Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts …” Romans 1:24 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “God will let you suffer the consequences”   Continuing our thinking from yesterday regarding the wrath of God directed towards those who choose idols of the world over Him, in Romans 1:24 Paul introduces another way in which the wrath of God is experienced (and it is much more immediate than those other ways we considered yesterday). In verse 24 we read that God delivers them over to the desires of their hearts. That too is an expression of God’s wrath.   The types of God’s wrath described yesterday are all evidenced in the future, either at death or at the end of the age in the final judgment. But this is a more immediate and ongoing experience of God’s wrath. The other experiences are spiritual in nature and occur in the spiritual realm, this expression of God’s wrath is for the here and now and it manifests itself in the body and the soul.   When God gives us over to the desires of our hearts that’s another way of saying that He is letting us have what we want, and He is letting us experience the consequences of those choices. Those consequences can manifest themselves in innumerable ways. They can take the form of addictions to drugs or alcohol or food. They can take the form of damaged and destroyed relationships. The consequences can come to us as sexually transmitted diseases, or crushing indebtedness, or lost jobs, or in many other forms.   The fact is that choices have consequences and bad choices have bad consequences. When God gives people over to the desires of their wicked hearts it means that they experience the consequences of their choices. God is not going to protect us from the bad results that come to us because did something we should not have been doing to begin with.   This can also mean that He has stopped trying to deter us from doing those things. In other words, He is saying, “If you are so determined to do this thing that I have expressly forbid, then go right ahead and do it with nothing held back. If you’re going to do it anyway, then go ahead and do it fully so you can experience the full impact of that bad choice. Maybe that will get your attention.” He is giving you over to the desires of your wicked heart.   This pertains not just to unbelievers – people who have never placed their faith in Christ but to Christians too. Christians experience such consequences too, and in some respects even more so. Many Christians ignore or reject certain Biblical principles, and they pursue things that God has forbid or cautioned against. Christians too sometimes exchange the glory of God for the false idols of the world – like money or possessions or achievements or power or praise or addictive substances or whatever.   In those cases, the Holy Spirit will be actively working in that person’s life to convict them of that sin and to make them miserable in it. God will let you experience the misery of it – the full impact of your sinful choices, so that you will hopefully repent and return to Him. It’s not just unbelievers who seek substitutes for God. We do it too, and it is always bad.   Beware, because God will let you experience the consequences of your sinful choices.     God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” Romans 1:22 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “It’s not wise but foolish”   As we lay the foundation for our study of how sound doctrine helps to build strong faith, we have been thinking about how and why people substitute faith in, and worship of, the One True God, for that of idols and false gods.   When people do that, they usually think they are clever and wise. But that isn’t wisdom, it’s foolishness. Like Paul wrote, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” In their human reasoning they can come up with endless clever rationalizations for why it makes sense to be so committed to their career, to their investments, to their perceived sexiness, or whatever else it is that they have committed themselves to and essentially made an idol of. But Paul says here that such thinking is worthless and it darkens the mind rather than enlightening it. In verse 21 he wrote, “Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened.”   Paul also said in these verses that such people exchange the glory of the immortal God for those worthless idols they have set up in their lives. That phrase, “exchanged the glory” means “stole the glory” – they steal the glory that rightly belongs to God, and they give it instead to worthless idols. It is an act of theft and because of that theft, they get to experience the wrath of God.  Because people voluntarily give themselves over to such things, because they use those things as a substitute for God in their lives, they get to experience the wrath of God.   Now, the wrath of God takes different forms at different times. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis, the wrath of God took the form of fire and brimstone raining down from heaven. In the closing chapters of the book of Revelation we read that one day something similar will happen at the end of the age.   The wrath of God will also be experienced on the day of judgment when it is discovered that many people’s names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life because they never placed their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. In those cases, the wrath of God will be experienced by being condemned to an eternity in hell. God is grieved that it is happening to you. He never wanted it to be that way. Peter tells us that it is not God’s will for any to be lost. But you chose this. You rejected Jesus and chose the idols of the world instead.    Those are all ways in which those who reject God ultimately experience the wrath of God. It’s insanity, sheer foolishness, to choose an idol over the One True God and the consequences of doing so are eternal.   There is another way in which such people experience God’s wrath because they have chosen idols over Him, and we will think about that tomorrow. For today, I challenge all of us to seriously consider if we have allowed any idol to take the place of God in our lives.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served what was created instead of the Creator …” Romans 1:25 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Who or what is your god?”   When it comes to a person having distorted doctrine and subsequent weak faith instead of sound doctrine and strong faith, one of the greatest dangers is the formation of idols in our lives. Idols distract us, capture our attention, and draw us away from the One True God.   What we’re reading about in Romans 1:18-25 is that instead of worshiping the Creator, with a pure heart and with a genuine desire to know Him, as Paul was writing about in the previous passage in Romans 1, the human race has historically descended into idolatry and the worship of false Gods. So, what does Paul mean when he writes in verse 20 “since they knew God?” I believe he was referring to two things. First, this is a reference to the human race in general and second, it can also be true of Christians who do know God but then seek substitutes for Him anyway.   First, let’s consider the human race in general. As Paul has already noted, they are aware of God simply through creation. Beyond that, as Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “God has set eternity in their hearts”. God created human beings with an intuitive understanding that there is more than just this lifetime, there is a supernatural world – a spiritual dimension, and there is a God. We know it in our hearts. We can see Him in His creation, and we sense in our hearts that He exists. That then should cause all humans to seek Him with a genuine desire to know Him.   But historically humans have not wanted to know the One True God. Instead, we create for ourselves gods who are more to our liking and who provide us with something we desire. Idolatry is worship. And at the heart of worship is the attribution of glory. When we worship someone or something we are attributing glory to that false god and almost always we do it because we believe that idol or false god can benefit us in some way.   That’s the motive behind all idolatry. In ancient times peopled created for themselves statues and images of gods that they thought would give them power, or riches, or fertility, or good crops. Most of us today don’t have statues in our homes that we bow down and worship, but we do have many other idols in our lives that we do worship. For many of us they are the idols of money and possessions; for some of us it is career accomplishment; for others it is physical attractiveness, or the praise of others, or political power. We all worship at some altar, we all bow down to someone or something. Those are idols too.   We will think more about this tomorrow. For today I want to call all of us to prayerfully consider if we have allowed anything to become an idol in our life. Is there something that is drawing you away from the One True God. Who or what is your god?   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” Romans 1:21-22 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Help them see the glory of God”   What Paul was referring to in Romans 1:21-22 is all the systems of idolatry that create false gods. This is also about the cultural forces that deny God and celebrate sin. That’s how this passage should be applied in contemporary terms. All those things turn people away from God and Paul tells us in Romans 1:18 that there is a special wrath from heaven reserved for those who suppress the truth about God and who lead others astray.   We need to think for just a moment about what the wrath of God is. Our understanding of wrath is colored by our experience of human wrath. When people demonstrate wrath, it often comes in the form of out-of-control anger; vindictiveness; a desire to cause pain and suffering. That’s what wrathful people are like. Therefore, people struggle with the idea of that kind of wrath coming from God.   But there’s a difference between human wrath and God’s wrath. God is righteous, which means His expressions of wrath will always be right. It will be perfect. God’s wrath will come at the right time and in the right way. Our demonstrations of wrath are seldom righteous, or right. Our demonstrations of wrath are often driven by anger, vindictiveness, and self-righteousness. And worse, we often wrongly assume that God has appointed us to be His instruments of wrath. But James 1:20 warns us that “man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness of God.”  God will take care of expressing His own wrath – in His way, and in His time, and He doesn’t need us to do it for Him.   Instead, we are to be God’s advocates in the world. We are to call people’s attention to the glory of the God creation, as revealed by general revelation. And we are to go beyond that. We are to share the Good News of the Gospel, thereby imparting special revelation. And when we do that, we reinforce the truth being taught by Paul in Romans 1:20 that all people are without excuse because there has been revelation.     The idols offered to us by the world are cheap substitutes for God. They are designed to distract people and to either lead them away from God, or to keep them from ever turning to Him at all. It’s up to us, the people of God, to help people see past the idols and idolatrous systems of the world, and to see God in all His glory.   