Our theme for this month: “God’s guidance”

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 12L2 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Understand how God’s will works.”

When we are praying for guidance from God, and for His will to be revealed so we can then be obedient to it, it’s important for us to understand the different aspects of God’s will and how it works.

First, there is what is often called God’s specific will. This is expressed in ways like the Ten Commandments. If you’re wondering whether or not it’s okay to kill your annoying neighbor just read the sixth commandment, found in Exodus 20:13, and you have your answer: “Do not murder”. Some things are the proverbial “no-brainer”. God has made it clear and it applies to all people in all places at all times.

Second, there is what some people call God’s general will. This is a little less specific and usually involves boundaries within which we (His people) need to stay. Author Dallas Willard once explained this with the example of his children playing in the yard. As their father it was Dallas’ will that his children stay within the boundaries of the fenced in backyard. They were free to decide for themselves whether they wanted to swing on the swings, play in the sandbox, sit in the shade and read a book, or pretty much anything else. As long as they stayed within the boundaries of the backyard and behaved themselves, they could decide for themselves what specific activities to engage in.

This is often how God guides us. Just know the Biblical boundaries, stay within them, and go have fun. Of course, this also requires spiritual maturity. You have to know what the broad general rules are (the boundaries), and you have to have good judgment. You must be spiritually mature in order to successfully navigate life like this.

Third, there is also God’s permissive will. In this case God simply chooses to allow things to happen, although the actual event might be contrary to His own will. For instance, it is not God’s will for you to shoot heroin into your veins. And if you decide to do it anyway, God probably will not physically restrain you. By His permissive will He will allow you to do something that He would prefer you not do. But He will also allow you to suffer the consequences of your own bad choices. This is His permissive will in action and it pertains to much of what happens in this world.

When it comes to discerning God’s guidance we must first of all know our Bible very, very well. The Bible is God’s most direct and specific form of communication with us. By knowing your Bible you will be familiar with the specific commands which govern much of life. Then we must also have engaged in sufficient discipleship and spiritual formation activities in order to be spiritually mature enough to live well within the broad boundaries of God’s general will. And finally, understand that God’s permissive will allows for things to happen as a result of human free will, although many of those things will be contrary to what God wants.

Understanding how God’s will works in the affairs of our daily lives helps us to understand how he guides us.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

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Our theme for this month: “God’s guidance”

Our Bible verse for today: “And not only that, but we rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.” Romans 5:3-4 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “You honor God when you handle difficulties well.”

Dr. Paul Tournier once wrote a landmark book about how people handle suffering and tough times. The title was “Creative Suffering”. At one place in the book Dr. Tournier writes about a study he came across of 300 of the most influential leaders in history. One thing all 300 had in common is that they had all suffered greatly in life, either with health issues or personal tragedies. Suffering and tragedy was a common thread in the lives of those who ultimately rose to greatness in life. It was the lessons learned while pushing through the difficulties that helped to make them great.

I once read a story about a boy who found a butterfly about to emerge from a cocoon. The metamorphous that changed the caterpillar into a butterfly had already taken place and now the butterfly was fighting its way out of the cocoon. The boy decided to help the butterfly emerge by taking his knife and cutting an opening in the cocoon, thereby relieving the butterfly of the struggle required to break out of the cocoon by its own effort. When he slit the cocoon the butterfly quickly emerged. But rather than spreading its wings and flying away, the butterfly remained ugly and shriveled. It hobbled around on the ground for a short period and then it fell over and died.

What the boy didn’t realize was that the process of the struggle required to break out of the cocoon would have forced strengthening juices to pump through the butterfly’s wings, straightening and shaping them. But without the struggle, the formation was never completed and therefore the butterfly never became the thing of beauty and grace God intended it to be. Instead it was weak and deformed and quickly perished.

Our struggles strengthen us. As a result of the process of pushing through the difficulties, we stretch and strain, we grow and get stronger. This is what Paul meant in Romans 5:3-4. He did not mean that we should be happy to be suffering, or that we should seek suffering, only that we should recognize how God can and does use our suffering to make us stronger and better.

In his extensive studies on how people handle suffering and difficulties Dr. Tournier found that a person’s attitude about their difficulties determined how well they would handle that situation, and whether the situation would break them or make them a stronger and better person.

