Devotional for Wednesday February 19th

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters; and you without money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost! Why do you spend money on what is not food, and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest of foods.” Isaiah 55:1-2 (HCSB)
 
Our thought for today: “Spend the time to seek that which really matters.”
 
Albert Einstein once wrote, “The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Another way of putting that would be, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will keep getting what you’ve always gotten.” In other words, if this thing you’ve been doing hasn’t produced the desired results for you the first one hundred (or one thousand) times you did it, and you haven’t changed anything, is it really rational to expect it to produce a different result this time?
 
There’s a spiritual application here. Isaiah wrote about it in Isaiah 55:1-2. God’s people were spending extraordinary amounts of time and energy pursuing worldly pleasures and earthly riches, only to discover that in the end, those things didn’t really fully satisfy. When it was all said and done the itch was still there, the emptiness wasn’t really filled, the need wasn’t really met. And how do people typically respond to that? With more of the same. We try harder, we work longer, we acquire more. And what’s the result? The same as it’s always been. The itch is still there, the emptiness wasn’t really filled, the need wasn’t really met. And so we take a deep breath and then we go at it again.
 
We’re like hamsters on a treadmill. Lots of activity, lots of energy expended, but not really getting anywhere. The problem is that the real itch, emptiness, need, isn’t physical (although we think it is), it’s spiritual. What we really need is not more money, or a bigger house, or a newer car. What we need is more of God. Our real need is spiritual at it’s core, and only God Himself can meet that need for us. God’s answer to our frantic and futile efforts at fulfillment is to simply come to Him.
 
But, we’re impatient. We’re impatient when it comes to the spiritual disciplines of prayer and Bible study and worship. We are so focused and so busy pursuing the worldly pleasures and earthly treasures that if we make time for prayer and Bible study at all, it’s short and it’s rushed. Isn’t that silly? The thing we need the most, the thing that would provide us the most peace and joy and fulfillment, is the thing we give the least time and effort to. And the things that have proven over and over again to not really meet the need or provide the fulfillment we seek, are the things we continue to run after with an almost hypnotic intensity.
 
Before you go to your time of prayer this morning, take just a minute to read Psalm 46:10 (Be still, and know that I am God), and Mathew 11:28-30 / John 7:37-38 (Come to Me). Then ask God to help you have the patience to focus on what really matters and what will really make a difference.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotionial for Tuesday February 18th

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “… for they were tentmakers by trade.” Acts 18:3 (HCSB)
 
Our thought for today: “Be patient with your job.”
 
Aquila and Priscilla were Christians whom Paul encountered in the city of Corinth. Like Paul, they made their living as tentmakers. Since tents were needed everywhere, it was a trade that allowed them to travel from place to place while always being able to market their skills and make a living. That was a good thing because evidently the reason they were in Corinth was that they had been driven out of Rome because of their Christian faith.
 
So Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla joined forces in Corinth. Together they made tents, but they also used their tent making skills as a springboard from which they conducted their ministry. From their example we get our modern understanding of being a “tentmaker”. The term is usually applied to those who go to the mission field to perform a secular trade, such as medical doctor, or auto mechanic, or school teacher, but then use that secular skill as a springboard for their primary purpose of sharing the Good News of the Gospel. Most commonly we apply the term “tentmaker” to those who have the official title of “missionary”.
 
However, all Christians have been tasked by Christ to be missionaries wherever we happen to be. Since the overwhelming majority of Christians do not make their living in paid professional ministry that means they have secular jobs, just like Paul, and Aquila, and Priscilla, and like those missionaries we label “tentmakers”. So in a broader sense – since every Christian is on-mission with Jesus Christ everywhere you go, and since most Christians have secular jobs – that makes most Christians “tentmakers”. Your secular job should be a springboard from which you carry out your primary role of sharing Christ with a broken and bleeding world.
 
In her book “Tentmakers”, author Ruth Siemens wrote: “The secular job is not an inconvenience, but the God-given context in which tentmakers live out the gospel in a winsome, wholesome, nonjudgmental way, demonstrating personal integrity, doing quality work, and developing caring relationships.”
 
Your current occupation may not be your dream job. You might not even like it very much. But it does afford you the opportunity to be a “tentmaker”. I encourage you to not only be patient with your job, but to thank God for it and to then use it as a springboard to serve and bless others in the name of Jesus Christ.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Monday February 17th

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “Be gracious to me, God, be gracious to me, for I take refuge in You. I will seek refuge in the shadow of Your wings until danger passes.” Psalm 57:1 (HCSB)
 
Our thought for today: “In difficult times we must patiently wait on the Lord.”
Psalm 57 is about the time when David was fleeing for his life from King Saul. You can read about that in 1 Samuel chapter 24. It was a dangerous and desperate time for David. The king of Israel, along with his entire army was chasing him through the wilderness, intent on killing him.
 
In Psalm 57:1 we find David pleading with God for an extra measure of grace and protection. David affirms that he is going to take refuge in God; just hunker down, and trust that the danger will soon pass. David was so sure that this was the correct course of action for him that beginning in verse 7 he was able to write:
 
“My heart is confident, God, my heart is confident. I will sing: I will sing praises. Wake up, my soul! Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn. I will praise You, Lord, among the prophets; I will sing praises to You among the nations. For Your faithful love is as high as the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches the clouds. God, be exalted above the heavens; let Your glory be over the whole earth.” Psalm 57:7-11 (HCSB)
 
That’s pretty good stuff coming from a man who was hiding in a cave in the desert as a king and his army was outside searching for him, intending to kill him.
 
Whatever it is you’re going through in your life right now, you need to know that the correct course of action is to take refuge in God. Like David go to God, trust that He is willing and able to care for you, That He will protect you, and that He deliver you. Then patiently wait for the storm to pass.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Saturday and Sunday February 15-16

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people.” 2 Timothy 2:24
 
Our thought for today: “It’s easier to have patience with some people than with others.”
 
Have you ever heard it said of someone, “That guy could tick off the Pope!”? I’ve said that myself on more than a few occasions. Come to think of it, I imagine people have sometimes said it about me too.
 
The truth is that some people are hard to be patient with. Some people have sharp edges to their personality that make them difficult to be around. They’re kind of like porcupines – the closer you get to them the more you get poked. Then there are other people who seem to be intentionally difficult. They seem to get some sort of perverse pleasure from being annoying and irritating.
 
Paul says that we have to learn to deal with such people patiently. In 2 Timothy 2:24 he told us that being patient with people like that is part of our service to the Lord. In Galatians 5:22-23 he wrote that patience is one of the virtues the Holy Spirit will develop in our lives as we grow in spiritual maturity.
 
The unfortunate truth is that the way we learn to be patient is by having our patience tested and tried. It’s kind of like physical exercise. The way you strengthen a muscle is by working it out, stretching it, and subjecting it to intense pressure. Through that process the muscle grows stronger. It’s the same, unfortunately, with patience. I think God puts abrasive people into our lives to develop our patience.
 
Are there porcupines in your life right now? Be patient with them. More importantly, are you being a porcupine in someone else’s life? Now, don’t be a wise guy and claim that you’re simply serving as God’s instrument of ministry as He teaches the other person some patience. God also used the Pharaoh of Egypt in Moses life, but that didn’t make Pharaoh a good guy. So if you’re the guy (or gal) with the porcupine personality then you need to pull-in your quills and start being nicer. But if you’re the one whose patience is being tested, please recognize that God is using the occasion to help you grow spiritually.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Friday February 14th

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “Love is patient.” 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NIV)
 
Our thought for today: “Patience is one of the characteristics of true love.”
 
On this Valentines Day it seems appropriate to write about love. In the verse above, the Apostle Paul tells us that one of the virtues of true love is that it is patient. The Bible tells us that God “is” love and we certainly know He is patient. Just consider what He puts up with from us and yet He stills loves us!
 
My wife Linda and I are approaching our thirty-sixth wedding anniversary. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ve made it this far because of her extraordinary patience with me. I’m sure I haven’t been the easiest guy in the world to go through life with. But real love is like that – it is patient. And it endures. Let’s read what else Paul had to tell us about real love:
 
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not
easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away … And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8; 13 (NIV)
 
If you love someone, be patient with them. God loves you, and He is extraordinarily patient with you.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Deovtional for Thursday February 13th

Good Morning Everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Patience”

Our Bible verse for today: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.” Acts 2:42 (HCSB)

Our thought for today: “Discipleship takes time and patience.”

