Oak Hill Baptist Church

Don’t miss your sacramental moments

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings; with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.” Isaiah 6:1-3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Don’t miss your sacramental moments”

Frederick Buechner once wrote that a sacramental moment is “when something holy happens. It is transparent time, time which you can see through to something deep inside time.”

Sacramental moments happen most often in church during a good worship service. That’s when most of us have our deepest encounters with God. Music is especially effective at lifting us up out of ourselves to an encounter with God. The music also softens our hearts and prepares us to hear the Word of God preached and explained.

But corporate worship services are by no means the only time we experience such sacramental moments. As Buechner says, “Church isn’t the only place where the holy happens. Sacramental moments can occur at any moment, any place, and to anyone.”

Yes, that’s true, but only if we aren’t, as Buechner cautions, blind as bats. Sacramental moments can happen at any time if we have the spiritual sight and the sensitivity to experience and appreciate them. And this is where most of us struggle.

The truth is that many of us do go through life blind as bats. We’re spiritually dull as well. We rush through life unaware of the holy all around us because we spend so much of our life hurried, harried, harassed, and hurting. Therefore, our attention is everywhere except on the holy.

This is why it’s so important that we don’t skip church. The Bible instructs us (God commands us), to be faithful in our attendance at the weekly gatherings of our church family. There are many good reasons for this but one is so that we can refocus, encounter God in worship, have those sacramental moments, and become re-sensitized to the spiritual so maybe we will at least be a little less “blind as bats and spiritually dull” the rest of the week.

There are sacramental moments waiting for you this Sunday. It will be a holy encounter with the Living God. Will you be there to experience it? I hope you will. Your spiritual eyes will be opened, your soul will be awakened, and you will be much more prepared to face and deal with the coming week. Don’t miss your sacramental moments.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Well, how did I get here?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “He comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Well, how did I get here?”

In 1980 the rock group Talking Heads had a hit song with the title “Once in a Lifetime”. The underlying theme of the song is that we should think carefully about the long-term impacts of our choices, because our life is the sum total of the choices we have made. The song is reflective in nature, as the person wonders how he ended up in life where he now finds himself. It’s not a Christian song, and yet there’s a message in it that’s helpful. Here’s the first verse:

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

It’s a good question, really. How did you get where you are in life? The answer is that everything you have experienced in life up to this point has brought you to where you are today. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Every choice you have made, every experience you have had, it has all combined to make you who you are and it brought you to where you are in life now.

The truth is that we carry our past with us. It never really goes away. The question is what we do with it. Will your past haunt you or help you? You get to decide. The first step is to acknowledge the reality of it. The second step is to decide what you’re going to do with it. This is what the Apostle Paul was referring to in 2 Corinthians 1:4 (above). In that case he was writing about pain and suffering from the past which God then uses to be a source of growth and strength for you, and then as a vehicle for blessing others.

In yesterday’s devotional I encouraged all of us to remember the past and learn from it, but to then live life going forward. Today’s message makes essentially the same point. The past happened. You can’t change that. And, you carry the past with you. You can’t change that either. You cannot magically make it go away as if it never happened, it’s all a part of you. So now, what are you going to do with it?

Go ahead and ask yourself “How did I get here?” That’s important to know. But then ask yourself, “Where am I going?” because that’s even more important.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Were the “good old days” really better?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” since it is not wise of you to ask this.” Ecclesiastes 7:10 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Were the “good old days” really better?”

You may remember the scene found in chapter eleven of the Old Testament book of Numbers. The Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, being fed by the manna from heaven (a sweet bread that tasted like honey and was provided for them daily by God). But they quickly tired of it and actually began complaining about it. Soon they were reminiscing about “the good old days” in Egypt. You know, when they were slaves and working under forced labor. Only now, in their memories, those were the days when they were safe and secure, well fed and fully employed. To hear them tell it now, in the good old days in Egypt they had meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now all they had was this lousy bread from God.

Was the past really better than the present? For those ancient Israelites the answer was obviously “No!” They had grossly romanticized in their memories what had actually been a horrible situation in reality. But don’t we all do that? Don’t we tend to remember the past better than it really was, especially compared to the unpleasantries and challenges that we might be contending with in the present?

Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, and Christian author. He was also a student of human nature. He once observed that, “It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”

In other words, we do need to remember the past (accurately), so we can learn from it. But life needs to be lived going forward. We shouldn’t dwell in the past, and we must also be careful not to overly romanticize it. There were good times in the past, to be sure, but there were bad times too. There were trials and tribulations and pain and sorrow back then too, just as there is today.

Was the past really that much better than the present? If we have the habit of always romanticizing the past at the expense of the present then yesterday, last year, last decade, will always have been better than today. But this pattern of thinking means that when we get to the future we will always look back and conclude that the past was better. Where then is hope? Evidently (in this pattern of thinking) the romanticized past was always better that the present, and that means that everything just gets worse as time goes by.

Life is life, regardless. There’s always both good and bad. Please, don’t dwell in an overly romanticized past that almost certainly wasn’t as good as you’re remembering it now. Instead, learn from the bad, celebrate the good, live fully today, and move forward into the future.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Live life large

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

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: “Live life large”

The words recorded in Joshua 14:10-11 were spoken by one of my personal Biblical heroes, Caleb. Caleb lived in the next generation after Moses and was a contemporary of Joshua. Along with Joshua, Caleb was one of the spies sent out by Moses to reconnoiter the Promised Land and to bring back a report. And along with Joshua, Caleb insisted that the people go forward and take possession of the land as God commanded.

But of course, they didn’t do it. They wandered in the wilderness for forty years instead. Now, in Joshua 14:10-11, we find the eighty-five-year-old Caleb finally in the Promised Land and taking possession of his inheritance. He was still feisty, healthy, strong, bold – and still kicking butt and taking names.

I want to be Caleb!

He reminds me of my Aunt Pat. She’s eighty-seven and still a firecracker. Aunt Pat is one of those people who has always lived life full-steam-ahead. She embraces every moment, grabs it by the shoulders, shakes it up real good, straightens its tie, and then moves on to the next moment. She’s always been like that.

She now lives in an assisted living center in New Jersey. She’s in a wheelchair and needs assistance with many basic daily tasks. But she’s still everywhere, all the time, involved in everything, dispensing advice, giving instructions, and living life large. (I think she may be the mayor of her hallway. And if she wasn’t actually elected to that position, she probably just went ahead and appointed herself to it.)

Yesterday we thought about life in terms of seasons. We considered the truth that every season of life holds the potential for blessings and joys that are unique to that season of life. But it’s up to us to recognize and appreciate the potential and the opportunities that come with each season, and then choose to take advantage of them.

I urge you not to miss the moments of your life. Be Caleb (or Aunt Pat). Grab each moment by the shoulders, shake it up real good, straighten its tie, and then move on to the next one. Experience it all. Take advantage of every opportunity. Live life large.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Your life is a work of art

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

Our thought for today: “Your life is a work of art.”

Douglas Beyer wrote multiple Christian books about how to live the Christian life well. One of them was “Parables for Christian Living”. In it he taught a fascinating lesson about the nature and quality of our lives, which should cause us to seriously reflect on how we think about our lives. His observation is also directly relevant to our topic of slowing down a bit so we can savor and enjoy the individual moments of life. It’s a lengthy passage but I want to quote it in full:

“One of the differences between great art and mediocre art is that with great art you can never get all that is there. A comic strip can be enjoyed and discarded with the Sunday newspaper, but the Mona Lisa can be hung on the wall and enjoyed for a lifetime. You can never get all that is there. A television soap opera can be quickly comprehended and soon forgotten, but a Shakespearean drama can be seen again and again, with each new viewing communicating fresh ideas and perspectives. You can never get all that is there. The parables of Jesus are like great art. They express a profound simplicity. The familiar stories yield new vistas of thought each time they are explored. But you can never get all that is there. The parable of the prodigal son is one of the best-known stores of all time. Read it again, and see what you missed the last time.

Beyer’s point illustrates the difference in the richness and depth between a great work of art and a comic strip, or between a silly and superficial story like a soap opera and something profound like a parable of Jesus. His point can also be applied to the Christian life.

Is your life like a comic strip, or a great work of art? Do you think of it as an insignificant drama or is it a rich and meaningful story? In Ephesians 2:10 Paul describes you and your life as a masterpiece created by God. It’s a deep and rich and beautiful and mysterious and intricate story with many threads which develops over a lifetime. I hope you do see yourself and your life in those terms, because that is what God has created you to be – His masterpiece!

I encourage you to view your life as a great work of art. Gaze at it long and thoughtfully. Appreciate the richness of it. Don’t rush past each moment barely giving it a glance. Treat it like the masterpiece it is. Appreciate it. Enjoy it. Savor it.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

You need your Sabbath day

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord spoke to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: These are my appointed times, the times of the Lord that you will proclaim as sacred assemblies.” Leviticus 23:1-2 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “You need your Sabbath day”

Not long ago I was reading through the Old Testament book of Leviticus in the Experiencing God Study Bible, and I came to chapter twenty-three, where God established the annual liturgical calendar for His people. In that chapter He gave the people a long list of holy days, or sacred assemblies that they would be required to observe. But interestingly, God started that list of annual events with a weekly sacred assembly that He wants His people to observe – the Sabbath day.

In the “Did you notice?” sidebar feature that is included with each chapter in the Experiencing God Study Bible, Henry Blackaby made the observation and asked the question, “The Sabbath is God’s weekly festival. How is this a special day for you?” Now that’s a good question for us to consider, “How is the Sabbath a special day for you?” Do you treat it as special and do you observe it on a weekly basis, as the fourth of the Ten Commandments instructs us to do?

By the way, the Ten Commandments are still in effect. All of them. Including the fourth. Observing the Sabbath isn’t an optional event, not even for us New Testament people. That’s why the writer of the letter to the Hebrews told us in Hebrews 10:24-25 that we are not to skip the regular assemblies of the family of believers. And yet, as we learned in a previous devotional in this series, regular and consistent church attendance by professing believers is at an all-time low in the USA today. We’re talking about professing Christians who are in the habit of skipping church. However, doing so is unbiblical. It’s a violation of the fourth of the Ten Commandments and it’s diametrically opposite of what Hebrews 10:24-25 teaches us.

In yesterday’s devotional message we thought about slowing down so our souls can catch up with our bodies. That’s precisely why God gave us a Sabbath day once a week, and it’s why He made it “not optional” for His people (both Old and New Testament people). The dual purpose of the Sabbath day is to slow us down and make us rest, but also to draw us together into those sacred assemblies for a weekly time of worship, learning, spiritual nurture, and the encouraging of one another.

My friends, you need your Sabbath day. It is both a gift from God and a commandment. I urge you to stop making excuses, stop putting other events and activities up higher on your priority list, and instead, be where you’re supposed to be on Sunday morning (in church). The old saying is very true, “Other things should not be the reason we miss church. Church should be the reason we miss other things.”

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Slow down and let your soul catch up

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.” Lamentations 3:25 (NKJV)

Our thought for today: “Slow-down and let your soul catch up”

The story is told of the missionary doctor who arrived in Africa eager to get to the interior of the continent to begin his work. When he got off the ship at the coast, he hired a group of native men to transport his large amount of luggage and supplies for him. Then, very early the next morning he set off at a fast pace to begin the long trek inland. All day he pushed and pushed at a fast pace, not letting up, not wanting to stop. Finally, when the workers were exhausted and couldn’t go any further, they stopped for the night.

Early the next morning the missionary was up again and eager to get going, but the native men refused to budge. In exasperation the missionary demanded to know why. Finally, one of the men explained, “We’re waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies”. And he meant it. The men sincerely thought that they had traveled so far and so fast the previous day that their souls had been unable to keep up, so now they needed to wait for their souls to catch up with them. That sounds like us. We rush and rush, push and push, go faster and further so we can do more, and our souls can’t keep up.

Kosuke Koyama was a Japanese Christian theologian and philosopher who once wrote a wonderful little book with the title “Three Mile an Hour God”. It was based on the premise that the average human being walks at approximately three miles an hour. That’s a steady but relaxed and reasonable pace for most of us. It gets us where we need to go without exhausting us in the process.

Koyama argues that this an apt metaphor for the pace at which we should live our lives, and it’s the pace at which God attempts to regulate us. Many scriptures support the understanding that God doesn’t want us rushing through life (Jesus was never in a hurry). When we do rush, we’re getting ahead of God Himself. Instead, God walks through life with us at a pace that makes sense and at which we can truly savor and enjoy the moments of life.

This is one of the reasons that at this season in life I have switched from jogging and running to walking and hiking. Walking and hiking are not only good forms of exercise (and they easier on these sixty-eight-year-old knee joints), but walking enables me to better appreciate my surroundings, and it’s also a good reminder to slow down the rest of my life too.

Are you rushing through life so fast that you need to slow down and let your soul catch up? God is a three-mile-an-hour God (not because He can’t go faster, but because we shouldn’t). I encourage you to slow down and let your soul catch up!

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Resolve to live more in the moment

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “Lord, make me aware of my end and the number of my days so that I will know how short-lived I am. In fact, you have made my days just inches long, and my life span is as nothing to you. Yes, every human being stands as only a vapor. Yes, a person goes about like a mere shadow. Indeed, they rush around in vain, gathering possessions without knowing who will get them.” Psalm 39:4-6 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Resolve to live more in the moment”

The words found in Psalm 39:4-6 are the reflections of King David regarding the brevity of life. Moses wrote something similar about five hundred years earlier and his words are preserved for us in Psalm 90:10, “Our lives last seventy years or, if we are strong, eighty years. Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.”

The New Testament writer James had something to say about this as well. In James 4:13-14 we read, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow I will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring – what your life will be! For you are like a vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.”

The phrase “live in the moment” is a concept that has been around forever, at least since the days of Moses, but it is becoming increasingly popular in our busy world today. It means we should stop thinking so much about the past, and stop worrying so much about the future, and focus instead on being aware of and appreciating the present.

We waste so much of our lives reliving the past and worrying about the future that we often miss the joy that’s available to us right now. The past is past and you can’t have it back, and the future may never come for you. Today could be your last day on earth. We spend far too much time regretting the past, worrying about the future, and wasting the present.

We will now spend most of the rest of this month devotionally considering how we can more effectively live in the moment. The days of our lives are a gift from God, but they are limited in number and will soon be gone. Let’s resolve to slow down, pay attention, and truly savor each day of life.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Expect the best

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “For I know the plans I have for you – this is the Lord’s declaration – plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Expect the best”

Resolve to expect the best. If you believe that Jeremiah 29:11 is true and that God really does desire good for you, then you should expect good things to happen.

For most of human history there’s been an ongoing debate regarding whether it’s better to live as an optimist or a pessimist. One the one hand, the argument in favor of pessimism says that if you’re always optimistic you’re guaranteed of being disappointed. The pessimistic perspective is that life is hard, and then you die. If you’re always expecting the best then you’re simply setting yourself up for sorrow and discouragement. Therefore, the argument goes, it’s better and makes more sense to be pessimistic – expect the worst, and when the bad stuff does happen you won’t be surprised by it and you won’t be disappointed. And if, on those rare occasions when something good does happen, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

But there are multiple problems with that thinking. For one thing, pessimism makes people sour and disagreeable. Therefore, it can be hard to be around a pessimist for very long. Donnie Downer and Debbie the Depressor are just hard people to be with. Also, a basic law of human nature is that we tend to attract to ourselves the things we expect. Bad things tend to happen to pessimists because they expect bad things to happen to them.

But also, pessimism is unbiblical. This is the primary and most important argument in favor of optimism. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of hope. The promises of God are good and they bring joy. The New Testament is the most positive, affirming, hope-inspiring book that has ever existed. An excellent example of that is Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It’s known as “The Epistle (the letter) of Joy”. It’s all about the joy and hope we find in daily life because of our faith in Jesus Christ. The New Testament is unapologetically optimistic. So, Christians should be positive and optimistic too.

I encourage you to resolve to be an optimist. Being optimistic is Biblical. And you will also tend to attract good and pleasant things to yourself by being optimistic because as I said, it’s a basic law of human nature that we attract to ourselves the things we expect to happen.

Let me also say that being optimistic is not being naïve. We can be realistic about the world we live in and still have hope and joy. We can acknowledge and deal with the real problems all around us, but still communicate hope and joy to others as we make our way through this troubled world. If there’s one thing people in this world need today it’s hope, joy, and optimism.

Pessimism gives us a dark perspective on life. What a waste. Optimism is the better way. I encourage you to be optimistic!

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Resolve to reject fear

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: ‘For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but (He has given us a spirit) of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline (abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control.)” 2 Timothy 1:7 (Amplified Bible)

Our thought for today: “Resolve to reject fear”

Reject fear. Let me say it again, reject fear. God’s people are not to live in fear. Let me ask you this: Are you the recipient of God’s love? and, is God’s love perfect? Those are rhetorical questions. The answer to both of them is “yes”. You are the recipient of God’s love and God’s love is perfect. 1 John 4:18 tells us that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.” God’s perfect love in you drives fear out of you.

In our individual lives we have to confront and deal with fear in many ways, including with regard to food, shelter, clothing, income, health, the well-being of loved ones, the future, and dozens of other things. One of the ways we train ourselves to combat fear is by memorizing and claiming the promises of God.

In the Bible there are at least 365 verses and passages which instruct and empower us to reject fear (one for every day of the year). Those promises pertain to the full range of issues we have to deal with in life – everything from the promise of provisions, to the promise of His watch-care over us in times of danger, to dealing with temptations from Satan, and so much more. This is why at Oak Hill Baptist Church on Sunday nights we’re studying Max Lucado’s great Bible study “Unshakable Hope: Building your life on the promises of God”. It’s all about living our lives upon the firm foundation of God’s promises.

So how do we, as Christians who are determined to reject fear, deal with this? Let me take you back to 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but (He has given us a spirit) of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline (abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control.) Let me add to that Peter’s word of caution from 1 Peter 5:8 to “be sober-minded”. That means to be calm, realistic, reasoned, and reasonable. Not easily excitable. Not given to fear or extreme thinking.

We are the people of God, and we do not live in fear. Do we take proper precautions? Yes. Do we take common sense steps to be prepared to deal with evil and potentially bad situations? Yes. Do we acknowledge that there are bad actors in the world and therefore we cannot and should not be naïve? Yes. But we do it with boldness and confidence as we simply live life and go forward on mission with Jesus.

Don’t waste your life living in fear. Resolve to reject fear – and anything that looks like fear smells like fear or sounds like fear.

God bless,
Pastor Jim