As was noted yesterday, when we’re faced with trials and difficulties in life our normal response is to pray and ask God to take it away. And sometimes He will. But more often His desire is for us to honor Him in the way we handle it, and to grow stronger and better as a result of it. You honor God when you handle your difficulties well.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “God’s guidance”

Our Bible verse for today: “But those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “With God you can handle this”.

In his book “Where is God when it hurts?” Philip Yancey tells the story of two people who each suffered a catastrophic life-altering injury as teenagers. Both were talented young athletes with promising lives in front of them, and both of them broke their necks and ended up as quadriplegics for life.

Understandably, each of them went through a period of denial and depression. One of them, a young man, never came out of it. He lived the rest of his life gloomy, brooding, and always expecting God to return Him to full health, even though after decades of paralysis it was clear that wasn’t going to happen in this lifetime.

The other accident victim, a young woman, soon came to the conclusion that her paralyzed condition would simply be the new normal for her. She resolved that by relying on the constant help of the Lord she would accept it, embrace it, and then live her life to the fullest, with joy and enthusiasm. That woman’s name is Joni Eareckson Tada.

From that point forward her life became one of accomplishment and fullness. She learned to paint holding a paint brush in her teeth. She developed a great singing voice and sings in the choir at church. She has written multiple books about faith and encouragement and perseverance. She is an inspirational motivational speaker at Christian conferences, and she founded and leads the ministry “Joni and Friends”, which is a Christian ministry focused on serving the needs of the disabled community worldwide. (By the way, Joni’s mission teams use my book “Bringing it Home” as their post-trip devotional guide. I’m very honored by that.)

When faced with challenges, trials, and hardships most of us turn to the Lord for help. But like the young man in the story above, usually we’re seeking guidance that will lead us out of our problems and back to a more pleasant situation in life. But sometimes that’s not God’s plan. Sometimes the guidance He gives is something like: “Trust Me. Rely on Me. Instead of taking this trial away, I want you to shine for me in the middle of it. I want to renew your strength and give you firm resolve so you can soar like an eagle with this challenge in your life.”

Tragedy and suffering, pain and heartache, challenges and difficulties, are all simply part of life, and sometimes they don’t go away. But God wants to redeem those things and bring good out of them. We will explore this idea further tomorrow.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “God’s guidance”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58:11 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Seeking God’s guidance strengthens you.”

I love the reassuring and encouraging picture Isaiah paints for us. First, he promises that the Lord will guide you always. Here the prophet is simply affirming what the Lord has promised in so many other passages as well. He will guide us through all of life.

He will satisfy your needs, especially in those sun-scorched times of life when things are hard and the future seems uncertain. Again, this is a reaffirmation of what is promised in so many other places in Scripture. God is aware of our needs and He is committed to watching over us, guiding us, and providing for us. (If this is an issue in your life right now you should spend some time with Matthew 6:25-34.)

He will strengthen your frame. Other translations say he will strengthen your bones. In other words, He will help you to buck-up, stand a little taller, and push through the hard times. When you’re facing challenges and hard times and you sincerely and diligently seek God’s guidance you might not get all the answers right away, but you will at least receive the resolve to trust Him and to keep walking it forward step-by-step.

You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. In my mind I link this verse to Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Those who take the time and make the effort to seek the Lord’s guidance end up spiritually nourished and flourishing like a well-watered tree or a healthy vine, with the fruit of the Spirit abundant in your life. Your circumstances may still be tough, but your spirit is strong, your attitude is good, and your resolve is firm.

I don’t want to be naïve here about the difficulty of tough times, and I don’t mean to oversell the results of seeking the Lord’s guidance – tough times are still tough, and difficulties are still difficult. Circumstances don’t necessarily magically get better just because we prayed this morning. But seeking the Lord’s guidance, and then following it, will always put you on the path that leads you to where the Lord wants you to be.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “God’s guidance”

Our Bible verse for today: “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8 (NLT)

Our thought for today: “God wants to guide you now.”

The great Bible scholar and devotional writer Oswald Chambers once wrote, “God never guides us at some point in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now …”

Chambers didn’t mean that God will not guide us in the future, He will. But rather that the future isn’t here yet but the present is, and God is here, now, guiding in this moment. This is important because so many people have the best of intentions about what they plan to do in the future, and they trust that God will lead them then, but the future might never come. Now is all you really have, and God is here, now, guiding in this moment. Are you paying attention to Him now? Are you obeying Him in this moment?

