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

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

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

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

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

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

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

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

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

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

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

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

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

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”   Our Bible verse for today: “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:14 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “Receive every day as a gift from God”   Over the next few days, I would like to share with you a few points from our New Year’s Day sermon at Oak Hill Baptist Church. If you would like to watch that sermon in its entirety, it’s available on the church website (oakhillbaptist.net). On the homepage just click on the “Listen/Watch” button.   I want to encourage you to resolve in 2023 to receive every day as a gift from God. How you begin each new day will determine to a large extent how that day unfolds for you. Every new day is a gift of life from God, and every new day will be an opportunity to experience God’s mercies and blessings. How you think about the day, and your expectations for it, will go a long way towards determining your attitude all throughout the day.   It is true that there’s a lot going on in the world and in our lives that can cause us to worry and to be anxious. But we can set the stage for a miserable day for ourselves by simply starting the day with a sour outlook and with the expectation of problems – or we can do the opposite.   I read a study one time that found that approximately 80% of the things we worry about never happen. Another 10% do happen, but end up happening good rather than bad. And of the 10% that we worry about, and which do happen and which are bad, they’re usually not as bad as we feared they would be. And yet, we worry about them. We allow those things to give us sour dispositions and negative expectations – often to the point that our sour disposition and negative expectations actually attract bad outcomes to us. It’s a basic law of human nature that we often attract to ourselves the things we expect to happen.   So, are God’s promises true or not? Lamentations 3:22-24 says, “Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.” Is that true or not? Are God’s mercies new every morning? Does every day hold the potential for blessings? Well then, what’s your attitude going to be? Will you join with the Psalmist and declare, “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it”?   Now there’s a New Year’s resolution for you! I encourage you to resolve to receive every day of 2023 as a gift from God, and then determine that you will rejoice and be glad in it.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”   Our Bible verse for today: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot or cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:15-16 (CSB)   Our thought for today: “Are you hot, cold, or indifferent?”   This morning we will continue our thinking from the last two days regarding the problem of apathy in our churches and in the Christian community in the USA. Yesterday we learned that there’s a thick cloud of apathy that has settled upon Christianity in the USA. It’s evident in many ways including declining Biblical literacy among Christians, inconsistent church attendance and involvement, reduced financial giving, embracing immoral cultural standards, and much more. Especially alarming is the way so many Christians excuse themselves and rationalize their decisions. The word from Jesus, as we learned yesterday, is “Wake up!”   The day before that we considered Jesus’ hard and stark lesson from the Sermon on the Mount regarding pearls, pigs, and priorities. The point of that lesson was that we have to make good choices about how we spend our time. Many people and activities are not worthy of our time and resources. And even if something is good, it could still be taking us away from what is best.   Jesus hates apathy and indifference and rationalizing and excuse-making. Seriously, He detests it. Just read what He said in Revelation 3:15-16. The reason He used such strong language and stark illustrations, such as vomiting in this passage, or dogs and pigs in Matthew 7:6, or the stern command to “Wake up!” in Revelation 3:2, is precisely because once we have been lulled into apathy and we are essentially sleep-walking through our faith, we fool ourselves into believing that we have good reasons for our choices and that our choices make sense, at least in our case.   But even if the thing itself is good (extra sleep, working overtime, extra money in savings, recreational activities etc.), if the good things are consistently and repeatedly pulling us away from the best thing, then we have a problem.   I want to challenge each of us to consider if we are hot, cold, or indifferent. I’m asking us to critically examine the choices we’re making, the actions we’re taking (or not taking), and the ways in which we are spending our time and our resources. As was noted yesterday, talk is cheap. Actions tell the real story.   I know this is strong stuff, but the problem is critical. Apathy is a spiritual disease that’s killing our churches. Churches in America are struggling, and it’s our fault. How we Christians use our time matters very much, especially on Sunday mornings.   Today is Saturday. Tomorrow is Sunday. Will you be in church tomorrow? Not only do you need to be there for your own benefit, but your church needs you to be there.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.

Good morning everyone,   Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”   Our Bible verse for today: “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of God.” Revelation 3:2 (NIV)   Our thought for today: “Jesus says: “Wake up!””   Are you becoming apathetic in the practice of your faith? I’m willing to bet most of you just answered, “No, I am not apathetic about the practice of my Christian faith.” Okay, but wait. Let me ask a few more questions. Do you find yourself making excuses for not praying and reading the Bible enough? Do you skip church fairly frequently so you can participate in recreational activities, family events, or because you just felt like sleeping in? Do you give little to the church but spend a lot on creature comforts, recreational activities, fast food, and things like that?   In short, are you in the habit of making excuses for not doing what you know you should do, and for not being where you know you should be?   Every year in January the magazine Christianity Today publishes their annual “Book Awards” edition. In it they rate the best books of the previous year, by category, and give awards for the best four in every genre. They also choose one book as “The book of the year”. The book of the year for 2022 was “Overcoming Apathy” by Uche Anizor.   The book addresses what many Christian leaders consider to be the number one malady in the Christian community in the USA today – apathy. A deep sense of apathy and indifference is becoming an increasing problem in society in general, and it is impacting the Church as well. Christians just don’t care as much as they used to. Oh, they would never admit it. They would protest and insist they do care. But words are cheap, it’s actions that tell the true story.   And the true story is alarming. The church in the USA is becoming increasingly inept and ineffective. Church attendance is at an all-time low; Bible literacy among Christians continues to decline; and believers increasingly accept and practice immoral cultural standards. Consequently, the Church in our country is slowly withering away.   The words of Revelation 3:2 were spoken by Jesus to apathetic Christians in an apathetic church in that day, but they pertain to all Christians in all church in all ages. We don’t become apathetic overnight, but slowly over an extended period of time. And eventually it comes to the point where we are essentially sleep-walking through our faith. To that Jesus demands, “Wake up!” “Your faith is slipping away from you.” Your churches are dying and you don’t even realize it!”   That’s true of Christians and churches today, and it’s really about choices. It’s about how we decide to spend our time. We often make poor choices with respect to the practice of our faith and then we make excuses and rationalize our choices. One of our favorite ways of rationalizing our excuses is to pat ourselves on the back for doing other things we consider to be good in instead. “I may miss church a lot but at least I read my Bible and pray.” “I may not give financially very much or very often, but I do pass out bulletins on Sunday morning.” You get the idea.   Apathy is a spiritual disease that is spreading across our land and infecting millions of Christians, many of whom are convinced they are actually faithfully engaged, but they’re not. Instead, increasingly, they’re missing in action, they’re uninvolved, and they’re making excuses. As a result, our churches are withering away. The command from Jesus to us is, “Wake up!”   We’ll think more about this tomorrow.   God bless, Pastor Jim

Copyright © 2023 Oak Hill Baptist Church, All rights reserved.