Category: Devotional Thought

New parents hover over their children. They get up in the middle of the night to check on their breathing. They worry about each cough. They shield their little ones from the sun’s glare and dress them against cold winds.

Would you expect anything less from your heavenly Father?

God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

God watches over us directly. He also uses his angels to protect us.

The Bible says the Lord “will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11,12).

Hollywood portrays angels as “playing in the outfield,” “touching people,” and even working for some guy named Charlie.

Some of what Hollywood says about angels is true. Angels are present everywhere — from baseball parks to our own living rooms.

Much of what Hollywood says is suspect. Angels don’t answer to “Charlie.” They answer only to God.

Our Savior also is active in sheltering and safeguarding us. “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything” (Ephesians 1:22). “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory . . . sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3).

God is not insensitive or unaware of what happens to us.

When we fall into bed after a long day, we know that God is still up and on the job. “He who watches over you will not slumber” (Psalm 121:3).

God is not a weakling, incapable of coming to our aid.

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

Pastor

“He’s the spitting image of his dad.” If we know the dad, we know right away what the son is like.

Do you know that you might be compared to God?

The Bible tells us something very special about the first people God created. He said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26).

Can you draw a picture of this “image” of God? Hardly! Remember, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). He doesn’t have hair or bones, arms or legs. Don’t jump to the pictures of Jesus that some artist has drawn for you. Jesus took on our characteristics; not the other way around.

The Bible tells us what the “image of God” is. It says that Christians “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of his Creator” (Colossians 3:10).

Before Adam and Eve sinned, they didn’t need to be renewed because they were already new. They were holy. They had the “image of God.” They were God’s special people.

Tragically, Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s loving command. Thus, they lost his image. Their perfection, their holiness, was gone.

Graciously, God promised to send a Savior to take their place and to pay for their sin. By believing that promise, Adam and Eve’s relationship to God was restored.

Wouldn’t it be great to be in the “image of God” once again?

Guess what! By believing God’s words and promises about the Savior Jesus Christ, all people have the same benefits as Adam and Eve.

God’s apostle writes, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come” (1 Corinthians 5:17).

How special God’s people are! Through Jesus Christ they are a “spitting image” of God.

Pastor

His grandpa’s antics often puzzled Curt, especially the spring he planted sunflower seeds in his neighbor’s flower garden.

Months later, the elderly gentleman’s sunflowers dwarfed all the dainty little flowers the neighbor had so carefully arranged eight feet below.

The neighbor lady never found out who planted the sunflowers. Curt’s grandma was too embarrassed to tell her; his grandpa was too thrilled with the harvest.

Every day Curt’s grandpa would take his harvest of sunflower seeds and put some on the lawn outside his apartment window. For hours the two grandparents would sit and watch as the squirrels and sparrows enjoyed their feast.

Today, there’s a birdfeeder hanging by Curt’s kitchen window. He fills it with seed from the store. Every day the birds stop by for food. Meanwhile, he and his wife enjoy their lunch and watch the birds as they discuss what’s happening in their lives.

The birds are Curt’s little reminder.

Jesus once said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (Matthew 6:25,26).

Jesus wants us to consider the birds as God’s daily reminder of how special his people are. They are special because the Creator loves them and cares for them.

Those birds and their carefree songs put the stresses and worries of life into perspective. The same heavenly Father who sees to it that birds have food provides for his children.

In fact, the apostle Paul reasons, “If God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things” (Romans 8:32)?

Through Christ Jesus, God forgives all sins and provides a home in heaven for all who trust in his Son.

Make worship your Sunday morning habit to find out more about nature, and especially about God’s love. 

Pastor

Sometimes life seems like one long night in which we must stumble around and try to find our way.

As the sun is to the natural world, Christ is to the moral world. He is like the sun in the unfolding splendor of a new day.

It is not surprising that Jesus calls himself the light. After all, in the beginning he created the light, and the sun and moon and stars. The Bible says he is the “sun of righteousness” (Malachi 4:2).

How tragic it is when some close their eyes to the light and prefer to walk in spiritual darkness! Perhaps they have some pet sin they don’t want to give up. Maybe they don’t want to face their need for forgiveness. Or perhaps they simply refuse to humble themselves before their Maker.

When Jesus says he is the light of the world, he is making a tremendous claim. To top it off, he goes on to say in the same verse, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” As the whole world would die without sunlight, so it will die spiritually without Jesus.

Someone has said that Jesus must be either a liar or a lunatic, or the real Lord to make such claims for himself.

Would a person with the morals of a liar be willing to lay down his life for others, as Jesus did? Hardly.

Could a madman or a lunatic, claiming to be the light of the whole world, speak with the wisdom that we find throughout Jesus’ teachings? Hardly.

Let us come into the light of Christ. He is the Lord! Let us kneel before him who is the way to heaven. He has died for our sins. He has risen again. Day or night, wherever we are, he is our Savior.

Believers in Jesus will someday enter heaven. That “city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and [Jesus] is its lamp” (Revelation 21:23).

Join us each Sunday and step into the magnificent light of Jesus.

Pastor

We all need to feel we belong. We need to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

In calling himself the vine, Jesus wants to give us that connection.

Just as branches receive their life from the vine to which they are attached, Jesus says that we are totally dependent on him. A branch becomes weak if it receives little nourishment from the vine.

Without Jesus, eventually we will die — forever.

Our society promotes an individualism that rebels at this. Unbelievers may even scoff at Christianity. Yet the fact is that everyone lives by some belief. We’re all attached to some vine.

If we’re not attached to Jesus, what is it? For some it’s the human mind. Others look to money or success. Still others draw their strength from other people. In the end, all such “vines” will fail.

Jesus alone has defeated death and can keep us alive forever. Jesus alone can produce in us the priceless fruits of faith he desires.

Jesus produces in us the fruit of prayer. He promises, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (John 15:7). Attached to him, we learn to pray, “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10). And God’s will is always for our best.

Jesus produces the fruit of joy — not simply a passing pleasure but an eternal contentment.  He says, “I have told you [about my Father’s love] . . . that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).

Jesus also produces the fruit of love: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). The Bible calls love the greatest of gifts, without which we are nothing.

Through Jesus we are intimately connected to the source of life.  In the church we participate in that connection with other believers. Come and celebrate that connection every Sunday!

Pastor