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June 23, 2026 · 5:36 AM

Quenching Your Thirst

What do you consider the best thirst quencher? Growing up, Gatorade’s slogan was “The thirst quencher!” I believed it too. I bought it all the time. When you’re thirsty, what do you go for? God created water to quench our thirst. Somewhere along the way, we invented other drinks to quench the thirst in ourselves. In a similar way, our soul gets thirsty. God’s design was that we would spend time with Him to quench it. Just like with our physical thirst, we began looking for other means to quench it. We drink from the wells of relationships, achievements, busyness, comfort and entertainment to try to quench it, but find ourselves still thirsty and unsatisfied.

In John 4, Jesus was tired and sat down next to a well to rest while the disciples ran into town for food. A lady came out around noon to draw water. Jesus asked her for a drink, but she was surprised that He asked since it was uncustomary for a Jew to speak with a Samaritan. Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water” (NLT). He went on to tell her to call her husband, but she was living with someone and had been married five times before. She had been drinking from the well of relationships to quench her soul’s thirst and Jesus was offering her living water instead. When they were through talking, she ran back to town telling everyone to come and see the Messiah. For the first time, that longing and unrest inside of her was satisfied.

Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?” The psalmist understood their soul’s thirst and the only thing that can satisfy it. In Jeremiah 2:13 God said, “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me— the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!” What have you found yourself doing to quench that deep thirst of your soul? Have you been going to the cracked cisterns of relationships, achievements, busyness, comfort or entertainment? Only standing in the presence of God will truly quench it. Stand before Him in worship, prayer and adoration and your soul’s thirst will be quenched.

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June 22, 2026 · 5:40 AM

Pruned For Greatness

I’ve been leading a group of men through “Good To Great In God’s Eyes” by Chip Ingram. The first line of the book is the same as it is in its counterpart by Jim Collins. It says, “Good is the enemy of great.” That line hits me hard every time I read it. I think of how many times I settle for good enough. I think of all the ways I’ve been okay with average instead of greatness. The book goes through ten things we can do to adopt great habits in our life that draw us closer to God. One of the things I’m learning through the process of this book is that I have to learn to say no to good things in order to say yes to great things. I also have to let go of some good things so I can make room for the great things.

In Matthew 19:16 a young man asks Jesus what good thing does he need to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus then tells him to keep the commandments, but this guy wants to know which ones specifically. Jesus names several and the guy gets excited. “‘I’ve obeyed all these commandments,’ the young man replied. ‘What else must I do?’” (NLT) Jesus then tells him to go and sell everything he has, to give the money to the poor and then to follow Him. That young man went away sad that day. He couldn’t let go of the good things in his life to embrace the great Jesus was offering him. We look down on this person every time we read this story, but he’s more often a mirror into our lives than not.

In John 15:2 Jesus said, “He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.” Jesus is willing to cut off branches in our life that are bearing good fruit so He can produce great fruit. Pruning isn’t punishment. It’s designed to perfect us. It’s God cutting back something healthy for something holy. What good, healthy things are you holding onto that God wants to prune? Have you been settling for good when God wants to produce something great? Remember that good is the enemy of great. Don’t be like the young man and walk away satisfied with the fruit you’re bearing now when Jesus is asking you to let go and to trust and follow Him more closely.

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June 19, 2026 · 6:03 AM

Build On Obedience

In Matthew 7, Jesus told the parable of two builders. One built his house on the sand, and the other on the rock. They both heard God’s Word, but only one obeyed and put it into practice. When the storms came, it was the one who obeyed and had his house built on a rock that survived. All throughout the Bible we see this contrast of people. We are called to not just be a person who hears the Word of God, but puts it into action in our lives. Obeying God’s Word isn’t easy or everyone would do it. The person who builds their life on the sand is the one who goes to church on Sunday, listens to the message and then doesn’t live it out Monday through Saturday. If you want to survive life’s storms, you can’t just obey one day a week. Obedience has to become your lifestyle.

Here are some Bible verses on obeying God’s Word:

1. And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.

1 John 2:3-5 NLT

2. But for those who honor the Lord, his love lasts forever, and his goodness endures for all generations of those who are true to his covenant and who faithfully obey his commands.

Psalm 103:17-18 GNT

3. We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments.

1 John 5:2 NLT

4. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

John 15:10 GNT

5. That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 NLT

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June 18, 2026 · 5:30 AM

An “I Will” Attitude

One of my favorite shows is Alone. They take ten people, put them in a hostile environment with ten items and have them survive until everyone taps out. It appeals to me for many reasons, but one of my favorite parts is when the contestants have been alone and hungry for about 30 days. There is a huge psychological battle every contestant faces as they document themselves on this journey. Some grow to hate the location, the hunger, the isolation and the constant struggle for food and water. Then there are others who are in a similar location a few miles away that get ahold of the negative thoughts and begin speaking positive words instead. In every case, the ones who continue to speak negatively tap out of the contest. The one who can continue to find positive things through the struggle is the one who wins.

I’m not sure there’s another person in the Bible besides Jesus who suffered more than Paul. He was imprisoned multiple times in jails that were dark, nasty and had no humanitarian standards for prisoners. He was shipwrecked, beaten to a pulp many times, dragged out of cities, lied about, stoned, robbed, left for dead and abandoned. The things he went through, many of us couldn’t survive. However, Paul kept preaching the Gospel, writing letters and encouraging others through it all. My favorite story is when he was in the dungeon of a prison, bleeding and hungry, and he started singing praises to God for all to hear. No matter how bad things were, he found a way to praise and refocus his attention on God instead of his circumstances.

David was a lot like him too. In Psalm 34:1-2 David penned, “I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises. I will boast only in the Lord; let all who are helpless take heart” (NLT). He didn’t say, “I want to praise the Lord at all times.” He was saying, “I will,” as in he’s not going to give his mind the choice to do anything else. Do you have have an “I will praise the Lord at all times” attitude? You need to decide that attitude ahead of your circumstances, but even if you’re in the middle of hard times now, you can still choose it now. Praising God doesn’t change your circumstances, it changes you in the middle of them. It strengthens you and puts your focus on the One who is greater than what you’re facing. If you haven’t chosen to praise the Lord at all times, do it today and put it into practice. He deserves to be praised in the good times and the bad.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao 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.

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June 17, 2026 · 5:45 AM

Meaningful Work

I’ve worked at enough jobs to know when I’m being handed busy work. I absolutely hate busy work with a passion. When there’s not enough real work to go around, they put you on fake projects that they will never use. It takes time, effort and energy to put something together that was never intended to be implemented. On the other hand, I love when my work is meaningful. I’ve worked for free at places when I knew the things I was working on were going to make a difference in the lives of others. It’s easy to have enthusiasm, to give it your all and to make it better when it’s meaningful.

Nehemiah was living in Babylon with the other Jews who had been exiled there. His job was to be a cupbearer to the king until he heard from those who had been to Jerusalem that its walls were still broken down. In that moment, he got clarity on what he needed to do. He went back to Jerusalem and rallied the people to rebuild the walls. When people tried to intimidate him to stop, he dug in and kept going. It wasn’t just a construction project to him. It was restoring their identity, creating a safe place for families to worship God and renewing their dignity. It looked like a construction project to others, but he was working for the Lord. He remained steadfast and persevered until the wall was built in record time.

1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (NLT). Everything you do for the Lord is meaningful work. Whether it’s construction, teaching, cleaning or whatever. God calls us to impact people where he plants us. He doesn’t give us busy work. Are you being strong, immovable and enthusiastic in that work? Are you doing it for His glory? When we reframe what we do as kingdom work, it gives it purpose. I go in looking for divine connections, life changing conversations and for relationships that need to be built. God will use anyone at anytime in any place when we do our work for Him.

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June 15, 2026 · 5:38 AM

God Uses Ordinary People

My social media algorithm knows I like food and cooking. It has started showing me videos of a content creator who goes to McDonald’s to buy ordinary meals, then takes them to Michelin chefs to see what they will create with the ingredients. I saw one chef take Quarter Pounder with Cheese and turn it into Beef Wellington. Another time a chef took a Filet-o-fish and create a French dish called Fish Quenelles. In every instance I found myself looking at the transformation wanting what they made. The power wasn’t in the ingredients. It was what could become of them in the hands of a master chef.

All throughout the Bible God chose to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things with. These people were simply willing to surrender the ingredients of their ordinary life for God to do something extraordinary with. Take the little boy with the five loaves and two fish. We don’t even know his name, but we know what Jesus did with what he handed Him. Also, think about David. One day he’s a shepherd boy keeping an eye on his flock. His dad doesn’t even think to call him when the prophet comes over looking for a king. There’s even Gideon who was hiding from his enemy’s when God called him to defeat his country’s oppressors. The power wasn’t in those people, but in the God who does the impossible with the ordinary.

2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves” (NLT). Each of us are just ordinary jars of clay. We’re fragile, common and ordinary. On our own, we may not feel or seem like much, but when we place our life in God’s hands He can do incredible things through us. The power and outcome are from God and for His glory. All we have to do is submit ourselves to Him, allow Him to fill our hearts and to pour out what He wants on whomever He wants. God still uses ordinary people to accomplish great things when we’re willing to submit to surrender our jar of clay to Him.

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June 11, 2026 · 5:30 AM

Fully Surrendered

One of the books I’ve just read is about discipleship and how churches can create them. The first section of the book helps to define the four areas where people get stuck in the spiritual continuum. Many people never move past exploring Christ. They stand at the edge of receiving Him, but aren’t willing to give their heart to Him. Others who have accepted Jesus struggle to reconcile their private faith with their public life. They have a hard time growing in Christ. Once people become a new creation and develop spiritual disciplines, their life transforms and they move close to Christ. However, the next move is the hardest. It’s one thing to live for Christ, but it’s a totally different thing to completely surrender to Him living a Christ centered life. It’s where we quit asking God for direction and give Him control.

Think of the story of the rich, young ruler who came to visit Jesus in Matthew 19. He asks Jesus what he needs to do to have eternal life. Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. The guy then wants to know which ones. Jesus rattled off several of the 10 commandments. The ruler got excited and let Jesus know he’s been following the rules his whole life and feels like there’s more, so he asks what else. Jesus then tells him to sell everything he has, give the money to the poor and then follow Him. The young man went away sad because he was willing to follow the rules of Christianity, but he wasn’t willing to surrender his life completely to Jesus. He wanted Christianity and eternal life without fully surrendering his life.

Psalm 37:5 says, “Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you” (NLT) We usually look down on the rich young ruler for not giving up his possessions, but you and I hold things back from Jesus all the time. We seek Him for guidance, but are we giving Him the right to direct our life? It’s like my driving navigation app. When it tells me to turn, sometimes I go straight because I think I know better. I’m driving and it’s guiding. When we approach Jesus that way, we may be living a life that is close to Christ, but it’s not fully surrendered to Him. God is calling you and I into a deeper relationship with Him that requires more surrender the closer we get. To fully surrender to Him is to fully trust Him.

Photo by Caleb Oquendo from Pexels.

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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June 10, 2026 · 6:10 AM

Chasing Approval

I once took a DISC behavioral assessment for work. When I got the results, I was shocked as to how right it was. It told me that I was enthusiastic, optimistic, people oriented and fun. It even said I have the tendency to light up a room when I walk in. However, as I kept reading it revealed some less flattering things about me. It said that my biggest vulnerability is that I need to be liked and seek approval from others. The same wiring that gave me a magnetic personality also had the potential to be my downfall. I started thinking of moments where I wanted to stand up and say something, or knew that I needed to put a stop to it, but I let my desire to be liked cause me to be quiet or to give in. My personality wasn’t the problem or to be blamed. It’s what I choose to do in those moments. I have the ability to override those feelings and to stand up for what’s right. Knowing how I’m wired has helped me since, but it isn’t easy.

In Exodus 32 moses went up Mount Sinai to meet with God to receive the Ten Commandments. While he was up there, he left Aaron, the High Priest, in charge. The people started to wonder what was taking Moses so long and demanded that Aaron make them a god. Instead of standing up for what was right, he asked them to give him the gold that Egypt had given them when they left. He melted it down and created a golden calf. When he saw the people were pleased, he built an altar for it so the people could make sacrifices to it. When Moses came back down and confronted him about it, that same people pleaser said that the people gave him gold, he simply threw it in the fire and out came that calf. Moses then asked the people to choose if they were on God’s side or not and forced people to decide to choose what was right or what was popular.

In Galatians 1:10 Paul wrote, “I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant” (NLT). We are all faced with this choice. The world has learned to frame the conversation that if you side with what God says that you hate people, you’re a bad person or you’re some sort of bad name. The question is if you will choose to please the crowd or stand up for what is true. Are you seeking the approval of people or of God? What people believe and hold true changes with culture, but God’s Word doesn’t. Like Moses asked the people that day, we must decide if we are on God’s side or not. We can’t make it our goal to please people.

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June 9, 2026 · 6:00 AM

Staying Recharged

When we travel, one of the first things I pack are charging cables. Then I add in charging packs to carry around with us in case our batteries go down while we are away from the hotel. At the airport, there’s always a group of people sitting around a charging pole and people sitting on the floor next to outlets. We have become obsessed with staying charged so we can stay connected. We think about our phone batteries needing to be recharged, but we don’t think about ourselves needing to be recharged. We exert lots of effort physically, mentally and spiritually daily and we need to find ways to recharge those parts of ourselves, in particular our spirit.

In 1 Kings 18, Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal in a showdown on Mount Carmel. Just after this victory, Jezebel came after him to kill him. He fled into the wilderness about a day. In 1 kings 19:4 he prayed, “I have had enough, Lord.Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died” (NLT). He needed a recharge in that moment. He was spiritually exhausted from the showdown, physically exhausted from fleeing and mentally exhausted from the stress of running for his life. God didn’t rebuke him for needing a recharge. Instead he sent him an angel who watched over him, fed him and encouraged him to get more rest. Then sent him on a journey to have an encounter with God. After that recharge, he was given more assignments.

Isaiah 40:29 says, “He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.” God wants your internal batteries charged as well. The next verse says that even youth get tired and young people get exhausted. But those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. We get recharged from the inside out by spending time with the Lord. Our spirit needs to be connected to God. In such a busy world where we are concerned about everything else getting charged, when is the last time you recharged your spirit? God gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless when we take the time to sit in His presence, worship at His feet and are still enough to hear His voice. Don’t walk around with an empty spiritual battery. Stay recharged.

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June 5, 2026 · 6:03 AM

God Thinks About You

The Gaithers sang a song that always got me to thinking. It was called “When He Was On The Cross (I Was On His Mind).” I used to wonder, “Does God really ever think about me with all the people in the world?” The Bible says He does. You are not just part of creation, you are His creation. If He knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, how much more does He know about you? God’s thoughts about you are more numerous than the sand. That’s pretty incredible! In a world where we are often overlooked and feel unseen, God not only sees you, but thinks of you all the time. You are on God’s mind constantly, and they’re good thoughts. You are more seen and thought of than you know.

Here are some Bible verses on God’s thoughts toward you:

1. When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places— what are human beings, that you think of them; mere mortals, that you care for them? Yet you made them inferior only to yourself; you crowned them with glory and honor.

Psalm 8:3-5 GNT

2. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, The thoughts and plans of His heart through all generations. Blessed [fortunate, prosperous, and favored by God] is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people whom He has chosen as His own inheritance.

Psalms 33:11-12 AMP

3. For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11 AMP

4. O Lord, our God, no one can compare with you. Such wonderful works and miracles are all found with you! And you think of us all the time with your countless expressions of love— far exceeding our expectations!

Psalms 40:5 TPT

5. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!

Psalms 139:17-18 NLT

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