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

Our Bible verse for today: “I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?” Matthew 6:25-26 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God loves you, He cares for you, and He provides for you”

There’s a wonderful old hymn we sing in church sometimes called “His Eye Is on The Sparrow”. It’s inspired by the words of Jesus taken from the passage of the Sermon on the Mount, which I quoted from above. In verse 26 we read, “Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?” Evidently it was an important lesson because Jesus repeated it again in Matthew 10:29-31: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Here’s the chorus to the song:

I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

Few things cause us more anxiety and worry than our concern for provisions and financial security. But the truth is that you have a Father in heaven who loves you far beyond your understanding. He watches over you constantly and He is more concerned with your well-being than even you are. That is so true that Jesus dedicated an entire passage in the Sermon on the Mount to the subject (Matthew 6:25-34), and He repeated the lesson in various forms multiple times in His teaching throughout His ministry years.

The key to the lesson is found in verse 33 of Matthew 6 when Jesus tells us, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” In other words, instead of being overly preoccupied with concerns about money and possessions, focus first and primarily on living a life that honors God. Then, in His way and in His time, He will provide for your basic needs. But that doesn’t absolve you of responsibility. You still have to do your part. Money and food are not going to rain down on you like manna from heaven. You need to work and do your best to provide for yourself and your family. But then trust your Father who loves you dearly to look out for you and to care for you in His way and in His time.

God’s love and care extends even to the sparrow so surely, He will also take good care of you as well. I encourage you to rest in the knowledge of God’s love and care for you.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (N IV)

Our thought for today: “Be sure you do “due diligence”

Did I shake your confidence yesterday in your ability to discern God’s leading in prayer? If so, I’m sorry, but in truth that is what I intended to accomplish. You see, we can become too casual in assuming our ability to discern God’s leading in prayer. We can believe that just because a thought came into our head during prayer it must be the leading of God in answer to whatever we’re praying about. Sometimes that thought is from God, but many other times we confuse our feelings with God’s leading.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone confidently declare, “God told me to do (this, that, or some other thing)”. And I’m frequently amazed at how often this thing that God “told” the person to do, turns out to line up perfectly with what it was the individual wanted to do to begin with. Hmm … pardon me if I’m a little suspicious. I don’t doubt the person’s sincerity, but I do wonder if they’re really hearing from God or maybe just responding to their feelings.

So, how can we have confidence in the leadings we believe we’re receiving from God in prayer? Two ways: First, we check and confirm the leading in the ways I described yesterday. We compare what we believe God is saying in prayer to what we know He has said in the Bible. Then we also discuss it with one or more trusted advisors. We should also give careful, prayerful thought to how the leading lines up with circumstances (God’s leading through circumstances is a lesson unto itself but for this morning it will suffice to say that God is amazingly consistent in how He works in our lives, and through our circumstances He is often pointing us towards something).

Once we’ve done our “due diligence” by giving God lots of opportunity to confirm His leading, then we can claim the promise of Proverbs 3:5-6 and move forward with confidence. Trust God with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will then make your paths straight. In other words, once you have done your genuine best to understand His will in this matter, you can trust Him to lead you.

The fact is that God wants to be understood by us so that He can then be obeyed by us. The only way that can happen is if He communicates with us. He may not provide you with a detailed roadmap and He may not dictate every step you are to take, but if you do your part to understand Him on this issue you’re seeking guidance for (due diligence),  you can trust that He will then guide, direct, and nudge as necessary to move you in the right direction. It’s all part of the love relationship He has going on with you.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “We need to hear God”

In the devotional two days ago, the one where I revealed that I personally hear from God best and most often through the written Word, I also mentioned that for me, hearing from God through prayer, is only the fifth best way I hear from Him. Higher on the list was the Bible, creation, circumstances, and counsel from friends and mentors. I think I caught some of you by surprise by that and I therefore want to come back to it this morning because there’s an important reality in play that needs to be discussed.

First, as the starting place, we need to acknowledge that God wants to be known by us. He also wants to be obeyed by us so He can then bless us. In order for that to be true, He has to clearly communicate with us. Good two-way communication is vital for the health of any relationship.

In John 10:27 Jesus gave us a beautiful picture of Himself as our shepherd, and of us being like sheep who know their shepherd, recognize His voice, and faithfully follow Him. However, the voice of God is not audible for us. I’ve never known anyone who could honestly claim to have heard the audible voice of God. Instead, we “hear” Him in other ways. And as was noted in the devotional from two days ago, His primary and clearest means of communicating with us is through the Bible.

Prayer is the primary way that we talk to God, but it is not the primary way that He talks back to us. In fact, I would say that what we believe we are hearing from God in prayer is perhaps the least reliable means of hearing back from God. That’s because we tend to confuse and conflate our thoughts, feelings, and desires with the voice of God. A thought comes into our head during prayer and we conclude it must be God speaking to us. However, it’s just as likely that what we’re calling the voice of God is nothing more than our own feelings – and we have to be careful about our feelings, because they can be deceptive little boogers.

God does speak to us in prayer, but it’s a very subtle thing. That’s why we need to check and confirm what we believe we are hearing from God in prayer, with other ways in which God speaks to us. For instance, if you believe God has said something to you in prayer, immediately check it against the Bible. God will never tell you something that is in conflict with His written word. Another way to check and confirm the leading you receive in prayer is through the counsel of trusted advisors. God often speaks to us through our Pastor, or spouse, or close Christian friend. Also, as Henry Blackaby taught in “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God”, a primary way God speaks to us is through our circumstances. So, take the leading you believe you received in prayer, and see how it lines up with the applicable circumstances.

Good two-way communication is a vital part of a love relationship with God. The primary way that we talk to God is in prayer, but the primary ways we hear from God is through the Bible, words of counsel, circumstances, and yes, also through prayer (but be careful with this one).

Henry Blackaby once said, “It’s more important for me to hear from God than it is for God to hear from me.” That’s very true and so we need to learn to hear God’s voice. It’s vital to our relationship with Him. I encourage you to invest the time into learning how to hear from God.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ.” Colossians 2:9 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “To know God, study Jesus”

This morning I want to return to our discussion from yesterday regarding the Bible being yet one more proof of God’s great love for us. Although the Bible communicates a tremendous amount of truth – more than we can ever learn in an entire lifetime of study, and it also reveals great spiritual mysteries, the most important thing it does for us is it reveals God’s nature. It teaches us about who God is and what He is like. And the clearest picture of Himself that He gives to us in the Bible is in the person of Jesus Christ.

Paul tells us in Colossians 2:9 that the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Jesus Christ. In Colossians 1:15 he wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” In 1:19 we read, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him …” In John 14:8-11, when Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.” Jesus replied with this astounding revelation, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who lives in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

This is why we tell people “If you want to know God, study Jesus, because Jesus is God.” God came to live among us in the person of Jesus Christ so He could show Himself to us in ways we can understand. So, if you need to gain a better understanding of how eager God is to forgive you if you will just come to Him, turn to Luke 15:11-32 and read as Jesus tells the story of the Prodigal Son. Or, go to John 8:2-11 and see how He dealt with the woman caught in adultery. If you are wondering if God really understands your pain and suffering, you should read the account in John 11:1-27 about the sickness and death of Jesus’ friend Lazarus, and note how much anguish Jesus experienced because of the pain and suffering of His friends. That’s a picture of how the Father feels when you suffer.

And on and on it goes. Lessons about how God provides for us, and about His watch care over us, and of His desire to forgive us and to have intimate fellowship with us, and so much more. All of it lived out and modeled for us in the life of Jesus as an expression of God’s love.

The God of creation came to us in the person of Jesus Christ to show Himself to us in ways we can understand. We get that picture of Him on the pages of the Bible. So if you want to know God, and if you want to understand His great love for you, study Jesus, because Jesus is God.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “How happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk according to the Lord’s instruction! Happy are those who keep his decrees and seek him with all their heart.” Psalm 119:1-2 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God gave us the Bible because He loves us.”

We’ve been spending the months of September and October exploring the reality of God’s love. What love is, why God loves us, how we fully embrace and experience that love, and how we then share it with others. In yesterday’s devotional I told you that I wasn’t able to go on my mission trip to Peru as planned, but that I’m trusting God to work in the middle of that disappointing situation to bring some good things out of it. I’m certain that He will find multiple ways to express His love and goodness through this.

Well so far, as a result of missing that trip, I was here on Sunday to hear two great sermons about the Bible. My friend Scott Lacy preached for me at our own church and it was a powerful message about the factual truth and complete reliability of God’s Word. Also, I was able to attend the annual meeting of the Cumberland Plateau Baptist Association Sunday night and I heard a great sermon preached by Dr. Samuel Oliver, the President of Union University. His message was about the fact that God gave us the Bible as a gift because He loves us so much. God wants to be known and understood by us, and the Bible is His primary means of communicating with us.

Those sermons were special to me because although God speaks to us in numerous ways, for me personally I hear God best and most often through the written Word. That means the Bible first, but also through other Christian literature, and song lyrics too. The next way in which I hear God best and most often is through His creation. I’m constantly in awe of God’s magnificent creation, and I sense His presence in nature much more so than in most other ways. The third way God speaks to me most often is through circumstances – my own circumstances and those of other people too. The fourth way is through the counsel of trusted advisors. And fifth, through prayer.

Your order may be different, but the Bible is God’s first and primary means of communicating with us. It is clear, direct, and without error. We should therefore study the Bible, accept its authority over our lives, memorize key parts of it, and live by it. If we do that we will, like the writer of Psalm 119 says, live a blessed life. The best life you will ever have is the one lived in the center of God’s will, and the clearest expression of God’s will is found on the pages of the Bible. (By the way, did you know that Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible and it is also all about the Bible? That’s right, the longest chapter in the Bible is all about the Bible).

The Bible is God’s gift to you. He gave it to you because He loves you and He wants you to know all about Him. He also wants you to obey Him so that He can then bless you, and He wants to bless you because He loves you. The Bible enables us to know Him and His ways, so we can then obey Him and be blessed.

The Bible is one more proof of God’s love for you.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “God is sovereign, so trust Him”

You may be surprised to be receiving a daily devotional this morning because I told you I was going to be in Peru for the week and the next devotional would be on Tuesday October 15^th. Others of you know what happened and why I’m not in Peru. This turned out to be an opportunity for me to trust in God’s unconditional love, goodness, and sovereignty.

When we arrived at the airport in Nashville on Saturday, we were surprised to be told by the person at the ticket counter that our reservations had been canceled by our travel agent. Our tickets were still good, because they hadn’t been used, but our seats on all of our flights had been sold to other customers. Beyond that, all other flights were full and so we could not be rebooked.

I called our travel agent on her personal cell phone and when she researched the problem, she discovered that her agency had made a terrible mistake and our reservations had been inadvertently canceled. Worse, she confirmed that all other flights were indeed full. After thinking, praying, and discussing it, we decided to come home to Crossville and reschedule our trip for the first week of November. Doing so is inconvenient, but really not that big of a deal. We will still eventually get there, and our ministry in Peru will still take place.

So why did God allow this to happen? I’m fairly certain He didn’t actually cause the mistake to take place, but since He is all-powerful and all-knowing, He could have prevented it – but He didn’t. Why not?

And the answer is … I don’t know.

What I do know is that God is sovereign over all the circumstances of my life. He has absolute power over everything. That means He can change anything, direct anything, and cause any outcome that He wants. I also know that He loves me unconditionally and without limit. And I know that Romans 8:28 is true. That means that in all things, even in the worst of circumstances, He is at work behind the scenes orchestrating events to bring good things out of even the worst of circumstances.

Why this happened I don’t know. But I do know that God is good, and that He loves me, and that His purposes are perfect. There is a plan and purpose behind all of this and I’m looking forward to discovering what it is. I hope you also have that assurance for whatever the issues are in your life. God is good. He loves you. And it is going to be alright.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “But be doers of the word and not hearers only … Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained in the world.” James 1:22;27 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Your life is the evidence”

In a previous devotional message in this series I said that love is a verb – it is an action word. Often, love is an action you take rather than an emotion you feel. It is a decision to act in love regardless of whether you feel the emotions of love or not. In that same message I paraphrased a quote from C.S. Lewis that said, “Don’t worry if you love someone or not, just act as if you do, and soon the feelings of love will come.”

The message of the New Testament is that Jesus calls His followers to be agents of His love in word and in deed. He has tasked us with being the ones who spread His love throughout this world by means of acts of mercy and blessing. It is your life that reveals what you really believe and whether or not you are truly a follower of Christ. The evidence of your faith that the world needs to see is your life.

Today I leave for a short trip to the Amazon Jungle in Peru. My missionary friends Bud and Laura Lenz operate “The El Arca Children’s Home” (www.elarcafam.org) . It is a 110 acre ranch on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest in the southern Amazon basin near the Bolivian border. Myself and another man from our church, Trevor, are bringing supplies to them. We will also spend the week helping with a construction project, playing with the children, and just enjoying some time with our friends.

The ministry of El Arca is an excellent example of love in action. This is the love of Jesus flowing into the lives of orphaned and abandoned Peruvian children, and my friends are people whose faith shows itself to be true by how they live their lives. Their lives are the proof, and I’m always inspired and refreshed by spending time with them at El Arca.

This will be the last devotional message you’ll receive from me until Tuesday October 15^th. Between now and then I encourage you to go back and review the devotionals you have already received over the last five weeks of this series. Perhaps there were several that were especially helpful to you and therefore merit a second look. And also, as Trevor and I travel please remember us and our friends at El Arca in your prayers

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Philippians 3:7-8 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Let go of your attachments”

One of the biggest hindrances most of us have are our attachments to the things of this world. We cling to our possessions, our dreams, our relationships, our money – all the things of the world that are precious to us. We cling to them like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings clung to his ring. “My precious” is what he called it.

But the more we cling to such things – the more “precious” they are to us, the more likely they are to get in the way of our relationship with Jesus. That’s why in Luke 14:26 Jesus taught, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, and even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.” Jesus didn’t mean that we literally have to hate those things or to rid our lives of them – that was hyperbole, he meant that those relationships, along with anything else in this life, cannot be more important to us than our relationship with Him.

The more we learn to let go of our strong attachment to the things of this world the freer we will be to embrace and experience God’s love. That’s what Paul was explaining in Philippians 3:7-8. He considered everything else in life to pale in comparison to knowing Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord. This’s why in the next chapter, in Philippians 4:10-13, Paul writes that he had learned to be content with whatever his physical circumstances were at any given time, because he was entirely fulfilled and satisfied in his relationship with Jesus. It’s also the point Paul was making in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 where he described the value of living a simple and quiet life.

The other day I read a description of a painting that depicts a woman standing at the foot of a lush green hill. She has her arms extended into the air with her hands spread wide, her head is tilted back, she has a look of joy on her face, and there’s a yellow balloon she has just released that’s floating away into a bright blue sky. It’s a picture of the relief and freedom we can experience from letting go of things.

One of the most important lessons we can learn in life is to stop clinging so tightly to our attachments. Be willing to let some of them go and to at least loosen your grip on others, so that they don’t get in the way of you embracing and fully experiencing God’s love for you.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “This grace was given to me – the least of all the saints – to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of Christ, and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things. This is so that God’s multi-faceted wisdom may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavens.” Ephesians 3:8-10 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Experience the depth and richness of His love.”

In the first half of Ephesians Chapter Three the Apostle Paul tells us that God gave him the privilege of revealing and explaining previously concealed spiritual mysteries about the grace and love of God. Paul’s ministry consisted of explaining God’s great love and grace, as revealed in Christ Jesus, and then leading Christians to grow in their understanding and experience of that love and grace. Author John Eldridge once described this learning and growing process as “a journey into the heart of God and toward the recovery of our own hearts.”

In my second book, “Walking with Paul: A Journey Through the Lessons of Ephesians”, I dedicated an entire chapter to exploring what Paul was teaching us about this. If you don’t have a copy of that book but would like one, send me an email at pastorjimmohbc@gmail.com and I will be happy to send you one. The cost is $12.95 plus shipping, and the profits go to the Oak Hill Baptist Church mission fund.

After explaining his mission of revealing and teaching the love and grace of God so they could experience it in their own lives, Paul then ended the chapter with a wonderful prayer that I want to share with you this morning. I pray that what Paul prayed here for the Ephesians has also been happening for you as a result of our devotional series about “Living a life of love”. In Ephesians 3:16-19 Paul wrote:

I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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

Our Bible verse for today: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his faithful love endures forever.” Psalm 107:1 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Remembering God’s faithfulness in the past can strengthen us to face our current trials.”

In Psalm 107 the writer was reflecting on the history of God’s people and some of the many trials and struggles they faced. Some wandered in desolate places. Others sat in the darkness and gloom of dungeons. Some were beaten and tortured, others faced sickness. Some were lost at sea, others were hungry and thirsty, and still others were unfairly persecuted.

Through it all they found that God was faithful and good, and that His love for them endured forever. And, as verse two reveals, many of them found deliverance from their trials, “Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim that he has redeemed them from the power of the foe …”

If you fast-forward a few pages in your Bible to Psalm 118 you find a similar narrative about trials and tribulations, and you will find that same phrase used five times in the twenty-nine verses, “His faithful love endures forever”. Then keep going to Psalm 136 and you find it again, only this time the phrase is used twenty-six times in twenty-six verses! “His faithful love endures forever. His faithful love endures forever. His faithful love endures forever.” And on and on and on, twenty-six times in twenty-six verses.

Do you think God might be trying to tell us something? Do you believe it is true that His faithful love for you endures forever? Then the question becomes, “If I know it’s true that God’s love for me endures forever, and if I know that He is good and that He has power and control over all the issues in my life, then why don’t I trust Him more?”

In a previous devotional in this series I wrote about how it is that our faith needs to go from our head to our heart. Head knowledge has to become a heartfelt certainty. What we know to be true of God theoretically has to become a heartfelt truth for us in actual experience.

There are two things we can do to help make that happen. First, spend time slowly reading and meditating on Psalms 107 and 136. Sit quietly before God and let the truth expressed in those verses really sink deep into your heart. Then shift your thinking to the times in the past when God has carried you through difficult trials. Really spend time with this. Consider how many times in the past He has helped you, carried you, delivered you.

Then trust Him for the present and for the future. He was there for you in the past, He is still here for you now, and He will continue to be there for you in the future. His faithful love endures forever.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim