Tag Archives: bible study on

April 7, 2026 · 5:54 AM

Stop Going In Circles

I’ve been in leadership long enough to know you can’t expect different results by doing the same thing. I’ve coached and counseled people telling them that what they are experiencing today is a result of the processes they have in their life or organization. There are times when I point out a behavior or process that they need to change, that people willingly do it. Others will defend their position or attack me because that position is something they’re so dug in on that they won’t change. I try to explain if they want to change results, they have to change behaviors. You can’t simply change the direction by going in circles. At some point you have to break the cycle, break the pattern and break the behavior.

In Deuteronomy 2, the Israelites had been wandering in the wilderness for forty years. They had their own pattern that kept them there for so long. They would feel inconvenienced on the way to the Promised Land, then they would complain, then they would talk about how their life was better in Egypt, God would discipline them and provide, and then they would repeat it. Their sin and struggle had kept them there wandering until all those who had refused to go to the Promised Land had died. Now a new generation had grown up and God was preparing them to go take the land. In verse 3 God says, “You have circled this mountain long enough; turn northward” (AMP). For forty years, nothing had changed until they changed direction.

When we follow where God leads and change what He’s convicting us of, we don’t just change direction. We change destination. When we quit circling the things that are important to us and start doing what’s important to Him, we change our destiny. We all have mountains we’ve been circling that are keeping us from the Promised Land that God wants to lead us to. We just have to quit excusing our behavior, repeating what has failed and respond to what God has asked us to do. Your mountain won’t move until you change direction and turn north. Don’t just be a hearer of God’s Word. Be a doer. Today is your Deuteronomy 2:3 moment. Stop circling. Break the pattern. Follow where God leads. It won’t be easy, but it’s better than going in circles.

Photo by Akhmed Chalandarov on Unsplash

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 6, 2026 · 5:46 AM

Shifting Your Trust

One thing I’ve learned is that the longer I worry about a situation, the less strength and energy I have. It’s like my body allocates all its resources to try and get me out of whatever mess or situation I find myself in. People will say, “Give it to God,” but I never understood how to until I read Philippians 4:6-7. It says, “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life” (MSG). When I dwell on worry, it zaps my energy because I’m trying to fix the situation. When I let it cause me to pray, I hand it off to God and give Him the responsibility to fix it.

In 1 Samuel 1, we’re introduced to a lady named Hannah. She was married to Elkanah along with another woman named Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah did not. All she wanted in life was to have a child. Each year they traveled to the Tabernacle to worship. Elkanah offered his sacrifices and gave meat to his two wives. Hannah worried so much about not having kids that she couldn’t eat until one day when she decided to let her worries become her prayers. Eli, the priest, told her to go in peace and trust that God would grant her request. Verse 18 says, “‘Oh, thank you, sir!’ she exclaimed. Then she went back and began to eat again, and she was no longer sad” (NLT). She’s a great example of what Philippians 4:6 looks like in action. In due time, God granted her prayers and gave her a son named Samuel.

In Psalm 28, David was going through a tough season. The first part of the chapter is him telling God about his problem. Then in verse 7 he says, “The Lord is my strength and my [impenetrable] shield; My heart trusts [with unwavering confidence] in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I shall thank Him and praise Him” (AMP). Just like Hannah, he experienced a shift in his confidence when he gave it to God. Their circumstances weren’t changed in that moment. What did change was who they trusted to handle it. Worry is a symptom that comes from us trying to solve a problem and it’s beyond our abilities. Peace is the symptom of trusting God to do what we are incapable of. Let Him displace worry and thank Him in advance for what He’s going to do. Your circumstances won’t change immediately, but there will be a shift in your attitude when you shift your trust to God.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 3, 2026 · 6:01 AM

Paid In Full

After Jesus had hung on the cross for several hours, His last words before He died were, “It is finished!” The Greek word written in the Bible is “tetelestai.” What it fully means is, “Paid in full. Nothing left owed.” It was a declaration that the price for our sins was paid in full by the spotless Lamb of God. Our record of wrong doing is wiped clean through His shed blood on the cross. While it looked like one of the darkest days in the history of the world in the moment to the onlookers, Jesus was letting them know He was fulfilling His purpose of taking away the sins of the world. Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved. For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved” (GNT). No matter how badly or how much you have done wrong, there is forgiveness for you because Jesus paid your debt in full.

Here are some Bible verses that show your sins were paid for on Good Friday:

1. For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

1 Peter 1:18-19 NLT

2. In Him we have redemption [that is, our deliverance and salvation] through His blood, [which paid the penalty for our sin and resulted in] the forgiveness and complete pardon of our sin, in accordance with the riches of His grace.

Ephesians 1:7 AMP

3. Blessed and happy and favored are those whose lawless acts have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered up and completely buried. “Blessed and happy and favored is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account nor charge against him.

Romans 4:7-8 AMP

4. You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honor and glorify God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:20 AMP

5. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 2:14 NLT

Photo by Google Gemini.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 1, 2026 · 5:56 AM

Breaking The Jar

In 1995 David Burgess, who is an award winning violin maker, was transporting one of his newly finished violins. Somewhere during transport, the violin suffered a hairline crack. It was small, but it changed the sound of this expensive instrument. Burgess could either patch the crack or break the entire top off and rebuild it from the inside out. It was costly and it looked like he had destroyed the violin in the moment. However, once it was rebuilt, the violin actually sounded better than before. The breaking and rebuilding of it released a sound it had never had.

Less than a week before Jesus’s crucifixion, He was having dinner when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of perfume that was worth a year’s wages. Instead of taking the top off and using a little bit, she broke the jar open, and poured it all out on Jesus. People complained that the perfume was wasted and that they could have sold it to give money to the poor. However, Jesus had a different response to this sacrificial act of worship. After rebuking them, He said, “When she poured the fragrant oil over me, she was preparing my body in advance of my burial. She has done all that she could to honor me. I promise you that as this wonderful gospel spreads all over the world, the story of her lavish devotion to me will be mentioned in memory of her” (Mark 14:8-9 NLT).

Romans 12:1 says, “Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship” (TPT). A living sacrifice doesn’t offer only part of itself. It offers the whole thing. It opens itself up to be fully broken and poured out as a genuine expression of worship. That is our proper response to what Jesus did for us. Are there parts of your life that you’ve been holding back while only surrendering part to Jesus? This Easter, it’s time we truly open ourselves up and give ourselves to Him. It’s time to break the jars of the hidden places in our lives. It may feel like destruction in the moment, but it will produce a sacrificial life of worship.

Photo by Google Gemini

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

March 31, 2026 · 5:52 AM

Untying Your Donkey

In the late 1950’s, a small town pastor felt like God was asking him to give up his evening TV time. Instead of just giving it up, he sold his TV and dedicated that time to prayer. As he was praying one night, the Lord led him to open up a magazine he had. When he opened it, he saw an article about several young gang members in New York City on trial. He heard the Lord tell him to go help them. He did what God asked him to do. He preached to the gangs of New York City and won many to Christ, including a leader named Nicky Cruz. This young preacher named David Wilkerson also started an organization called Teen Challenge to help people get off drugs. To this day, those ministries are still active and helping people because he gave up something God asked.

In Luke 19, Jesus was on the Mount of Olives headed for a small town called Bethphage. He told two disciples, “Go into that village over there. As you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, ‘Why are you untying that colt?’ just say, ‘The Lord needs it’” (NLT). As soon as they untied it, the owner asked why they were untying his young donkey. They replied just as Jesus told them too, “The Lord needs it.” There was no more discussion. They gave it up for the Lord because He needed it. That young donkey was used to fulfill a prophecy in Zechariah 9:9. As Jesus rode it into Jerusalem, the people laid out palm branches and their coats shouting, “Hosanna!”

Psalm 24:1 reminds us, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.” When God asks us to give Him something or give up something for Him, it’s good to remember that it already belongs to Him. He’s not really taking it. He’s asking us to release what’s already His. We are just stewards of it until He needs it. The Bible is full of miracles God performed because people gave up something as small as a lunch of five loaves and two fish. If He can feed 5,000 people with that, save gang members in New York City because someone gave up a TV or fulfill a prophecy using a donkey, imagine what He could do with what He’s asking you to release. When the Lord says He needs it, are you willing to untie it and let it go?

Photo by Google Gemini

3 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

March 30, 2026 · 5:30 AM

Surrendering Your Tomb

We all have things in our life that we thought would be part of us forever. We’ve had dreams that ended in despair, fires that were buried under disappointment and promises from God that we’ve given up on. Each of us have a tomb full of things we’ve let go of. We’ve accepted them as endings, but what if God isn’t finished with them yet? What if He is wanting to resurrect them? I’m sure the disciples must have felt that way when the guards took Jesus, beat Him and made Him carry His cross through Jerusalem. Their plans and hopes for the future were crucified right in front of them. Like us, they lived in the tension of what was and what was supposed to be.

Enter Joseph of Arimathea. Luke 23:50 says he was a good and honorable man. He had watched Jesus from afar and even had questions for Jesus because he didn’t understand everything. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” something awakened in him. When everyone else ran in fear, he stepped forward in boldness to ask for the body of Jesus. Joseph had already planned ahead for his own death one day. He had a tomb in a beautiful garden just outside of town. The place where he expected his story to conclude was surrendered to make room for Jesus. That tomb stands empty today as a testament that God has the power to bring dead things to life. It’s a reminder that with God all things are possible and nothing is ever final until He says it is.

Abraham is another example of someone who had to surrender his ideas of what the future held and trust God’s resurrection power. Romans 4:18 says, “Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected God to fulfill it. He took God at his word, and as a result he became the father of many nations” (TPT). The heart of surrender lays down what looks hopeless and dead at the feet of Jesus. It takes God at His word and has the full expectation that God will fulfill that which He has promised. It’s time for us to give Him the things we’ve placed in our tomb. Surrendering is letting go and letting God have the final say. Resurrection is God’s work, and surrender is ours.

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 27, 2026 · 6:01 AM

Protecting The Unity

One of the things I’ve learned in leadership is that unity is not the same as uniformity. Uniformity is where we are all doing the same thing and look the same. It’s man’s attempt at unity, which comes from God. Unity is where we are all headed the same direction, operating in our gifts, under the leadership of Christ. We don’t have to do things the same way, but we are working towards the same goal. Unity gives each other grace where uniformity does not. We are to protect the unity among the brethren, not tear each other down. I got to experience this on staff at a church where we had over 20 denominations and 50 nationalities under one pastor and banner of doctrine. Even though we disagreed on some items and ways to express our worship, we found a way to submit to God and work together to impact the world. It was a beautiful experience where I began to truly understand we are one body with many parts and functions. If you find yourself looking for uniformity, ask God to help you come into unity with His plan. Then do what you can to protect that unity.

Here are some Bible verses on unity:

1. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity.

Colossians 3:13-14 GNT

2. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

John 17:23 NLT

3. Finally, beloved friends, be cheerful! Repair whatever is broken among you, as your hearts are being knit together in perfect unity. Live continually in peace, and God, the source of love and peace, will mingle with you.

2 Corinthians 13:11 TPT

4. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1-3 ESV

5. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity!

Psalms 133:1 AMP

Photo by Theodor Vasile on Unsplash

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

March 26, 2026 · 5:30 AM

Building Your Life On Truth

Recently I shared with my son the importance of building his life, decisions and convictions on the truth of God’s Word. The world has always fought against God’s truth, but in recent history the strategy has changed. Culture has let truth become relative so that each person has their own truth. When everyone has their own truth, they can do what is right in their own eyes. The Bible has lots of stories of what happens during those periods. I explained to him that we can’t allow culture to define truth because it doesn’t know what truth is so theirs is always changing. I then told him that culture will always try to quiet the truth of God’s Word and that we must not be silent about it. If we don’t share what truth is, how will they ever know? If they never know, how will they be saved?

In Acts 4 Peter and John were in the Temple teaching people about the truth of Jesus after they healed a crippled man who had begged at the Temple gates for years. They were confronted by the priests, leaders and guards and told to keep quiet.when they didn’t, they were arrested. The next day they were brought before the council and asked who gave them authority to teach. They replied it came through Jesus. The council were stunned by their boldness, but also couldn’t deny the healed man standing in the room. They met privately and then came back to demand that they not tell others about Jesus. In verse 19 Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him?” (NLT). They were threatened again and then released.

2 Timothy 3:14 says, “But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you.” The same charge that Paul gave Timothy is given to us. We must remain faithful to what is true. We can’t live our lives by the changing tides of culture. There is only one truth and we must let it be what we build our lives on. When our lives are in contradiction to its teaching, it’s not wrong, we are. We must then come into alignment with its teaching. God does not change, nor does His Word. Everything in this world and it’s culture changes based on the opinions of people. What was true for them yesterday may not be true for them tomorrow. Don’t build your life on shifting sand but rather the rock solid truth of God’s Word.

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 25, 2026 · 5:59 AM

The Doorway To Blessings

In 2018 the world watched as 12 boys and their coach were trapped inside a cave in Thailand. Floodwaters had cut off all exits and people were losing hope quickly. International rescue teams began to show up to figure out how to rescue them, but the first step was to locate them. They asked for volunteers and two British divers stepped up. Because they were willing to simply explore and find them, the larger group was able to formulate a plan, they were able to mobilize everyone needed and we got to witness one of the greatest rescues in modern history. It started with two men who simply said yes.

In 1Kings 17, the prophet Elijah arrived at a small town. Verse 10 says, “As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, ‘Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?’” As she turned to go get this stranger some water, he pushed a little more and asked for bread. She explained she was gathering sticks to build a fire to make her last bit of bread before she permanently ran out of oil and flour. He asked to to go ahead and make it, but to give him some first. After saying yes to a small step of faith, she was able to say yes to a bigger one. Because she said yes, it opened the door to a greater blessing. Her oil and flour didn’t run out until after the famine was over.

Deuteronomy 28:2 says, “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God” (ESV). Sometimes what God asks of us doesn’t look spiritual. It could be to give a cup of water, a little bit of food, an encouraging word or changing a tire. The transformation and blessings happen after our obedience. Your yes to something small opens the door to greater things. Your obedience in the moment becomes the access point for God to do the miraculous. The initial act of obedience is often the hardest because it doesn’t look like it’s going to accomplish a lot in the moment, but God will use it as a doorway to blessings.

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

March 24, 2026 · 5:44 AM

Let The King In

Psalm 24:7 says, “Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in” (AMP). When you think of gates in the ancient world, they were a means of keeping things out of a city. When the psalmist tells the gates to lift up their heads, he’s telling them to look up and be prepared for the arrival of the Lord into the city. For us, it’s a call to look at what spiritual barriers we have in our lives that are keeping God out of certain areas. It’s a call to open up places in our life that are resistant to God having full control. We need to make room for God to do in our lives what He wants as the king of our life.

Next it tells the ancient doors to be lifted up as well. Ancient doors are those entrenched areas where we have old habits in place that need to change. All of us have old patterns, old ways of living and old mindsets that need to yield to the King. It also includes the wounded places we have used to keep our distance. God is wanting to come in to heal, but to also rip up the places that have been entrenched in our lives for years. He’s coming to tear down the ancient strongholds in our life because they’ve been holding us back. There is no power too embedded or habit so strong that the King cannot break it. He is wanting to bring new life into every area of our life.

Finally verse 8 says, “Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle.” He is more than able to conquer the areas that we have tried to and failed. He can overthrow anything in our life that is holding us back because He is strong and mighty. He can break generational curses, deep seated habits and anything that has made itself home in our life. These verses are a reminder that He is calling every closed, entrenched and resistant part of our life to open up to Him. He doesn’t just want to set part of you free. He came to bring total freedom to your life. No gates or ancient doors can stand in His way. It’s time to open them up and let the King of glory in.

Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,