Acts chapter two describes a time in the early church in Jerusalem. It was shortly after the day of Pentecost and there was excitement, enthusiasm, and great commitment in the church. The believers spent a lot of time together eating, worshiping, praying together, caring for one another, engaging in acts of ministry, and growing in their relationship with the Lord. Their passion for Christ and for spiritual growth was such that they were willing, even eager, to devote time to those things. As a result, there was great spiritual growth – and great spiritual power – in that church.

True discipleship takes time. There’s no way around it. If we want to grow spiritually then we have to invest the time and do the things whereby the Holy Spirit of God can bring about that spiritual growth in us. Doing that is called “Discipleship”. It’s a process that involves the practice of the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life. It is intentional, focused, consistent, and is continued over a prolonged period of time.

The editors of “The Mission of God Study Bible” offer this insight regarding Christian discipleship:

“A fully developed disciple of Christ will have engaged in a process that may be better understood as a progressive manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, empowering a person to reflect the character of Christ.”

Also, “The goal of all believers should be to connect to God and to each other, personally grow through an intentional spiritual process, serve, commit to sharing their faith, and exalt God through daily devotions and worship.”

What was described there is good discipleship. It empowers the individual believer, but also, as we read in Acts chapter two, when an entire group is committed in that manner and truly engaged in spiritual growth, the impact is profound and unmistakable.

Good discipleship takes time and patience, but it results in spiritual growth and is therefore well worth the investment.

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Devotional for Wednesday February 12th

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:9 (HCSB)
 
Our thought for today: “Patience can lead us to great things.”
 
Patience can lead us to the accomplishment of great things. John Eldredge tells the story of John Krakauer and his team who successfully climbed Mount Everest. Reaching the top of the world’s highest peak is a feat that not only demands incredible passion, determination, and focus, but it also requires tremendous patience. Such a thing is not accomplished quickly.
 
Marriage is another example. How does a marriage of five months turn into a marriage of fifty years? Patience. Perseverance. A refusal to give up when times get tough. Making it through the tough times in a marriage can sometimes seem like climbing Mount Everest.
 
Paul’s point in Galatians 6:9 can of course have many applications in life. First and foremost, Paul was encouraging believers to be faithful in their service to Christ and to each other. In the normal ebb and flow of church life, and in the process of helping our brothers and sisters carry their burdens, we can sometimes feel overwhelmed and we can get discouraged. Paul’s advice is, “Don’t give up.” Just keep doing what you know to be right and good and in due season there will be great fruit from your efforts.
 
But isn’t that equally true of mountain climbing, and marriage, and just about any other pursuit in life that is worth accomplishing? Have patience and persevere; keep at it and don’t give up. In due season, according to God’s timing and in His way, you will reap the fruits of your efforts.
 
Patience, combined with persistence, can lead us to great things.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Tuesday February 11th

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “Jacob agreed to work seven more years. A week after Jacob had married Leah, Laban gave him Rachel, too.” Genesis 29:28 (NLT)
 
Our thought for today: “Have patience for the things that matter.”
 
How Jacob must have loved Rachel. If you’re familiar with this story from Genesis chapter 29, then you know that Jacob was infatuated with the young girl Rachel and wanted to marry her. In that culture it was the father who chose a husband for the daughter, and the prospective husband was expected to pay a bride price. In Jacob’s case, he agreed to work for Laban for seven years in exchange for receiving Rachel as his wife. But Laban tricked Jacob by actually giving him the older daughter Leah as his wife instead. But then, after Jacob complained about the trickery, Laban offered to give Jacob Rachel as well in exchange for seven more years of labor. Jacob eagerly agreed and in the end earned Rachel as his wife too.
 
By our current cultural standards this story is disturbing on many levels. There are issues of polygamy; there is deceit; there is the issue of poor Leah being treated as damaged and unwanted goods. But putting aside the distasteful and dysfunctional elements of the story, what stands out is Jacob’s love for Rachel and his willingness to patiently work fourteen long years in order to win her hand in marriage.
 
Jacob’s patient endurance over a sustained period of time in order to achieve a desired goal is instructive for us. Achieving anything worthwhile usually takes time. We have to work at it and we have to be willing to stick with it. Earning a college degree, achieving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, building a strong and resilient marriage, all of those things take time, commitment, and perseverance. That’s also true of most other things that really matter.
 
What long-term objectives are you currently pursuing? Hopefully you’re not giving fourteen years of hard labor in pursuit of the perfect spouse, but whatever your goals are, you’ll have to stick with it if you want to eventually have success. Achieving anything worthwhile usually takes time, persistence, and a great deal of patience. I encourage you to just stick with it.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Monday February 10th

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Praise the name of Yahweh.’ Throughout all this, Job did not sin or blame God for anything.” Job 1:21-22 (HCSB)
 
Our thought for today: “You can patiently endure.”
 
“He has the patience of Job.” We’ve all heard that compliment paid to individuals who displayed admirable patience in difficult situations. But what was it about Job’s patience that was so commendable? If you’ve read the story then you know that Job displayed incredible patience in dealing with his insensitive and sometimes mean-spirited friends. They supposedly came to comfort him during a time of great loss and suffering, but they ended up lecturing him in a judgmental and often unkind way. Had it been me I would probably have choked them, but Job displayed extraordinary restraint.
 
More important though, was Job’s patience with God. Job suffered an incredible series of cascading tragedies which included the deaths of all his children, the loss of his entire fortune, and a painful medical condition that must have been hideous in appearance and excruciating to endure.
 
But through it all Job remained faithful to God. In the verses above, we find him at the very beginning of all his troubles and obviously his faith was strong and his attitude was good. As the months (and perhaps years) unfolded, we read of him occasionally wavering a little but still, pretty strong in his faith, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.” Job 19:25 (NIV)
 
Then in the end, after Job had withstood this prolonged time of testing and had remained faithful, the Lord blessed him even more abundantly then He had before, “So the Lord blessed the last part of Job’s life more than the first.” Job 42:12 (HCSB)
It’s unlikely that any of us will be called upon to endure as much prolonged and simultaneous suffering as Job did. The sheer scope of what he went through is difficult to imagine. But we will all have our own times of trials and sufferings and like Job we will have a choice of how we will respond to it. As hard and as painful as things were for Job, he patiently endured it and he trusted in the Lord. He didn’t like it, and he certainly did not understand it, but he did trust that the Lord was wise and good, and the He was in control.
 
The same is true for you and me. We may not understand our current circumstances, and we might not like them, but we can have faith the God is good, and He is wise, and He is in control. Knowing that to be true of Him helps us to patiently endure.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim

Devotional for Saturday and Sunday February 8-9

Good Morning Everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “Patience”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
 
Our thought for today: “Be patient as God fulfills the desires of your heart.”
 
Psalm 37:4 is one of those Bible verses that make preachers and Bible teachers uncomfortable. Some are tempted to claim that it doesn’t really mean what it appears to say, and so they tap dance their way through some silly explanation that sounds better to their ultra-conservative fundamentalist ears. Desire is evil, right?
 
No, wrong. “Misplaced” desire can lead us into evil, but desire itself is not inherently bad. In fact, God created us with desires. As Saint Augustine famously explained, God created us with an empty place in our hearts that can only be filled by His Holy Spirit. That then creates a desire in the heart of every human being for spiritual fulfillment.
 
Many desires are good. Another example: God has created each of us as unique individuals who are specifically gifted by Him for certain tasks and activities. Therefore you may have within you a great desire to express yourself musically, or through art, or in writing. Likewise, you may have an analytical mind that finds pleasure in mathematics or science and therefore your desire, and your sense of fulfillment, is found in those things. That’s how God created you and therefore those desires are good.
 
Unfortunately many people – under the mistaken assumption that desire is bad – restrain, hinder, or even snuff out the pursuit of their desires. In his book “Journey of Desire” John Eldredge wrote:
 
“We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain – money, position, the approval of others, or just absence of the discontent itself – it’s not worth it. “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Matthew 16:26”
 
While we do have to act responsibly in that we have to have jobs, and support our families, and pay our bills, etc, that doesn’t mean we can’t also pursue our music, or our writing, or whatever else it is that really floats our boat and fills our heart. Those things are from God and God wants to help us fulfill those desires. But we have to be patient and we have to give Him the chance. Far too often we surrender our desires in favor of practicality and we never get back to the business of pursuing that which is most important to us. 
 
If you have a God-given desire in your heart, something that is deeply a part of you and which you long to fulfill, I encourage you to not get impatient and give up on it. Yes, you have a job so you can earn a living; and by all means take care of your family and live up to your responsibilities; but don’t surrender your desires either.
 
God Bless,
Pastor Jim