God bless, Pastor Jim     (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Some people are willfully blind”   God’s wrath is expressed towards anyone who ignores the obvious truths about Him and His ways. His wrath is also expressed towards those who would suppress that truth and hinder others from seeing it. To understand the point Paul is making here, we need to have a basic understanding regarding the difference between general and special revelation. The term general revelation refers to the way God reveals the truth about Himself to all human beings in general. This is the self-revelation of God to all human beings.   Special revelation refers to when God reveals Himself to certain individuals for a specific purpose, but not to everyone. Moses had an experience of special revelation at the burning bush. Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, Mary, Joseph the Carpenter, and many others had special revelation by means of dreams.   As Christians we experience a form of special revelation by means of the Holy Spirit living in our hearts and working in our lives. He gives us understanding of spiritual truths that can only come as the result of His work in our lives. That kind of revelation isn’t available to unbelievers – it is special and is reserved for those who have placed their faith in Christ.   In this passage here in Romans 1:18-20, Paul is referring to general revelation. His point is that God is so evident in the creation itself that all people are without excuse. Psalm 19:1 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God. You can know just from the creation itself that there must be a Creator and that then should lead a person to seek Him.   And in Jeremiah 29:13 God assures us, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” This is why we hear so many testimonies from places like closed Muslim countries where there is little or no presentation of the gospel because it is so effectively suppressed, yet even there, people manage to come to faith in Jesus anyway, often through a vision in a dream.   The creation itself attests to the reality of God, and that general revelation will serve to draw an open heart to search for God. God will honor the heart that is truly searching for him.   Mankind’s problem has never been that God is not accessible or available. Mankind’s problem is that we are sinners by nature, rebels at heart. The history of the human race is that we ignore God, we reject His revelation, and we even make determined efforts to obscure His revelation and to lead others away from Him as well. This is willful ignorance. It is being willfully blind to the evidence that is all around you.   There’s more to be said about this and so we will return to it tomorrow. For now, I encourage you to open your eyes to God’s revelation which is all around you. Don’t be willfully blind.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “… since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.” Romans 1:19 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Seeing with the eyes of your soul”   D. L. Moody lived in the mid-to-late 1800s and he was the Billy Graham of his day. He traveled the world holding huge evangelistic events, even speaking to Kings and Queens and Presidents. He also wrote many books and established a Bible college known today as The Moody Bible Institute.   He told the story of how he was once at a large meeting in London and one of the other speakers was a blind evangelist. He had been born blind, but he was a powerful preacher. He had also led a team that had translated the entire Bible into Braille so that blind people could read the Scriptures for themselves. That Braille translation had, at that time, been produced in twelve different languages.   As he thought about that, it occurred to him that for these blind people (people who did not have natural sight), the Scriptures were coming alive for them, and they were seeing it all with the eyes of their soul.   What a great thing – to be able to see with the eyes of your soul! How many people who have natural sight are blind by comparison to those blind people who, although they could not see with their eyes, they could see with their souls? This is a concept and metaphor that Jesus used often in His own teaching. In John chapter nine we read of Him dealing with a blind man who had faith, and religious hypocrites who did not. The blind man couldn’t see with his eyes, but he could see with his soul, and consequently he was saved. The Pharisees could see with their eyes but not with their souls and consequently they were lost.   This example illustrates perfectly the point the Apostle Paul will make in the section of Romans chapter one that we are going to spend the next couple of days looking at. People are often willfully blind to the truth about God and therefore they are without excuse. We must learn to see with both our physical eyes and with the eyes of our soul.   How well do you see with the eyes of your soul?   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “The righteous will live by faith: Romans 1:17 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Lord, increase my faith!”   This morning, we are going to continue our thinking from yesterday regarding why and how the people of God are to learn how to live by faith. In yesterday’s devotional we considered the example of the Old Testament prophet Habbakuk. It was his vison and his writing that the Apostle Paul was thinking of and borrowing from when he wrote Romans 1:17.   That direct challenge, indeed, that command from God, is so important that Paul wrote it here in Romans 1:17; and he wrote it again in Galatians 3:11; and the writer of the letter to the Hebrews used it in Hebrews 10:38-39. It is essential that God’s people trust Him, and it is essential that we believe His ways are always right and best. Then we need to live in such a way that the world can see that we really do believe that.     One of the greatest challenges for believers today is to live by faith and to communicate the righteousness of God to the unbelieving world (especially when life is hard), and to do it in ways that the world can relate to. Doing that is being both theological and missional. By that I meant we take our sound doctrine and communicate it by talking to people about it, but we also model it in ways that make a real difference in the lives of real people. Being theological is little more than an academic exercise unless we are also missional in that we can show how sound doctrine makes a meaningful difference in the real world.   The best life any of us will ever have is the one that is lived in the center of God’s will. But more than just claiming that to be true, we must show it to be true. The observing world needs to see that it is true in our lives before they are going to believe it could be true in their lives.   How does this come to be true of us? As Paul wrote in verse 1:17, it is from faith to faith. It begins by having faith and it continues as we live by faith. It’s the old truth that we must believe first and we will experience second. We make a choice for faith, and then we begin to experience the fruit of faith. Then the more we experience the fruit of faith, the stronger our faith gets. Faith feeds faith. This is faith from faith. It grows over time, becoming stronger and more all-encompassing.   We need strong faith and we want strong faith so we can live by faith. So, we cry with the distraught Father in Luke 17:5 “Lord, increase my faith. I do believe, help me in my unbelief.”    God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “The righteous one will live by faith”   Romans 1:17 addresses an important and essential piece of evidence that reveals a person’s faith to be true and strong – it reveals the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness means that what He does is always right, it is always good, and it is always best. God’s nature is holy and perfect; His character is exactly right and without flaw; His law, His precepts, His principles, are perfect and right, lacking nothing. The righteousness of God (the rightness of God) – means that God is always in the right and He can always be relied upon to do what is right.   As sinners redeemed by grace and in the process of being transformed by the Holy Spirit, God’s righteousness is imparted to us. As we are progressively transformed more-and-more into the image of Christ, God’s righteousness shows itself more-and-more in our character, it is revealed in our words and actions.   When Paul writes that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, he means that we experience the righteousness of God because we do have faith, and then we show others the righteousness of God when we live by faith. That’s why he follows that statement by quoting the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk 2:4, “The righteous shall live by faith.” In other words, “My people are to live by faith, regardless of what they think they see going on around them.” Faith leads to faith. We have faith and then we live by faith.   If you’re not familiar with Habakkuk’s short story, Habakkuk was sort of at his wit’s end with God. Evil was rampant in Israel at that time and to Habakkuk, it seemed as if God was turning a blind eye to it and just letting evil rule the day. So, in chapter one, Habakkuk launched a series of complaints at God.   Also, Habakkuk realized that God was in the process of using a nation that was even more wicked than Israel, (Babylon) to punish Israel. This produced even more complaints and cries of injustice from Habakkuk. Then in Chapter Two Habakkuk declared that he was going to watch and wait to see how God would respond to his complaints.   God responded by essentially telling Habakkuk, “Hold your horses, son. I’m not AWOL. I’m not absent from the scene. I’m not unaware of what’s going on, and I do have a plan to deal with it. I’m about to show you and everyone else something that will really get your attention. It will demonstrate my righteousness (my rightness about everything always).   Then God tells Habakkuk to be prepared to write down and share what was going to be revealed to him. That’s when, in 2:4 God declared that “the righteous will live by faith”. In other words, “Trust me. I’ve got this.” Finally, in chapter three we read of a somewhat chastised and contrite Habakkuk now singing God’s praises.   That was Habakkuk’s tutorial about living by faith. We will come back to this lesson tomorrow. For today, I encourage you to trust God. He’s got “this”, whatever “this” is in your life right now. The righteous one will live by faith.   God bless, Pastor Jim    (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes …” Romans 1:16 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “It’s more than salvation – it’s transformation”   Sound doctrine really does lead to strong faith. Having an accurate understanding of the faith we profess to have provides the foundation for right living. One of the most important understandings for a Christian to embrace is that faith in Jesus doesn’t just save us from an eternity in hell, it transforms us now and it changes the way that we live.   John Newton is a great example of that. In the early years of his life, he was a brutal slave-trading sea captain. He was known for his cruelty and his indifference to human suffering. But then he came to faith in Jesus Christ and went from that, to being a pastor, preacher, teacher, author, and the writer of numerous hymns, including the best-loved hymn of all time, “Amazing Grace”. He wrote that hymn about himself. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” That happened because of faith.   Another example would be Chuck Colson. He was a very hard-shelled, mean-spirited political operative who worked for President Richard Nixon. Chuck was known as Nixon’s hatchet man. He did much of Nixon’s dirty work for him. But then Chuck came to faith in Jesus Christ and his life was radically transformed. He ended up founding the most extensive prison ministry in the world, and he wrote many very good Christian books. That happened because of faith.   Then there is Lee Strobel. A journalist and lawyer, he was also an atheist who was determined to use his considerable intellect and his investigative skills to prove Christianity was a lie. It turned out that he ended up convincing himself that there’s no way it could not be true and therefore by faith he turned to Jesus for the forgiveness of his sins. Lee even wrote many very good Christian books about all that he discovered in his own search for the truth – including the book “The Case for Faith”.   My point is that there is transformative power in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But it comes through faith. It is a choice we make based upon a decision to believe.   Paul also said in verse 16 that he was not ashamed of the Gospel. That’s a crucial point and one that becomes very important to living a life of faith. This is a tough world and there are many opponents of the Gospel. If you are going to live by faith, and if you are going to be bold about it, you will encounter opposition, skepticism, ridicule, or maybe worse. The power of the Gospel – the conviction that God is real and the Bible is true, gives you the courage and the confidence to face that.   When I was the Pastor of Bancroft Baptist Church in Spring Valley, CA back in the 1990s, our children’s ministry was built around the AWANA program. AWANA stands for “Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed”. That comes from here, in Romans 1:16 but also from 2 Timothy 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.”    The goal of the AWANA program is to teach our children, from an early age, to have faith, to live by faith, and to do so boldly and with confidence – not being timid, passive, or ashamed but confident and bold. That’s what Paul was writing about here. Faith leads to salvation and transformation characterized by courage and conviction.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571

Good morning, everyone,   Our theme for month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”   Our Bible verse for today: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.” Romans 1:16 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “The transforming power of faith”   One of the reasons God requires us to live by faith is because faith is transformative. We certainly see that in the life of the Apostle Paul. Verse 16 is both the theme of this letter to the Romans and the theme of Paul’s life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ – the Good News that God will forgive your sins, that you will have the promise of eternity in heaven, and also that the Holy Spirit will enter your heart now and begin a lifelong transformation to change you from the person you were into the person God wants you to be – that’s the story of the Gospel. It is the best news the world has ever heard. That Good News is for everyone, and it is such a powerful truth that anyone who chooses to embrace it, by faith, will experience the power of God at work in their lives.   That is the message Paul drives home in this letter, but it was also the story of his own life. By Paul’s own estimation he was the worst of all sinners. In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul wrote this about himself, “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – and I am the worst of them. But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life.”   Paul was referring to his own radical conversion to faith in Christ. We read about it in Acts chapter nine. Up to that point Paul had been one of the most fanatical and fearful Pharisees. He hated Christians; he persecuted them; he hunted them down; he even presided over their executions. When he said he was the worst of all sinners he wasn’t exaggerating.   But then he had an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. He placed his faith in Christ for the forgiveness of his sins, was saved, and then radically transformed. Paul went from being the biggest enemy of Christianity to being a missionary, evangelist, preacher, teacher, church planter, mentor to other pastors, and God used him to write that largest portion of the New Testament. It was a radical transformation that illustrates the power of faith.   No matter how lost a person is and how far they are from God, no one is beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit. If that person is still breathing there’s a chance for them to come to faith in Jesus, and as we have seen in the life of the Apostle Paul, faith in Jesus is a powerful force. It brings about a radical transformation.   Tomorrow we will consider some additional examples of this important truth. For today, I encourage you to never give up on anyone – no matter how far away they seem from God. Pray for them; witness to them; believe that they can be saved and transformed.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

Copyright © 2026 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571