Also, the guidance God is giving now is intended to lead you to what He has in store for you tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and next year, and five years from now. But you’ll never get there if you’re not paying attention and obeying now. The successful accomplishment of God’s plans for your life plays out with one step of obedience at a time, one after another, after another, after another, and that’s supposed to be happening now. But is it? Are you paying attention now, and are you obeying now?

I know there will be no tears in heaven, yet I can’t help but wonder if there will at least be some momentary regret as we look back over our lives and realize all the opportunities we missed, and all the things that could have been, if we had only paid attention in the moment, followed the Lord’s guidance, and simply done the thing rather than procrastinating and putting it off. (By the way, the longer we procrastinate the less likely we are to ever accomplish whatever it is we’re supposed to be achieving.)

I encourage you to spend some time this morning sitting quietly before the Lord and just listen. Ask Him to help you understand His guidance in this moment.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “God’s Guidance”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” Psalm 37:23 (NLT)

Our thought for today: “We need God’s guidance in all seasons of life.”

Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump as a person or as a President I think we have to at least admire the fact that at the age of seventy-one, when most people have long since retired, he willingly and even eagerly took-on the hardest job in the world. And, he has committed to doing it for at least four years. That’s pretty impressive.

This is June and we are just concluding graduation season. As is true every year at this time, we hear stories about ninety year old college graduates – senior citizens who never completed college as a young person but now, in their eighties and nineties, have gone back to college and earned that degree. We really have to admire the gumption and positive attitude it takes to accomplish something like that so late in life.

As I write this my wife is getting up and getting dressed to go to work. She is seventy-one, fairly disabled, and she needs a walker on wheels to get around. But today she begins her new job as a volunteer receptionist at Habitat-for-Humanity.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” Likewise, a line from an old Jimmy Buffett song goes, “I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.” Far too many people just shuffle through their days with no purpose, no direction, and no plans for the future. Yes, they’re living, but to what purpose?

What does all of this have to do with our theme of “God’s Guidance”? I believe God intends for us to live a full and purposeful life through all seasons of life. I believe that His good and perfect plan for each of us (Jeremiah 29:11) doesn’t stop the day we retire but continues right up until the moment we pass into heaven. And I also believe He wants to continue guiding and directing us (Proverbs 3:5-6) through all the seasons of our lives.

Psalm 37:23 reminds us that “He delights in every detail of our lives.” God is interested in all of it, all the time. He is interested in the plans and goals of the young college graduate, and the forty-five year old business executive, and the sixty-five year old recent retiree.

Regardless of who you are you should have plans and visions, and you should be living with purpose and eagerness. Therefore you should be constantly seeking God’s guidance for your next season of life, the next year of life, the next month, next week, tomorrow, and for today. Young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick, if you’re still breathing then God’s not done with you. Your life has purpose and therefore you need His guidance.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “God’s guidance”

Our Bible verse for today: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Have confidence in God”.

Yesterday we started off our series about God’s guidance by considering the great truth expressed in Proverbs 3:5-6, that if your heart is right, and you truly do apply yourself to seeking His will above your own, you can trust Him to guide you. Jeremiah 29:11 expresses the same general truth in slightly different words. God has your best interests always in His mind. His plans for you are good and if properly followed by you, will always lead to your ultimate good.

These two passages combine to help us have confidence in God. You can have confidence that God is doing His part to guide and direct you to good outcomes. That doesn’t necessarily mean you will always get what you want, but it does mean you will get what God has decided is in your best interest to have. If your heart is right and you sincerely are striving to know His will and be obedient to it, you can be confident that you will experience His best in your life.

Yesterday I offered you a simple four-part prescription for how to apply Proverbs 3:5-6 in a real and practical way in your life. This morning I want to give you a simple prayer you can pray that will help to place you in a position before God whereby He can speak His guidance into your life. I’ve seen many versions of this prayer but this one comes from Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family Ministries:

“Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, friends, and things that I read.” Now listen and pay attention to the things that happen next. As you read your Bible, be looking for Him to make verses and principles jump off the page at you. Consider the circumstances that are developing in your life and how they might pertain to the guidance you are looking for. Ask mature Christian friends to talk with you and pray with you as you work your way through the issue. And pray. Pray a lot.

Have confidence in God. His plan for your life is good.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “God’s guidance”

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 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Trust God to guide you.”

In recent days, as I have been thinking and praying about the theme for this month’s devotionals, God reminded me that right now there are at least several readers of these daily devotionals who I know of who are wrestling with important life decisions and who therefore need to be confident of God’s leading. So I’m convinced that’s what I should to be writing about. And for those of us who are not in that situation right now, at some point we will be.

Proverbs 3:5-6 is one of my personal life-verses and it is certainly one of the most important passages of Scripture regarding receiving guidance from God. There we find a simple four-part prescription that helps to ensure we are approaching this correctly.

First, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Trust Him. God is good, He loves you without limit, and He has your best interests at heart. He’s more interested in your well-being than even you are. So trust Him.

Second, lean not on your own understanding. Do not rely just on your own understanding. It’s true that God gave you a mind, and He doesn’t mind if you use it once in a while, but your own thinking is often flawed. In addition to your own thoughts on the subject you need lots of prayer, plenty of guidance from the Bible, and good counsel from mature Christians.

Third, in all your ways acknowledge Him. In other words, to the best of your ability surrender your will for His. There is no better or safer place for you to be than right in the middle of God’s will.

And fourth, He will make your paths straight. God has a vested interest in your obedience and in your success. He wants you to be obedient and He wants you to be successful (in the way He defines success), and He wants it even more than you want it. So once your heart is right you can trust Him to guide you to where you need to go. If your heart is right, and if you truly are seeking His will and trying to be obedient to it, He’s not going to sit back and watch you walk off the edge of a cliff. Trust Him to lead you.

This is the starting place for seeking and receiving God’s guidance. We will now spend the rest of the month exploring the subject in greater depth.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.” Psalm 105:1-2 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “We must tell the nations about the God we know.”

As the people of God it is our responsibility to tell the nations about God. And the better we know Him, the more we have to tell. The problem, as was stated at the beginning of this series, is that many Christians have only a superficial understanding of God at best. Therefore we have little to tell others about Him.

Now that we as individuals have begun a deeper study of God, I encourage you to continue in your learning about Him. I believe you would find A.W. Tozer’s little book “The Knowledge of the Holy” a great aid in that study. Then share with others what you have learned about God. Together we can collectively help to raise the level of understanding about God in the Christian community. In the closing chapter of his book Tozer commented, “We Christians are the Church, and whatever we do is what the Church is doing. The matter, therefore, is for each of us a personal one. Any forward step in the Church must begin with the individual … To regain her lost power the Church must see heaven opened and have a transforming vision of God.”

Yes, “Any forward step in the Church must begin with the individual …” And to that this Pastor says a hearty “Amen!” It begins with each of us as individuals.

God is a person who can be known in increasing degrees as we apply ourselves to learning about Him. The more we learn about Him the more enthusiastic we will be about our relationship with Him, and the more we will tell others about Him. Also, the more we know about Him, the more passionate we will become about being involved in His kingdom-building work of sharing the Gospel and serving others.

God wants to be known by His people and there is much about Him that we can know.  I encourage you to make knowing God and telling others about Him a lifelong endeavor.

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is:

Our theme for this month: “Knowing God”

Our Bible verse for today: “He has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” Psalm 103:19 (NIV

Our thought for today: “God is sovereign”

When we say that God is sovereign we mean that He rules and reigns over all creation. He has a comprehensive plan for world history and He is fully able to carry it out. Because He is the supreme ruler of the universe, and He has perfect knowledge, and He is all-powerful, He can and will accomplish His plans in His time and in His ways.

Interestingly, He has chosen to administrate His sovereignty in conjunction with human responsibility. In other words, He works in partnership with us in order to accomplish His purposes. The problem with that of course, is that God is perfect but we are not. Therefore when we get involved in God’s activity we frequently make a mess of things. God then must take corrective action (often by other means and using other people) in order to accomplish His ends. But even with our missteps, disobedience, and rebellion, He acts as necessary to accomplish His purposes.

It is our imperfections not God’s, which create all the problems in the world. But when that happens, God simply reaches into the messes we have created and He brings good things out of them. That’s one of the applications of Paul’s statement in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” He reaches into the middle of bad situations (many of which have been created by us or by others contrary to His will) and He brings good things out of those messes.

There is much about God and His ways that we simply are not able to understand, but we do know enough about Him to trust Him. He is God, and He is good. He is also sovereign over His creation and fully able to accomplish His good purposes for creation in general, for the human race overall, and for you and me in particular.

Spend some time this morning thinking about the sovereignty of God. To really make it personal, Jeremiah 29:11-13 might be a good passage to meditate on and to praise Him for, “For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Our mailing address is: