not mean-spirited.

That’s an important point because the political conversation in our nation today is overwhelmingly mean, exaggerated, overheated, and filled with slanderous assertions that have no basis in fact.  But it’s never okay for God’s people to engage in that kind of discourse. We are to be the adults in the room. That’s the point that Paul was making in Colossians 4:6. Our speech is to be gracious. It’s also to be seasoned with salt (truth and facts), but we are to do it in a calm, reasoned, and intellectual manner that shows respect for those who might disagree with us. We are not to be mocking and mean.

As we have been noting all month, environmentalism is a politically-charged issue in our society. The liberal left has highjacked the issue and made it one of their pet projects. Many conservative Christians have responded to that by thinking of creation care as a liberal political issue that we don’t want anything to do with. But creation care was a Biblical issue long before it was a political issue. It belonged to us, God’s people, long before it belonged to Greenpeace activists.

As the people of God we need to advocate for common sense approaches to creation care that balance our stewardship responsibility to care for our Father’s world, with the human factor that necessitates the use of the energy resources God has given to us. And we need to do it with graciousness and respect.

I encourage all of us to avoid slandering those with whom we disagree. State your case. Do it with facts and good reasoning. But don’t mock or slander those on the other side.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Creation Care”

Our Bible verse for today: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master’s joy.” Matthew 25:21 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “It’s a matter of good stewardship”

Hopefully at this point in our study it’s clear to all of us that for Christians, creation care is less about politics than it is about good stewardship and taking care of our Father’s world. What I’m trying to achieve with these devotional messages is a shift in our thinking.

The actual practice of creation care for us as individuals isn’t really very hard. It consists mostly of simple things like disposing of our waste properly, and being economical in our use of resources, and taking steps to minimize the amount of pollution we create, and recycling. Our individual efforts are not difficult or burdensome. And when taken together, with all of us doing our parts, the difference in our Father’s world can be significant.

So the question isn’t can we do it but will we do it? Do we want to, and will we? When it comes to issues of creation care the primary stumbling block for most conservative Christians isn’t that it’s too hard. Instead it’s that political sensitivity I’ve been writing about all month. It’s the belief that creation care is a liberal policy issue and therefore we’re against it, when in fact it is a Biblical stewardship issue and we must therefore be for it.

In Matthew 25:21 Jesus told a parable about a faithful steward who took proper care of the things his master had entrusted him with. The master then commended the faithful steward and expressed his joy over how the steward had conducted himself. The point of Jesus’ story is that this is how our Father in heaven feels when we take proper care of the things He has entrusted us with. That includes His creation. And please note that in the parable there is no mention about what the servant thought or how he felt about the particular resources the master had entrusted him with. The only thing that mattered to him was that those resources were important to the master and therefore they needed to be important to him too.

In the Bible God has made it clear that He values His creation very much, and He has tasked us with taking good care of it for Him. If creation care is important to Him then it needs to be important to us too. It’s simply a matter of good stewardship.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our theme for this month: “Creation Care”

Our Bible verse for today: “For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made.” Romans 1:20 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Worship Him”

For more than twenty-one years my family and I lived in Southern California. Seventeen of those years were in San Diego, a beach community, and four were in the desert near the Mexico/Arizona border. I have to admit that I did love living near the beach, but the desert not so much (although it does have a beauty all its own). However, my favorite place was the mountains. Just three hours east of San Diego lay the San Bernardino Mountains and up top, at over 8000 feet in elevation, was the town of Big Bear Lake. We would regularly get away to the mountains for a few days of skiing and playing in the snow.

I’ve always loved the beauty of mountains and deep forests – I encounter God more there than almost anywhere else. I seem to be more aware of His presence in those settings. There were two places in-particular in the San Bernardino Mountains that were very special for me. One was the chapel in the Forest Home Christian Camp where Billy Graham had his own turning point experience with God as a young man. That chapel is in a beautiful forest setting with spectacular views. As you pray and worship in the chapel you can look out the large windows and just soak-in the beauty of God’s creation all around you.

The other place is in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church of Big Bear Lake. There’s a huge glass window in the sanctuary that looks out over the lake surrounded by the forest. The view is stunning and you can’t help but be reminded of God as the Creator of that beauty. The view really enhances the worship experience.

Tomorrow is Sunday and most of us will gather in our churches to worship the Creator. Perhaps your sanctuary doesn’t look out over a beautiful mountain lake. But still, God can be seen and experienced in all aspects of His creation, from towering forest trees to the flowers in the flowerbeds of your church. In Romans 1:20 Paul tells us that the evidence of His presence and power and majesty are there for us to see, if we only will.

I encourage you to consider the beauty and splendor of His creation. Then let that awareness draw you into a deeper place of worship. His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, can been seen from what He has made. His creation declares His majesty.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim