Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “A life of service”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God activates each gift in each person. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial.” 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “Everyone needs to be in service.”

 

At Oak Hill Baptist Church we have an annual tradition which goes a long way towards helping every member to utilize their God-given gifts and abilities in acts of service. First, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, every follower of Jesus is given at least one spiritual gift which they can and should utilize in acts of service to the Lord and to others. At Oak Hill Baptist we have a “Spiritual Gifts Inventory” tool that helps our members identify their spiritual gifts. God has also developed in us skills and abilities (such as carpentry, or bookkeeping, or mechanical skills), which can be used in acts of service.

 

Second, we ask our members to identify at least one spiritual gift, skill, or ability they have which they can and will use in a ministry activity in the church, and then commit to it for one year.

 

Then each summer at the end of the church year (the new church year begins in September), we give our members two months to think and pray about how they would like to serve in the coming church year. By asking them to only make a commitment for a year we’re giving them the opportunity to either renew their current ministry commitment or to change ministry activities and try something new. There are literally dozens and dozens of ways in which a person can serve in a church and while it’s helpful and appropriate to stick with one thing for a long time, it’s also fun and sometimes refreshing to change things up from time to time.

 

By approaching it this way we accomplish several things. For one thing, everybody knows that they have been equipped by God to serve in some way. Second, we end up with almost every person in the church actively involved in at least one ministry. And third, the church is alive with people who are serving well and loving it.

 

My main point in today’s devotional is that every follower of Jesus has been equipped by the Holy Spirit to serve in at least one way and therefore we all should be. We all need to be in service to Jesus and to others.

 

Also, our service to the Lord and to others is to extend for a lifetime. Since you’re still alive, the Lord has a purpose for you. Over the years your ministry activities might change, but everyone should always be involved in some form of serving. As a follower of Jesus ours is to be a life of service.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “A life of service”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you.” John 13:15 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “The key to being used is to be useful.”

 

I have a friend who is a very wise man (although he would never think of himself in that way). His wisdom is the homespun kind that comes from life experiences and lots of common sense.

 

Yesterday we were working on a service project together and talking about what it means to live a life of service. At one point he turned to me and said, “You know Jim, I’ve discovered that the key to being used by God is to simply be useful.” What he meant by that was that many people feel they don’t have special skills or abilities and therefore they’re not qualified to do much of anything that really matters. My friend’s point was that we can all be useful to God in some manner if we are only willing to be used by Him.

 

His comment reminded me of another friend who was with me on a mission trip a few years ago to remote regions of the Andes Mountains in Peru.  Our mission trips almost always revolve around conducting free medical and dental clinics, but this guy was not a healthcare professional and therefore did not have those particular skills.

 

However, he joined the team with a true servant’s heart and he was willing to do absolutely anything that would be helpful. Sometimes that meant carrying supplies; sometimes he was escorting patients from triage to the doctor to the pharmacy; at other times he held a flashlight for a dentist; at lunchtime he was the one making sandwiches and passing out bottled water. Since the healthcare professionals were always very busy treating patients and therefore didn’t have much time for taking pictures, this guy offered to take pictures with their cameras for them. At one point he probably had six or eight cameras dangling from his wrist as he cycled through the clinic taking multiple pictures for team members who couldn’t take them for themselves.

 

When it comes to living a life of service to the Lord and to others the key to being used is to simply make yourself useful. As a Pastor I’m deeply grateful for those helpful souls in the church who are willing to do whatever is needed. I may be the one in the high-profile position who gets the pats on the back and the encouraging comments like “Good sermon, Pastor”, but they’re the ones who the Lord uses to keep the church functioning smoothly and well.

 

The key to being used is to simply make yourself useful. I encourage you to do that today.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “A life of service”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.” Galatians 6:9-10

 

Our thought for today: “A life of service often requires perseverance over the long haul.”

 

Back in the mid-1990’s I attended The Billy Graham School of Evangelism. It was a week-long conference for Pastors which was held in a beautiful hotel on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the little town of Monterey, California, just south of San Francisco. I was there on a scholarship from the Billy Graham Association and it was a wonderful week of learning and inspiration and rest.

 

I’ll never forget one of the leaders of a workshop I attended. He was a Pastor by the name of Harold who at the time was in his 70s, had three different types of cancer, and was being told he probably had less than a year to live.

 

I don’t remember the exact title of the workshop Harold taught, but the purpose of it was to encourage pastors of small churches to hang in there and to be faithful to their call to their small church. The reason Harold had been asked by the Billy Graham Association to teach that workshop was because he had been the pastor of the same little church (I believe it was in Iowa), for over forty-five years.

 

Harold was a hoot and we had lots of laughs and lots of fun in his workshop. The main thing I got out of it, which has stayed with me for all these years, was a great sense of encouragement as Harold helped us to appreciate the value of small-church ministry and why it is that small churches deserve to have pastors who will stick with them for the long haul.

 

The lesson Harold taught to us small church pastors, and the one the Apostle Paul teaches in Galatians 6:9-10, applies to all of us whether we’re Pastors of small churches, teachers of small Sunday school classes, or for that matter, just regular old Joe or Joan Christian faithfully living out our average life on a daily basis. In the eyes of God there is great value in small things done well and done faithfully over a lifetime.

 

Most things that matter in life take time to be completed. Seldom are meaningful accomplishments achieved quickly or easily. That means that we have to be willing to settle-in, hunker down, and stick with it for the long haul. It really is true that nothing is over until you quit. As long as you stick with a thing, and as long as you are doing it as if you were doing it for Jesus Himself (see yesterday’s devotional message), in due time you will reap the results the Lord intends for you to have.

 

So hang in there. Work well, work hard, and work long. Don’t give-in and don’t give-up. If you’ll stick with it you will reap at the proper time.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “A life of service.”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Colossians 3:23-24 (NIV)

 

Our thought for today: “A life of service begins with the most basic tasks.”

 

I’m not much of a shopper. In fact, I think of shopping as a necessary evil and I do as little of it as I can get away with. But I do like the Food City grocery store in our neighborhood. It’s an attractive store, well-stocked with lots of quality products at a good price.

 

I was there the other day just to get a few things and when I got to the cash register the cashier looked up at me with a big friendly smile and said “Hello”. Then she asked me if I found everything OK. Then she asked how I was doing. Then she chatted pleasantly while she rang-up and bagged my order. Then as I was leaving she smiled again and said, “God bless you. I hope you have a nice day.”

 

As much as I dislike shopping, this was a pleasant experience that lifted my spirits and made my day a little better, and all because that cashier was a friendly person who went the extra mile to do her job well (and the intentional “God bless you” leaves me thinking she was a Christian).

 

When we think of living a life of service for Jesus we can easily fall prey to the false notion that such a life only includes things like serving meals at the homeless shelter, or teaching the children’s Sunday school class, or bringing a meal to a sick person. But while those activities certainly are acts of service in the name of Jesus, that’s not the whole picture.

 

Paul teaches in Colossians 3:23-24 that a life of service involves the entire life, all aspects of it, and it begins at the most basic level. When Paul writes, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as doing it for the Lord …” he’s talking about absolutely anything. If you’re making breakfast for your family, do it as an act of service to Jesus. If you’re performing a task at work, do it for Jesus. If you’re helping a friend to move furniture, do it as if you were moving that couch for Jesus Himself.

 

A committed Christian should strive to be the best spouse, the best parent, the best neighbor, the best friend, and the best employee we can be. We should be friendly, helpful, and joyful as we go about our daily routine because the things we do, we are doing for the Lord Jesus Himself.

 

When we approach even the most basic tasks in life with the heart of a joyful servant who is eager to please the Lord in the way we do things, it will change our perspective about other people and about life itself. Ours will be a life of service, and we’ll be happy about it.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

 

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “A life of service”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in you produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me … My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples.” John 15:5; 7 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “The life of a Christian is to be a life of service and blessings to others.”

 

John 15:5 is one of my personal life verses. The truth Jesus expressed there has guided my thinking and has provided the direction and motivation for my life for more than twenty-five years.

 

Jesus spoke those words on the night before He was crucified. It was His last night with His disciples. They were at the Last Supper and Jesus was giving them their final instructions before He would leave them. In this verse He used the analogy of a grapevine and the branches that grow off of it. The life of the vine flows in and through the branches and it produces its fruit through the branches. It’s the fruit of the vine not the fruit of the branch. As long as the branch stays firmly connected to the vine, the life of the vine will flow through it and the fruit of the vine will be produced out of it. But if the connection to the vine becomes broken, the life of the vine no longer flows through it and the fruit is no longer produced.

 

Likewise, the life of Jesus flows in and through His disciples. As a result, the fruit of Jesus is produced through the lives of His disciples. As long as the disciple stays firmly connected to Jesus, His life and power will flow in and out of the disciple and His fruit will be produced through the life of the disciple.

 

What will that look like in the life of the follower of Jesus? Well, that’s the story of much of the New Testament. One of the purposes of the New Testament is to teach the followers of Jesus how to bear the fruit of Jesus out in the world. It’s to be a life of service and blessings. We are to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We are to speak His words, give His hugs, smile His smiles, share His comfort, and bestow His blessings. We are to be the conduits (the branches) through which the world gets to experience the abundant blessings of our Savior and Lord.

 

All this month we’ll consider what that looks like in a practical way in the day-to-day life of the disciple of Jesus. By doing so we’re going to discover that there is no greater sense of purpose and accomplishment, no greater degree of fulfillment in life, than to be used by God to bestow His blessing upon other people. If you’re willing, you will get to bring the blessings of God into the lives of other people.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Doubts”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Be strong and courageous; don’t be terrified or afraid of them. For it is the Lord your God who goes with you; he will not leave your or forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “Despite anything else you’re faced with or are dealing with, God is with you.”

 

The words we read in Deuteronomy 31:6 were spoken by Moses to the young man Joshua as Moses was about to hand-off the reigns of leadership to Joshua. How would you like to have been in Joshua’s situation, assigned by God to fill the shoes of someone like Moses? Worse still, the future must have looked impossible to him. He was now supposed to lead more than a million grumbling, fickle, and hard-headed people into an unknown land filled with enemies. And how do you feed a million people anyway?

 

Joshua was faced with a huge problem that was completely beyond his own abilities to deal with. Either God was going to show-up in a big way or Joshua was going to be in big trouble.

 

Joshua needed to be reassured – and so do we. Our problems probably aren’t of the magnitude of what Joshua was facing but still, they are problems, and they are ours, and they do cause us to have doubts – doubts about ourselves, doubts about others, and maybe doubts about God.

 

The words of promise and reassurance Joshua received from Moses were not the last he was to receive. He needed to be reassured repeatedly, and when we read his life story we find that he was.

 

Likewise, you and I need to receive repeated words of reassurance from God – and we do. Read your Bible. Deuteronomy 31:6 was spoken to Joshua but it applies to us as well. As does Joshua 1:9, and Proverbs 3:5-6, and Jeremiah 29:11-13; and Jeremiah 33:3, and Matthew 11:28-30, and Matthew 28:20, and Philippians 1:6, and Hebrews 13:5-6, and so many more.

 

In this life you will face troubles, Jesus told us that. And you will have doubts – doubts about yourself, doubts about other people, doubts about the future, and maybe even sometimes doubts about God. But one thing you need never doubt is that God is with you. He goes before you, He has a great plan for your life, and He will never abandon you.

 

As we conclude our month of devotional messages about doubt, I encourage you to spend some extra time this morning slowly reading and meditating upon the verses I cited above. It would be good to commit them to memory as well because despite anything else you are dealing with or are faced with, God is with you, and that is an important truth to remember.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Doubts”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!” Psalm 147:2

 

Our thought for today: “Don’t doubt it – you have something that God wants.”

 

What do you get for the person who has everything? What can you give to the God of the universe, the Creator of all there is, the all-powerful God who needs nothing? Is there anything God needs or wants that He is not capable of providing for Himself?

 

Well yes, as a matter of fact there is. There is one thing God desires that He is incapable of providing for Himself. Obviously it’s not money or power or possessions, He has all He wants or needs of those things and if He wanted more, He would simply create them.

 

It’s your praise. God wants your praise. He wants your heart overflowing with love and gratitude, worshiping Him for His goodness and grace, thanking Him for His manifold blessings upon your life. God wants your heart fully and voluntarily devoted to Him.

 

And that’s something that only you can give to Him. Nobody can do it for you and God Himself can’t force you to give it. Oh, He could compel you to comply with rules and regulations and worship rituals, and He could punish you if you didn’t comply, but that would be meaningless. He still wouldn’t have your heart.

 

The one thing you have and which God wants, and the thing that He cannot provide for Himself, is your heart fully devoted to Him in worship and praise.

 

Now of course, you can give God your worship and praise anytime and anywhere. You can do it on a mountaintop with beautiful vistas, and you can do it in a cold dark prison cell. But the time and place that most of us can most effectively engage in deep and meaningful praise and worship is during our times of group worship on Sunday mornings. Few things engage our hearts more effectively than a powerful song service and a good sermon.

 

Today is Friday, but Sunday is coming. I encourage you to plan to attend worship services this Sunday. If you have a home church, you should go to it. If you don’t, then we would love to have you visit with us at Oak Hill Baptist in Crossville. Sunday school begins at 9:00 and the worship service at 10:00.

 

Don’t doubt it – you do have something God wants. He wants you heart. He wants your whole heart and nothing but your heart, fully devoted to Him in worship and praise.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Doubts”

Our Bible verse for today: “Then the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and He struck him dead because he had reached out to the ark. So he died there in the presence of God.” 1 Chronicles 13:10 (HCSB)

Our thought for today: “God’s will must be done in God’s way.”

Have you heard the story about the man who robbed the convenience store of $500 and then in church the following Sunday gave an offering of $50? Why did he do that? Well of course because God commands us to tithe on our income.

Seems silly doesn’t it, to steal and then to try to honor God with a tithe from the stolen loot? And yet, we do things like that all the time. How often do we tell a little white lie in an attempt to protect the other person’s feelings? While it’s admirable to be sensitive to someone else’s feelings, a lie is a lie regardless of the reason it’s told.

I was asked to attend a meeting one time where a man was going to be dismissed from a ministry position because of a long pattern of misconduct and poor performance. However the leader who set-up the meeting didn’t want the man to know why he was being invited to the meeting because he thought the man might not come if he knew the truth. So he lied to the guy about the purpose of the meeting just to make sure he came. The purpose of the meeting was to carry out the will of God by dismissing the man from a ministry position he was no longer qualified to hold, but the meeting itself was facilitated by the telling of a lie, which could not possibly have been consistent with the will of God.

In 1 Chronicles 13:10 we find the Israelites attempting to transport the Ark of God in a manner that was inconsistent with the instructions God had given them. It was indeed God’s will for the Ark to be moved, but it was not being moved in the manner God had prescribed, and so people died.

As the editors of the Daily Walk Bible note, “God’s will, done in something other than God’s way, is not God’s will.”

If you instruct someone to take an action that is good and proper, but your instructions to them are laced with profanity, you have told them to do the right thing but you have said it in the wrong way.

The rightness or wrongness of an action consists not just in what we do, but also in how we do it. Even if you’re sure of what to do, make sure you also know how to do it. If you have doubts then check with God in prayer and in the Bible. God’s will, done in something other than God’s way, is not God’s will.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Doubts”

 

Our Bible verse for today: A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is his glory to overlook an offense.” Proverbs 19:11 (NIV)

 

Our thought for today: “It’s usually better to just let it go.”

 

Some people go through life looking for reasons to be offended. More than just being thin-skinned and therefore being easily offended, these folks seem to thrive on being offended and they look for it. Other people may not actually look for opportunities to be offended, but they sure are quick to take offense anyway.

 

Personally I believe that how easily a person is offended is a measure of their spiritual maturity. A spiritually mature person is thick-skinned and has the ability to simply shrug off offenses. The more easily offended a person is, the less spiritually mature they are.

 

But that’s not to suggest there aren’t things we should find offensive – there are; and there are times when offenses need to be addressed. I find foul language offensive, especially when someone uses the Lord’s name as a curse, and I will usually say something about it. So there are things we should be offended about and which we should speak up about. But more often than not, most things aren’t that important and therefore should simply be overlooked, at least for a while.

 

Sometimes offensive behavior persists and although it was appropriate to shrug it off for a while, eventually it has to be addressed. Doing so will sometimes take care of it, but not always.

 

I think of a situation in my own life that has been persisting for more than a decade. It involves an offensive attitude on the part of an individual that has been ongoing and which has been addressed with the person several times, but which seems to defy resolution. The principle taught in Proverbs 19:11 has been immensely helpful to me and it’s the reason the relationship has been able to last all these years despite the unresolved issue.

 

We do not have to put up with offensive behavior endlessly, but we should be very slow to take offense and we should shrug it off if we can. And if it’s a situation that does need to be dealt with, it should be done so in a way that honors God.

 

We need to know when to address an offense and when to let it go. If in doubt, most of the time the best response is to let it go.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Doubts”

 

Our Bible verses for today: “Give to the one who asks you, and don’t turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” Matthew 5:42 (HCSB) “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.” 2 Thessalonians 3:10

 

Our thought for today: “When to give, and who to give to, can be confusing.”

 

As Christians are we Biblically compelled to provide for everyone in need and to give to whoever asks from us? It’s a question many Christians struggle with. Realistically nobody can give to every cause or to every person in need. And it’s also true that the world is full of scam artists who play on the sympathies of good people.

 

The Bible provides guidance about being generous, but also at the same time about not enabling those who are seeking to get something for nothing or who are being irresponsible. Here’s a Biblically based decision-making structure that I frequently use to help me arrive at a Spirit-informed decision about when to give and who to give to:

 

1. First and foremost, each individual has personal responsibility for meeting his or her own needs. There are many scriptures which teach this principle, especially in the Proverbs, but 2 Thessalonians 3:10 is also very helpful. If a person can work then they should work. And if they don’t work, when they get hungry enough they will work.

 

So my first question is always “What’s this person doing to help themselves?” I also take into consideration whether or not this person’s situation is a result of their own irresponsible behavior, and whether or not it is ongoing and long-term. “Does this person frequently seek help from others and if so, would my assistance be helping or enabling?”

 

2. Second, the person’s family has a responsibility to help them. If the person has sincerely done everything they can to help themselves, and if their situation has not been caused by irresponsible behavior on their own part, then next it’s the person’s family who has a Biblical responsibility to help them. “If any believing woman has widows in her family, she should help them, and the church should not be burdened, so that it can help those who are genuinely widows.” 1 Timothy 5:16.

 

No person should come to the church or to other Christians for help until they have first done everything they can to help themselves, and until their own family has done everything they can do to help them. If a person has family, especially family members who are themselves Christians, and if they have not requested help from those family members, they need to go to them first before they seek help from other Christians or from the church.

 

3. Third, it could now be time for an individual Christian to help if they can. Jesus’ injunction in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:42 (see above) is a general principle which applies here – we should help if we can. However, it’s still true that realistically nobody can help everybody. There’s a world full of needs out there and none of us can meet them all. So even at this third step we still have to make a Spirit-led decision about what we can and cannot do to help this person in need.

 

4. Then fourth, we come to the responsibility of the church as a body. The church should have ministries established which are equipped to provide assistance to both members of the church, and to outsiders who are in need as well. Acts 2:41-46 provides a pretty good model of a generous body of believers taking care of those in need.

 

In my experience I’ve discovered most Christians to be big-hearted and generous. Therefore they have a desire to bless those in need when possible. And yet, we all struggle with what’s appropriate in any given situation regarding how much help we should give, and how often. Hopefully you will find the guidance above to be helpful.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim