January 16, 2026 · 6:03 AM

Looking Forward

When we go through tough seasons, our tendency is to regress to where we have been rather than to where God is leading us. How much did the Israelites complain on the way to the Promised Land? They kept wanting to go back to Egypt. What about Lot’s wife? Even Peter went back to fishing after the crucifixion. We tend to edit the past in our mind to believe it was better than it was. Yet God is calling you forward. We don’t need to deny the past, but it’s hard to move forward when you’re looking backwards. It’s time to look ahead to where God is taking you instead of behind you to where He’s releasing you from.

Here are some Bible verses on looking ahead:

1. Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil.

Proverbs 4:25-27 NLT

2. But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back [to the things left behind] is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:62 AMP

3. When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”

Genesis 19:17 NLT

4. But the Lord says, “Do not cling to events of the past or dwell on what happened long ago. Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already—you can see it now! I will make a road through the wilderness and give you streams of water there.”

Isaiah 43:18-19 GNT

5. I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this; however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead.

Philippians 3:13 TPT

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January 15, 2026 · 5:30 AM

Turning North

One of my favorite visual lessons to use in a group is to have everyone close their eyes and to then point north. What usually happens is you will have a room full of people pointing just about every direction including up. I then have them open their eyes to see where everyone is pointing. Immediately some start laughing, but others start trying to convince others they’re right. I then pull a compass out of my pocket and show them which way is north. I’ll ask them to again close their eyes and point to north. Most will point in the direction the compass did, but there will still be some who point in other directions. I tell them that if they don’t know which way north is, and you’re lost, it’s hard to get where you’re going.

All throughout the book of Jeremiah, Israel was lost. Each person was doing what was right in their own eyes and doing what they wanted. Even though they had the compass of The Law, they chose to go in different directions. In Jeremiah 18, God had Jeremiah watch a potter work with some clay. After making a piece of pottery, the potter didn’t like it, then crushed it and started over. Then, in verse 11, God said, “Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds” (ESV). He was telling them to repent, which means to change directions. He wanted them to turn north towards Him.

Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to guide me and a light for my path” (GNT). God has given us the compass to navigate this life by giving us His Word. It will guide us in the direction we should live and in how we make choices. However, just like in the room full of people knowing which way north is, we still have to make the choice each day to point north or to point in a different direction. God always gives us that choice. If we head any direction but north, we risk facing the consequences of our actions. His way is the only right way to go north. His word lights the path so we can see where we’re going and also guides us in the paths of righteousness. It’s up to me and you to continually turn north when everything else is trying to get us to turn in different directions.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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January 14, 2026 · 5:41 AM

Sacrificial Obedience

In Mark 1, as Jesus was beginning His ministry in the Galilee region, He came across Peter and Andrew. They had their fishing nets in hand and it says they were actively catching fish. In Verses 17-18 Jesus said to them, “‘Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people.’ At once they left their nets and went with him” (GNT). They didn’t walk away from their nets when they were empty. They didn’t walk away while they were having success. Leaving an empty net behind is often a relief, but to leave a full one is surrendered obedience. They didn’t think twice. They walked away from their nets comfort of something they had known their whole life simply because Jesus called them.

In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah had his mountain top moment with God, and then he was told to go pick his successor. He came upon Elisha while he was plowing a field. Elijah put his cloak on him and immediately Elisha jumped off the oxen and asked to say goodbye to his family. Verse 21 says, “Then Elisha went to his team of oxen, killed them, and cooked the meat, using the yoke as fuel for the fire. He gave the meat to the people, and they ate it. Then he went and followed Elijah as his helper.” Again, this person obeyed in the middle of success. He didn’t try to finish the job or ask questions about where he was going. Instead, he sacrificed what had been his security, blessed everyone around him and followed God’s call.

In Luke 9:23 Jesus said, “If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me.” It’s easy to follow Him when we’re at a dead end job, have nothing going on or are disgruntled where we are. Can you take up your cross and follow Him when you’re having success, surrounded by people you like and with things going well? That’s a true sacrifice of obedience. It’s much more difficult to do. We must learn to deny ourselves (let go of what’s working), take up our cross every day (embrace sacrificial obedience) and follow Him (move immediately when He calls). Sacrificial obedience isn’t easy, but it’s what we’re called to.

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January 13, 2026 · 6:01 AM

Leaving Babylon

In Genesis 11 we read about the Tower of Babel. Verse 4 encapsulates the problem with the people of the city. They said, “Now let’s build a city with a tower that reaches the sky, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth” (GNT). They were building a city to have security without God, a tower in order to reach Heaven on their own terms and to make a name for themselves so they could have an identity apart from God. It wasn’t about building a tower. It was about being motivated by pride to accomplish something apart from God. When He walked through the city, He saw their hearts and sent judgement. From that time on Babylon has stood in defiance of God’s ways.

In the very next chapter, we meet Abram. He is the opposite of the person of Babylon. He’s willing to go wherever God asks him to, which is away from the security of his family. We know he is humble and obedient to what God says. Because his heart is right, God gives him what the people of Babylon wanted. In verse 2 God says, “I will give you many descendants, and they will become a great nation. I will bless you and make your name famous, so that you will be a blessing.” Because he lived a life of surrender instead of one of pride, God gave him a name, identity and nation. Immediately after God shows us what not to do, he gives us Abram as an example of how to live in humble obedience.

James 4:6-7 says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you.” What is the motivation behind the things you’re trying to accomplish? Is it for your name to be known or His? Is it so you can create your own security instead of relying on God’s? God looks at our heart more than our actions. He’s looking for humble obedience. We must submit to His plans for our life if we want blessings like Abraham. We must resist pride from the Devil so it doesn’t corrupt what God wants to accomplish through us. God is not against you being successful or building something great. He’s against the spirit of Babylon that tries to rise up in each one of us to do things without Him or His blessing. We must leave Babylon and all it represents if we truly want to follow God.

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January 12, 2026 · 5:50 AM

Changing Directions

If you take a moment to think of a celebrity who has wrecked their career or self sabotaged it, you probably won’t have to think long. One young celebrity started having a public feud with her family. She began abusing different substances. She then started getting DUI’s stealing from stores and broke her probation. Her unresolved personal struggles created a cycle she couldn’t break for years and her past became the gravitational pull from which she began making decisions. It’s easy to sit in judgement because her story played out publicly, but many of us allow our past to dictate our decisions and the direction of our life.

We don’t have to live that way though. The Bible is full of people who broke that cycle. I can think of the woman at the well, Mary Magdalene and Peter who found a way to overcome their past. In Joshua 2 Israel had sent spies into Jericho before they attacked. They went to the home of Rahab, a known prostitute, to stay the night. When the king tried to get her to turn them in, she protected them. She asked for safety when they attacked her city in exchange. She followed their directions and saved herself and her family. More than that, she is listed in the genealogy of Jesus. She is a great example of someone who broke free and quit letting what defined her shape her future.

Philippians 3:13 says, “Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead” (GNT). The word “forget” here doesn’t mean erasing your past. It means you quit letting it dictate your future. We must each release the past’s authority to make our decisions and control the direction of our life. When we do that, we can head for what God has ahead for us. He has already cast your past away as far as the east is from the west. It’s time for you to release it as well. Your future is not determined by your past anymore. Once you’re forgiven, you are defined by God’s grace instead of who you were. Let go of who you were and reach forward to that which God is calling you to. You can change directions through Christ Jesus.

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January 9, 2026 · 5:59 AM

Producing Fruit

In Genesis 3 we see the account of Adam and Eve being tempted and eventually sin. The serpent asked Eve, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”of all the ways he could have tempted them, he did it with fruit. I think that’s because fruit is the result of hidden things. Fruit is the harvest of previous work. Fruit is the outward representation of inner work. The Bible is full of verses about fruit. Good fruit comes from obedience, spending time with Jesus and the soil we are planted in. Fruit is where your faith becomes visible. We must make sure we are producing good fruit and that we aren’t tempted to think that it’s the result of anything other than God’s faithfulness and goodness.

Here are some Bible verses on fruit we should produce:

1. A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad.

Matthew 12:33 NLT

2. You didn’t choose me, but I’ve chosen and commissioned you to go into the world to bear fruit. And your fruit will last, because whatever you ask of my Father, for my sake, he will give it to you!

John 15:16 TPT

3. I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.

John 15:5 GNT

4. But other people are like seeds sown in good soil. They hear the message, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred.

Mark 4:20 GNT

5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV

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January 8, 2026 · 5:30 AM

Guarding The Seed

One of the most exciting things in life is when God puts a vision in your heart of where He wants to lead you and how He wants to use you. For most of us, we’re so excited that we want to share that with someone. What often happens is that the people whom you think would encourage you and be excited with you about it are often the ones who will discourage you from doing it. They’ll either blow it off, tell you why it can’t happen or outright oppose it. The enemy kills more seeds this way than in any other. Your disappointment turns into lack of moving forward and the vision goes dormant. Remember the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy that which God plants in you. Protect it until it has taken root.

In Genesis 37 we read the story of Joseph. One night God gave him a dream where he and his brothers were tying up grain when his stood up and their bowed to his. The next day he was so excited about this vision he told his brothers. They mocked him for the dream. When he dreamed that the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed to him, he told them again. This time his father scolded him for the dream God gave him. His brothers grew jealous of the dream God had given him, began to hate him and started planning to kill him over it. Even thought they sold him into slavery and he went to prison for years, God accomplished the dream He gave him. When things were darkest in his life, God was still growing the seed the enemy tried to steal and was positioning Joseph for it to come to pass.

In 1 Timothy 6:20 Paul warned Timothy of this very thing. He wrote, “Timothy, guard what God has entrusted to you. Avoid godless, foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge” (NLT). To guard it well you will first need to purpose in your heart to follow God’s vision and plan before you tell others what God has planted. You need to begin moving in the direction of the vision and acting on it. When the people you respect and love say opposing words, guard the seed and remember your promise to God to fulfill it. The larger the dream, the greater the opposition. Even if you feel like the seed has been stolen in this way, trust God’s plan like Joseph. It may be dark now, but that’s the condition a seed needs in order to grow. God does not take back His gifts nor His callings (Romans 11:29). Begin watering that seed and guard it well. God is still working.

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Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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January 7, 2026 · 5:37 AM

Planting Your Roots

In the early 2000’s I was working on a construction project with a group of teens living in a drug rehab program. I got to know one of the boys who was working with me. He seemed like a normal teen, but this was his fifth rehab program. As we talked, he told me how this program was different from the others. Every other program he had been in relied on avoidance of drugs. Once he was clean and finished with the program, he’d step back into his old life with his old friends and get hooked again. Then he said, but this program has been different. It’s not about avoidance. It’s about heart and mind change. It’s about changing who I’m around and planting myself in positive places. I don’t know what happened to him, but I’ve never forgotten our conversation.

Psalm 1 has always been my favorite Psalm and one I’ve tried to build my life on since I was a teen. It starts out, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (ESV). Like that teen learned, who we are around matters. However, there’s more to living blessed than mere avoidance of the wrong crowd. We must also take delight in God’s Word and meditate on it. We have to chew on it, think about it and apply it to our life as we hide it in our heart. That creates a heart and mind change.

The next verse tells us the results of a person who does these things. It says, “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” This doesn’t describe a wild tree randomly growing somewhere. This is one that is planted where it can get constant nourishment from God’s Word and the people of God. When you are rooted in these things, fruitfulness and success in every season is the natural outcomes. Have you simply been trying to avoid sin or hare you undergoing a heart and mind transformation through taking delight in God’s Word and His people? Where you plant your roots affects your whole life and determines your fruitfulness.

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January 6, 2026 · 5:52 AM

Grow And Guard

Not long after God created everything, He planted the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:15 says, “Then the Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it” (GNT). Think about that for a second. God created this perfect world and garden, then asked man to cultivate it and guard it. To cultivate it is to take what it was in its raw form and to help it become more. God was asking Adam to grow it to more than what it was. When God asked him to guard it, He was asking Adam to take responsibility for what had been given to him as well. In this moment, God created a partnership with man to work together with purpose.

One of my favorite parables comes from Matthew 25. A man was going on a trip and he entrusted his property to three servants. Verse 15 says, “He gave to each one according to his ability: to one he gave five thousand gold coins, to another he gave two thousand, and to another he gave one thousand. Then he left on his trip.” Did you catch that? He entrusted something to each one according to his abilities. He wanted them to cultivate, grow and guard what was placed in their hand. The first two doubled the coins while the other hid his. The first two who grew and guarded their gift were told, “Well done, you good and faithful servant! You have been faithful in managing small amounts, so I will put you in charge of large amounts. Come on in and share my happiness!” The owner shared the growth with them in the partnership.

In 2 Timothy 1:6 Paul reminds Timothy, “This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you” (NLT). What is Paul asking Timothy to do? He wants him to cultivate the gift, to grow it and to not let it die. He wants him to guard it and steward it well. The same challenge is given to us as was given to Adam, the servants and Timothy. Why has God given you that He’s asking you to cultivate and to guard? Where do you need to partner with God to see growth? The talents that God gives you are His gift to you. How you grow and guard them are your gift to Him. The more we increase them and care for them, the more He will share with you in this partnership.

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January 5, 2026 · 5:30 AM

Consecrate Yourselves

In Joshua 3, the people of Israel stood at the Jordan river looking at the Promised Land that God had promised for generations. They had not yet marched around Jericho. They hadn’t faced any giants in the new land. They were simply standing there between what has been and what will be. It’s a moment we’ve all stood in. It’s the start of something new and different. In that moment of anticipation, Joshua said, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (ESV). He didn’t tell them to strategize. He didn’t tell them to sharpen their weapons either. He simply said to consecrate yourselves.

I love this moment and what God was asking them to do. Before there would be any victories or amazing things done by God, the people would have to consecrate themselves. That means that they would dedicate their whole selves to God, set themselves apart from the way others lived and to present themselves to God as a living sacrifice. To consecrate yourself is to clear away things from your life and to make room for God so He can fill it. It’s a spiritual posture that says, “I put aside my plans for what’s ahead and make myself available for what you want to do next.” It takes a moment of uncertainty and gives God permission to direct us where He wants to lead us. It puts both what’s ahead and what is being left behind in His hands.

I believe we are standing in a threshold moment of what has been and what will be. God says in Isaiah 43:18-19, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Today is a day of consecration where we let go of the former things and embrace the new things God wants to do. Consecration starts with surrender. What do you need to lay down before you step into the Jordan? Seek God today on what that is and then let it go. When we trust Him with all of our heart, He will direct our paths. God will always bring clarity where we bring surrender and consecration.

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