Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “Living like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1   Our thought for today: “God encounters”   This morning, I want to continue our thinking from yesterday regarding the richness of each day and how it is that God has packed a thousand years of beauty and blessings into each day. In that devotional I encouraged all of us to slow down, live in the moment, and truly savor the abundance and beauty of God’s wonderful creation that we are immersed in all day every day.   In 1856 the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning published her poem “Aurora Lee”. The most famous line from that poem pertained to the splendor and beauty of God’s incredible creation and how it is that most of us are oblivious to it much of the time:   “Earth is crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes – The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.”   She’s right. Our days are filled with the evidence of God and with God encounters. But we allow ourselves to become so busy and so distracted that we miss much of it. As I noted yesterday, much of the time most of us just skim the surface of life. We’re either so busy and moving so fast that we don’t take the time to slow down and smell the roses, or we’re so fixated on our smart phones and other digital distractions that we miss the numerous God encounters that are around us all throughout our days.   Are you experiencing God in your daily life – and do you live like it? Are you noticing the evidence of God all around you and then pointing Him out to others?    We truly do live in an amazing world – crammed full of God. Let’s not miss Him.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” 2 Peter 3:8 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “The richness of a day”   I’ve always found Peter’s observation in 2 Peter 3:8 to be a fascinating insight into the nature of God and the limitations of man. Time doesn’t pertain to God. God is outside of time. God created the construct of time as a structure within which the course of human affairs would unfold. But God is bigger than time and He is outside of it.   Picture a piece of pure white posterboard that extends infinitely in all directions, and let’s say that is God. In the middle of that posterboard there is a small black line. The beginning of the line represents the beginning of time as we know it. The end of the line represents the end of time. The entire line is contained deep within the person of God but God Himself is over, above, and around the line of time. He exists outside of it and He sees all of it in a single glance.   So as God views time, from His perspective a thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years. There’s no significant difference to Him. He sees it all at the same time. A day and a thousand years mean a lot to us, but to God it’s all just a brief blip in eternity.   What does that have to do with our devotional topic of living like our faith is real and true? Author Alan Fadling notes, “With God, a single day is so full of life that it could take us a thousand years to unpack it. A single day is dense with meaning to God. There is more to kingdom life available to us in one day than we can imagine.”    Each day is deep, full, and rich beyond our comprehension. God’s creation is so complex and so packed full of activity, opportunity, and richness, that we could lose ourselves for a thousand years in an effort to explore it all, experience it all, and understand it all.   God has packed each day with a thousand years-worth of beauty and blessing. This is why we need to slow down, savor life, and live in the moment. Most of the time most of us just skim the surface of life and we miss much of the richness, beauty, and blessing that is packed into each day for us by God.   I encourage all of us to take the time to truly savor and appreciate the depth and richness of this day the Lord has given us.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “Here I am today, eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. My strength for battle and for daily tasks is now as it was then.” Joshua 14:10-11 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Age is an attitude”   I live in a retirement community that offers an interesting window into the different ways people approach the issue of aging (and the attitude with which they think of old age.) On the one side are those who age badly. It’s not that they have health challenges. In old age we all have health issues of some sort. But those who age badly handle the challenges badly. And they complain a lot.     But then there is another group who are the exact opposite. Many of them are in relatively good health and therefore they walk, bike, swim, workout in the gym, play tennis and pickleball, kayak and canoe, and much more. But even those in this group who are less physically able, they still do all they can by being involved in clubs, volunteer organizations, social activities, and church. This is the group who lives life large and with a good attitude, and they are determined to live fully until they die.   I know many seniors who live life large. And I also know younger people who don’t. I know eighty-year-olds who are bright and peppy and happy. And I know fifty-year-olds who seldom leave the couch and always want to tell you about their latest aches, pains, and medicines. Who is really older – an active seventy-year-old or a sedate fifty-year-old?   I have also noticed a direct correlation between the vitality of a person’s faith and the enthusiasm with which they approach life. People with strong faith tend to have a zest for living – even if they are dealing with physical limitations. People with weak faith are often beaten down by the challenges they face in life, and their lives reflect that.   Being old has less to do with age than it does with attitude. If you think of yourself as old, then you are. If you think of yourself as young, then you probably act like it. Regardless of your chronological age, I urge you not to limit yourself because you think of yourself as old and then act like it. Resolve to really live until you die.   Age is an attitude.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like it’s real”   Our Bible verse for today: “Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves.” Romans 11:11 (NLT)   Our thought for today: “Make them want what you have”   At Oak Hill Baptist Church we are conducting a study of the book of Romans on Sunday mornings. This Sunday we will be taking a deep dive into Romans 11:11-24. This is the section where Paul explains that the Jews are still God’s chosen people and that we Christians are simply an extension of the family God was already creating for Himself through the nation of Israel. The New Testament grew out of the Old Testament. Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Christianity has its roots in Judaism.   However, since the Jews largely rejected their promised Messiah, God then used Israel as a springboard to send the good news about the Messiah out to the rest of the world. Now the non-Jewish world is enjoying the salvation and blessings that were first and foremost intended for Israel.   In this section of Romans chapter eleven Paul is teaching that God did that for two reasons. First, to get the gospel out to the rest of the world so non-Jews could be saved as well. But also, He did it to make Israel jealous. He intended for them to see others enjoying the blessings that should have been theirs and for them to then want what they were seeing others receive. Another point in the passage is that we Christians received the gospel from Israel, and now we need to turn it around and bring it back to them. The joy of our salvation should make them want what we have.   That’s true with respect to Israel and the Jews, but it’s also true in a larger context. Ideally, all people should be able to see the difference our faith makes in our lives – the love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Those blessings are ours in increasing measure thanks to Christ in our lives, and it should make them want what we have.   Is that true of your life? Is your faith so real, so dynamic, and does it make such a positive difference in your life that others see it and want what you have? Does the evidence of your faith make others jealous?   I encourage all of us to live in such a way that others want what we have.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” 2 Peter 1:2 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “It’s for you to enjoy and to share”   In his great devotional book, “A Year of Slowing Down: Daily Devotions for Unhurried Living,” Alan Fadling made a statement that caught my attention. He wrote that, “This abundance (of the grace of God in our lives) is not just for our own benefit but also for the sake of others.”   2 Peter 1:2 is just one of several verses in the New Testament letters that include a prayer for the readers to experience God’s grace and peace in abundance. Paul was fond of using the phrase as well. It’s a kind and beautiful prayer to pray for someone, and we all certainly do need a better appreciation of the abundance of God’s grace and peace.   But getting back to that statement from Alan Fadling – such a blessing upon us is not just for our own benefit, it is also for the benefit of all those who will encounter us today. Peter continues his teaching by telling us what we should do with our experience of God’s abundant grace and peace in our own lives:   “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7)     What Peter is saying is that when your life is suffused with the grace and peace of God, that grace and peace will radiate from you and impact those around you. Others will be blessed because you were blessed. Others will experience the grace and peace of God because you did.   Does your life reflect the grace and peace of God? It should. I join with Peter this morning in praying for you: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Then share that grace and peace with others.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Have a healthy sense of holy humility”   Humility is good, right? Well, yes. Sometimes. Good humility is good. Bad humility is bad. Humility can be good or bad depending on its source. Humility is good when it is a holy humility. That’s what Peter was calling for in 1 Peter 5:6-7.   When a Christian has a healthy sense of holy humility, that person realizes that he or she is simply a sinner saved by grace. The person also realizes that because God is in the process of working His good and perfect plan in their life, it is the work of the Holy Spirit in their life that empowers them with gifts, skills, abilities, resources, and talents in order to live their best life. It is all grace and it is all from God. That’s good humility. That’s holy humility.   However, humility can also be bad – it can be unhealthy and unholy. Humility can be bad when it is a false humility. In other words, the person is putting on a show, pretending to be humble in an attempt to impress others with their humility. That’s not humility, it’s pride. It also deceptive, manipulative, and phony. An older pastor and I were once discussing the importance of humility as a virtue among Christian leaders. He made the point that it’s important for us to have mentors in the ministry who are truly humble and who model good humility for us. Then, with tongue firmly placed in cheek he said, “Take me for example, Jim. I’ve very humble, and I’m proud of that.” (Obviously, if you’re proud of being humble then you aren’t really humble.)   Another example of unhealthy humility is the self-depreciating kind that comes from insecurity and self-doubt. This is the person who thinks poorly of themselves. They believe they don’t measure-up compared to others and they’re always down on themselves. This isn’t false humility. In this case the person sincerely does think poorly of themselves. They find it hard to believe that God does not think poorly of them, and they struggle to believe that He loves them and finds them worthy in Christ.   To live our best lives – to live like our faith is real and true – we must have a healthy sense of holy humility. Realize that you are valued, loved, fully accepted, and esteemed by God because you come to Him through faith in His Son Jesus. Beyond that, understand that the Holy Spirit is working in you to transform you into the fully mature spiritual person God intends for you to be. I encourage you to embrace that truth and to thank God for it.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Living like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of the Creator.” Colossians 3:9-10 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “You will have to want it”   This morning I want to return us to our story from yesterday’s devotional about the eagle that grew up thinking he was a prairie chicken and therefore spent his life acting like a prairie chicken. Even when he witnessed other eagles soaring like eagles, and even when he sensed deep within himself that he too had the capacity to soar like that if he only would, he still stayed on the ground scratching with the chickens.   If that eagle wanted to soar, he was going to have to acknowledge and embrace his true identity as an eagle and stop acting like a prairie chicken. The point of the story was that sometimes Christians act like prairie chickens. We spend our lives scratching around on the ground when we could be soaring in the Spirit. But if we want to soar, there is action we need to take.   In Colossians 3:9-10 Paul tells us to take off our old selves and the practices that go with it and put on the new self, given to us by God through the Holy Spirit living in our heart. Please notice the intentional actions required of us in that verse. You must decide to take off our old self and to stop those old practices. You must also decide to put on the new self and to then intentionally engage in the new practices that go with the new self. There is action required on our part.   Paul also spoke to this in Romans 12:1-2 when he wrote, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 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.” (CSB)   This is why it’s essential for the follower of Christ to be committed to a life of serious discipleship that includes daily prayer and Bible study, full participation in the life of a good church, service to others in ministry, along with the other basic disciplines of the Christian life.   Living a life spent soaring in the Spirit is possible if you will embrace and live the life God wants for you. But you will have to want it, and then you will have to take the actions necessary for the Spirit to develop it in you. Your life should not be spent scratching with the chickens. You were meant to soar like an eagle.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living in you.” Romans 8:11 (NLT)   Our thought for today: “Soaring in the Spirit”   When it comes to living like our faith is real and true, God helps us more than we realize by means of His Spirit living within us. I want to share with you a story that appears in the Swindoll Study Bible. This is what Pastor Chuck wrote:   “Do you ever have the feeling that you have been wrongly programmed? Have you ever spent much of your life thinking a certain way only to realize that you have missed something vital the whole time? If so, it’s made you different than you otherwise would have been.             Imagine that somebody stole an eagle’s egg and secretly placed it in the nest of a prairie chicken alongside her other eggs. The little hen sat on the eggs, and after some time, along with her little chicks popped out a little eaglet. The eaglet watched and listened and scratched around in the dirt and ate stuff off the ground like the prairie chickens did, and he tried to learn to cluck. Every once in a while he would fly low to the ground like the chickens he had always been around. Then one bright, sunny day, the eagle, now grown, looked up into the cloudless sky and saw the inimitable sight of another eagle soaring. He said to his buddy, “Let’s try that!” The chicken said, “Are you kidding? We’re chickens.” So the eagle spent the rest of his days scratching in the dirt and eating from the ground. He never soared.             This fanciful story illustrates a point: What a shame it is when God has something better for us but we don’t realize it! If we do end up realizing it, we look back with regret, thinking, “Why haven’t I been soaring all this time?”   The point is that God has placed His Holy Spirit in our hearts and by doing so He has enabled us to soar through life as if we had wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:29-31). But many of us never fully embrace the life God wants us to live. Many of us hold back, procrastinate, and make excuses for not doing the things God has prepared for us, and therefore we don’t experience the life He has called us to.   This is why the Scriptures call us to be fully committed disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. The best life any of us will ever have is the one that is lived fully surrendered to Jesus and right in the center of God’s will.   We can indeed soar through life in the Spirit. But to do so we will have to stop scratching with the chickens. We must embrace our true identity in Christ and let the Spirit take us where He wants us to go.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like its true”   Our Bible verse for today: “But as for you, brothers and sisters, do not grow weary in doing good.” 2 Thessalonians 3:13 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Just do what you know to be right”   I find it interesting how many verses and entire passages in the Bible urge the people of God to resolve to do good (what they know to be right). Paul wrote about it in 2 Thessalonians 3:13 (above). He also wrote about it in Galatians 6:9, “Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.” The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said it to in Hebrews 13:16, “Don’t neglect to do what is good.” There are many others as well.   “Doing good” applies to engaging in acts of kindness, compassion, generosity, and other acts of physical ministry to those in need. But it also pertains to doing good in terms of standing for what is right, just, and biblically true regardless of whether society, culture, or government authorities agree or like it. That was certainly a big part of the challenge those early Christians faced in the first century of Christianity. It was what the apostles were referring to in Acts 5:29 when Peter declared, “We must obey God rather than people.”   We live in a society today that has turned biblical values and traditional morality on its head. Values and standards that have been acknowledged as good and right for hundreds, even thousands of years have now been declared by some in our society to be bad, hurtful, even hateful. And behaviors that have been acknowledged as immoral and harmful by societies across the span of history are now declared to be good and right.   How does God feel about that? The same as He always has. More than 2500 years ago He said through the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” In other words, woe to those who twist scripture to suit their own desires.   More and more today, as conservative evangelical Christians simply declare and affirm the time-honored Biblical values given to us by God and honored across societies and generations for thousands of years, there are those who will attempt to shame us, shut us up, and shut us down. They will declare you to be hateful for not joining them in their biblical revisionism and affirming their declaration that good is bad and bad is good. The pressure can become intense and the temptation to go along in order to get along can be strong.   I encourage you to stand your ground. Base your faith and practice on what the Bible actually says. Don’t be unkind or disrespectful, but don’t be timid either. With grace and humility, with kindness and respect, just do and say what you know to be right and true, and stand your ground.   God bless, Pastor Jim     (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 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: “Live like it’s true”   Our Bible verse for today: “I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.” Romans 1:7-8 (NLT)   Our thought for today: “Good doctrine must be followed by good practice”   At Oak Hill Baptist Church the way we approach our Sunday morning sermons is I select a book of the Bible we are going to study, then we begin in chapter one verse one and whatever the next major theme in the book is, that’s the subject for this week’s sermon. We just work our way progressively through the book, major theme by major theme.   Right now, we are studying Paul’s letter to the Romans. I love the insight offered by Pastor Chuck Swindoll in his introduction to the book of Romans in The Swindoll Study Bible: “Beginning with eleven chapters of doctrine, the book then transitions into five chapters of practical instruction. This union between doctrine and life illustrates for Christians the absolute importance of both what we believe and how we live out our beliefs.”   Yes, that’s it precisely. Good doctrine must be followed by good practice. We must have a firm grasp on and an accurate understanding of the truth of God’s Word, but then we must put it into practice in the way we live. That’s why Paul was writing this letter to the Christians in Rome – so they would have sound doctrine to base the practice of their faith on.   That’s also why we are studying the book of Romans on Sunday mornings at our church, and it is also why I am spending an entire month writing about living like our faith is true and real. Beliefs aren’t worth much if they don’t make a positive difference in how we live.   I encourage you to join us at Oak Hill Baptist Church as we continue our study of Romans this Sunday. If you are close to Cumberland County, TN then please join us in person. If not, then join us online (see the YouTube link below). Also, the entire series in Romans is available for you to view in the archives on our YouTube channel.   By all means, let’s make sure our doctrine is sound. And then let’s put it into practice by the way we live.   God bless, Pastor Jim   (If you like what you’re 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 © 2024 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Oak Hill Baptist Church 3036 Genesis Road Crossville, TN 38571