Tag Archives: Christianity

November 20, 2025 · 5:30 AM

A Challenge To Love

Who do you know that challenges you to do more for God? There are certain people I look at that cause me to want to do more for God’s Kingdom. One sees a need and immediately jumps in and starts a ministry filling the need. When others jump in and run along side him, he hands off the ministry to one of them and looks for another need. It’s such a stark contrast to how so many people do ministry. I asked him about it once. He said, “All ministry belongs to God so I keep an open hand with it. When people come along side who are more passionate and gifted than I am in it, I give it to them and ask God what’s next.” Something like that causes me to look around with different eyes looking to see what God wants to do around me and through me to do good.

In the Bible, Solomon realized he couldn’t be as good of a king to the people as his father David was. He prayed for wisdom to help him be a good king. Peter and John challenged the early Church to look for opportunities everywhere. The healing of the beggar they were passing by at the Gate Beautiful in Acts 3:6 is a great example. Paul and Barnabas set off on long journeys going where God told them to go in order to spread the Gospel throughput the known world. Each of these people drew their inspiration from someone and also inspired others to lead more productive lives that touched the lives of others. I believe that’s what God is calling us to do even today.

Hebrews 10:24 says, “Let us be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to do good” (GNT). As believers, we must be concerned for someone other than ourselves. We need to be looking to the fields with eyes that are open and hearts that ask, “Who can I show your love to today, Father?” We need to be encouraging other believers, especially in the times we live in. Send a text today to someone who needs it. Make a meal for a family in need. Show love to someone who clearly has been overlooked by society. There is opportunity everywhere for you to show love and do good, but you must quit looking to your own needs and desires long enough to see it. God has given us as believers a great opportunity in the world today to rise up and show concern and His love. What will you do?

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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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November 17, 2025 · 5:48 AM

Promise Keeper

Have you ever said, “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye”? Or ever made a pinky promise before? When we were kids, that’s how we made sure the other person knew we weren’t going to break our promise. As adults, we live in a world of broken promises. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say, “My word is my bond.” It seems like people cared about their reputation and keeping their word a lot more in the past than they do today. When you find someone who makes a promise and keeps it, you think it’s a rare find. You can trust a person that keeps their promise to do what they say. You don’t have to worry about it, remind them constantly or question them when it doesn’t happen on your time table. A person like that is someone we should strive to be like.

In Genesis 22, God approaches Abraham years after He fulfilled the promise of giving him a son. God told him to take his son of promise to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there. Abraham didn’t question it. He got up the next morning and headed for the mountain. When Isaac asked where the sacrifice was, Abraham replied, “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son” (NLT). Abraham had learned to trust God despite his circumstance. He made it to the top of the mountain, built the altar, tied up his son and had his knife raised when God intervened. He didn’t know how God would save his son or raise him from the dead, but he trusted God would keep his promise to give him as many descendants as the stars. God kept his promise and provided a ram.

Psalm 145:13 says, “The Lord always keeps his promises; he is gracious in all he does.” You can always count on God to keep His promises. You may feel like Isaac where you are bound up and wondering when God is going to show up. You may feel like Abraham where you’ve trusted God, but time seems to have run out. Keep walking in obedience though. God’s timing is not like ours. He will keep His Word and His promise. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Trusting God isn’t always easy. It requires faith. We must learn to see with our spiritual eyes rather than our physical ones. God is gracious and merciful in all He does. He will always keep His promise.

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November 11, 2025 · 5:55 AM

Armor Up

As a person who is on social media, I’ve noticed there’s less and less originality. People copy what others are doing and follow trends. In 2020 Nathan Apocodaca went viral for drinking cranberry juice while skating down the road. Thousand of people tried to recreate his video doing the same thing with the same music. It’s clear the world rewards imitation. Trends tell us what to wear, what to do and where to go. As people follow along, they’re slowly being lulled into culture and away from the discipline of critical thinking. The more we get pulled in, the less we also spend time in prayer, the Bible and spending time with God. We consume a diet of what’s popular rather than truth that creates a slow fade away from following God’s Kingdom principles.

Daniel experienced this in the Bible. He was taken from his own land and culture into Babylon, a city built on pride, indulgence and idolatry. The goal wasn’t just to relocate the Israelites, it was to indoctrinate them into a new culture away from God. Daniel was given a new name, a new diet, a new education and a new language. However Daniel pushed back on the culture change. He resisted with clarity, courage and conviction. Verse 8 says, “But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile (taint, dishonor) himself” (AMP). He didn’t go along with culture and increased his time of prayer to help him combat the temptation to be pulled into a culture that was trying to redefine him and his people.

1 Thessalonians 5:8 says, “But since we belong to the day, we must stay alert and clearheaded by placing the breastplate of faith and love over our hearts, and a helmet of the hope of salvation over our thoughts” (TPT). Paul was writing to an audience that was also in a culture that was trying to redefine their beliefs and thinking. The way we combat it is to armor up. We must protect our heart and our mind in today’s culture. Jesus taught us where our treasure is (what we value), is where our heart is. Combine that with the fact that our thoughts control our actions, we must be vigilant and make up our minds the way Daniel did to not redefine our beliefs in a culture that is trying to pull us away from God. You can start right now by asking God to cover your heart and mind with the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation.

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September 2, 2025 · 5:35 AM

Don’t Manage Sin

My mother in law loves plants. She has plants all over her yard and on her porch. When she lived with us for a while she planted some in our yard too. There is one that I hate. It gets wide and it’s invasive. I cut it down with the weedeater, and it grew back. I dig it up once, and it grew again. We had a freeze that killed it. So I thought. It grew back. I tried poison and everything else you can think of, but it kept coming back. Finally, I took the shovel, dig out the whole flowerbed around it two feet deep, got everything root or pod I could find and then put in new dirt. That finally got rid of it. I hope.

Hebrews 11:25-26 says, “He (Moses) chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward” (NLT). I wonder how hard it was for Moses at times to go in the palace and not want to return to the freedoms and luxury he grew up with. Did he see the delicacies he once ate and get tempted? Egypt is often used as a metaphor for sin throughout the Bible. Our sin nature tries to call us back often. We read here how Moses chose daily not to enjoy those pleasures. He didn’t partake in temporary pleasures at the expense of the eternal ones.

Galatians 5:24 says, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.” Notice it doesn’t say they manage them at the cross. No, we have to crucify (kill) them there. Like that plant, they’ll keep coming back if we don’t crucify them. Sin doesn’t lose its power because, we try to not do that anymore. We must choose like Moses live as one of God’s people rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin. We must choose not to allow sin to rule our life anymore or dictate our choices. As Paul said here, it must be crucified at the cross so it doesn’t keep popping back up.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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September 1, 2025 · 5:33 AM

Inconvenient Opportunities

Years ago I saw a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger telling how he became Mr. Olympia seven times and Mr. Universe five times. He said he would get up early and workout before he went to his job. Then after working all day, when everyone else went out for dinner and drinks, we would go back to working out. He said that he would work out even when he wasn’t feeling it because he had a desire to win those titles. He pushed himself in the hard times and on the days when he felt unmotivated because he knew if he didn’t do the work then, he wouldn’t achieve the results he was working for.

In Genesis 6, God told Noah to build an ark. Eva use there was going to be a flood. After getting the instructions from God, he went to work. When people didn’t understand, he kept building. Before there was a drop of rain, he kept building. He obeyed even when it wasn’t convenient, when things were t going well and when people mocked him. He trusted what God said more than he trusted his current situation. When the rains and flood came, he had the only thing floating. His obedience in the hard times paid off when the rains came.

Proverbs 20:4 says, “The lazy man will not plow because of winter; He will beg during harvest and have nothing” (NKJV). The lazy person gives up in the times of inconvenience. What he doesn’t understand is that faithfulness in the season of plowing determines your fruitfulness in the season of harvest. There’s always an excuse to not do what God is asking, especially when it’s inconvenient and you don’t see any movement from God. Keep plowing though. Your harvest depends on your obedience in the hard times. God’s greatest opportunities often come wrapped in inconveniences. Will you be faithful when you’re not feeling it so you can receive a harvest later?

Photo by Kenji Elzerman on Unsplash

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August 27, 2025 · 5:46 AM

Presence Over Performance

We live in a culture that celebrates hustle, visibility and results. I worked for a company that placed a high value on those things as well. It became ingrained in me to say the right things, be seen by the right people and to produce the right results. It became a problem when those values seeped into my spiritual life. It can be easy to get into the habit of being performance driven instead of presence driven. What God values is different than the world. He’s not wowed by us going to the right church, doing the right ”Christian” things or going through the motions of performance if we aren’t truly honoring Him.

Isaiah 58 is a warning to Israel over doing just that. Verse 2 starts out, “They act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and seem delighted to learn all about me. They act like a righteous nation that would never abandon the laws of its God. They ask me to take action on their behalf, pretending they want to be near me” (NLT). He goes on to say that they fast, but they fight among themselves. They go through the motions of performance but lack humility. In verses 6-8 God says He’s looking for action over performance. He prefers justice, lightening the burdens of others, removing chains, helping the oppresed and helping the needy. When we do that we will receive His blessings.

Micah 6:6 says, “No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Have you fallen into the trap of performance over presence? God wants us to do more than go through the motions of church. He’s wanting us to make a difference in the lives of others for His name’s sake. He wants us to spend time walking with Him, talking with Him and hearing His heart for a world that doesn’t value what He does. It’s not about acting like Christians, it’s being Christians. God doesn’t look on our outward performance the way man does. He looks at our heart instead. If you’re struggling with this, take time to be in His presence and ask Him to change your heart.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.

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August 19, 2025 · 5:30 AM

The Process Of Growth

The Chinese Bamboo tree is one of the most incredible trees on the planet. When a farmer plants the seeds in the ground, waters and fertilizes them every day, nothing happens. He can keep tending to the soil for a year and nothing will happen. If he keeps going, years two, three and four will pass to with nothing shooting up from the ground. Then in the fifth year, suddenly the stalks rise up to 90’ in the air in just six weeks time. For five years, the farmer must trust that roots are forming underground while he does the preparation above ground. His faithfulness is rewarded in “sudden growth” that actually has been going on for five years where he couldn’t see.

This the same growth process God uses in our lives. We see it many times in Scripture. Take David for example. He was a young shepherd boy around 16 years old when he was anointed King. It wasn’t until he was 30 that he actually became king. During those 14 years or so he faced giants, served in Saul’s court, fled for his life, lived in caves and in foreign lands as well as became the leader of a group of outcasts. David wasn’t ready for the coronation at 16 so God sent him through a growth process that was masked in intense trials. One day his men were about to turn on him, and the next he became king suddenly. What seemed like a dark period of his life was actually roots of faith growing in the unseen to prepare him for what was next.

Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not grow weary or become discouraged in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap, if we do not give in” (AMP). If you’ve been in an intense season of trials or you have been praying over a situation for what seems like an eternity, don’t give up. God is working in the unseen. At the right time, those seeds will sprout and come shooting out of the ground. If you’re waiting on God to fulfill his promise, don’t stop being faithful in your preparation. It can often feel like nothing is happening or that God is slow concerning His promises, but nothing could be further from the truth. God’s promises are on the other side of His processes.

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July 16, 2025 · 5:30 AM

Changing Direction

One of the questions I pose to leaders is a good question to ask yourself. Imagine you are going from Houston to Jacksonville, Florida on Interstate 10. After a day of driving, you end up in El Paso, Texas, what would you do? Would you turn around and head back toward Houston or keep driving and reevaluate in Phoenix, Arizona? The correct answer is easy in this scenario, but in real life, we tend to keep going toward Phoenix. We rationalize that decision because of how much time, money and effort we’ve put into it. However, no amount of time, money or effort is going to get you to your destination until you change course.

In Luke 19, Jesus was walking through Jericho and everyone crowded the roads trying to see him. Zacchaeus, who had become rich by overtaxing people, wanted to see Him too. He climbed up a tree and Jesus saw him. Jesus then went to his house for dinner. People were upset that Jesus was hanging out with a despised sinner. Then in verse 8 we read, “Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!’” (NLT) Jesus saw that Zacchaeus had changed direction and said, “Salvation has come to this home today.”

Psalm 119:59 says, “I considered my ways And turned my feet to [follow and obey] Your testimonies” (AMP). Take a look at your life. Each of us need to consider our ways often. Are we headed the wrong direction in certain areas of our life? Are we like Jonah and going the opposite direction from what God called us to? We need to be willing to turn our feet to follow and obey God’s ways. Like Zacchaeus we need to repent, which means to change directions. God’s blessings follow our obedience. It’s not always easy to admit we need a change of direction, but we can’t afford to keep going the wrong way. There’s too much at stake.

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July 14, 2025 · 5:25 AM

Standing For Righteousness

About a hundred years after King David died, one of his descendants named Jehoshaphat took the throne of Israel. He inherited a divided and distracted kingdom. He had the choice to lead with courage and conviction or compromise. He chose to lead God’s way no matter what. His decisions weren’t easy or popular at times. In fact, he removed his grandmother from her place in the palace because of her idolatrous influence on the people. He wasn’t driven by what was popular politically but led with moral conviction based on the precepts that God had given them to live by. He understood that you can’t lead people to God while tolerating what pulls them away from Him. He loved his family, friends and nation enough to speak the truth and do whatever it took to stand for righteousness in an unrighteous generation.

The love God calls us to show is one that calls people out of their sin rather than to accept it. He is looking for leaders like Jehoshaphat who will stand up in their generation to lead with conviction of what is right and what is wrong. 2 Chronicles 17:6 says, “He was deeply committed to the ways of the Lord” (NLT). He wasn’t just passionate about God’s Word, he was bold enough to stand for righteousness when the culture around him was opposed to it. He taught people the truth and called them to live holy lives. He also demonstrated this commitment in his own life. Because of his courage and leadership, the nation turned back to God. 

He faced the same pressure to fit in than to stand out that we do. Like him, we must identify what is distracting us and pulling us away from God first. Once he got his heart right, he then found the boldness to stand up to the culture around him. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” We must keep our eyes on Jesus who showed us how to love with grace and truth. He will strengthen you and give you the courage to stand up for Him so you can lead others to salvation.

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July 3, 2025 · 5:30 AM

Calling All Workers

I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but around here construction has been booming since Covid started. New homes are being built as fast as they can, existing homes sell the day they go on the market and remodels are happening everywhere. That’s created a couple of problems. The first is that supply and demand has driven the cost of materials sky high. The second is that there is a shortage of workers to do the work. Construction companies are begging for workers. With the lack of workers, jobs aren’t getting done as quickly as they should and people have to wait for months to get their projects done. Every day people are praying for workers so they can complete their jobs.

Not long after Jesus started His ministry, crowds started showing up. They would search for Him early in the morning and stay until late in the evening. He could barely get any rest or time alone. Some days He was so busy He didn’t get to eat. Instead of being overwhelmed at the crowds, He had pity on them. His heart was filled with compassion because of their great need for salvation as well as physical healing. In Matthew 9:38, as He looked at the crowd, He turned to His disciples and said, “Pray to the owner of the harvest that he will send out workers to gather in his harvest” (GNT). He and His 12 disciples were busy every day with the work of God’s Kingdom so much so that John said if all the miracles Jesus did had been recorded, all the books in the world couldn’t contain their stories.

This is where you and I come in. We have two parts in this. One, we are to pray for workers to gather in the harvest as Jesus commanded us to. The other is to recognize we are the workers. Ephesians 2:10 says, “He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing” (MSG). Each of us were created to work in His Kingdom, but few of us are doing the work. He didn’t mean that we should all work at the church. He meant that everywhere you go, and especially at your job, there is a harvest that needs to be brought in. Instead of just praying for workers, we should be like Isaiah and say, “Here am I send me.” There is a harvest ready to be brought in right now, and God is looking for us to step up and do the work He’s called us to.

Photo by Warren 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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