Devotional
Essence of Rest
REST What is rest? As a spiritual discipline, rest can be defined as the ceasing of work with the purpose of focusing on God. Why do we need to rest? We as humans are tasked with work. From the very beginning of creation God tasked humanity with a work to do. Certainly that work became toilsome because of Adam and Eve’s sin, but there always was and always will be work to do. However, God also commanded his people to…
Essence of Giving
What is Giving? Scripturally, we are to give of our time, talent and treasure. These are not mutually exclusive. Our Creator has blessed us with time, abilities and talents, and financial resources. Giving back in each of these areas is simply a recognition of our understanding that, without God’s blessing, we would have none of these! For purposes of this discussion, we will focus on the giving of our financial resources. Why is Giving important? We give to demonstrate where…
Lesson from a Hose
Have you ever thought about how God uses people, places, things, and timing as He answers prayer? Some people would say “It’s a coincidence”, that at just the right time the right person or the right place or the right action answered a prayer. I think a lot about the ways God answers prayer. I pay attention as he reveals answers. Sunday, we heard from Scott Brewer. He shared that listening is key to recognizing God’s answer to our prayers.…
Christmas is a “Remembrance” Worship
Christmas Eve services are the most beautiful and meaningful services of the year. There is great theological depth to the word, REMEMBRANCE. God has told us that we are to REMEMBER times of undeniable encounters with him. He has instructed us to REMEMBER what he has done when we take the communion meal together with other believers. This week at our Christmas Eve services, we take advantage of this significant holiday in our world—and use this event to truly REMEMBER that…
Joy to the World!
Joy to the World—the 4th Advent Candle One of the most familiar of all Christmas carols starts like this: Joy to the world, the Lord is come!Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare Him room,And heav’n and nature sing. We know the story, but do we understand how amazing it is that the God of the universe came down to us AND he came for us—that he is a substitute for what we could not do on our own?…
Advent, Week 2: Love
This coming Sunday, we will enjoy watching the second Advent candle being lit, the candle that represents love. Whose love are we talking about? Luke 1:26-38 tell the story of the angel Gabriel coming to the young virgin girl Mary, who was pledged in marriage to Joseph—but it was announced to her that she would have a child. When this was announced, of course she was scared to the core. But in this announcement, she was told that she has…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 10)
Today I bring you the final tip, Tip #10, in the “How to Read Your Bible” series. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. TODAY’S FOCUS—TIP #10: BE A rEADER FOR lIFE! Far more important than reading through the Bible in one year (which is a wonderful goal) is to continue to make God’s Word a book of life for you forever. Read it fast sometimes. Read it slowly sometimes. Read sections of it repeatedly sometimes. Read…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 9)
Today I bring you Tip #9 in the “How to Read Your Bible” series. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. TODAY’S FOCUS—TIP #9: It’s All About Jesus This entire school year we have been in a teaching series that we’ve called, “The Book of Jesus.” Why that title? Because if you remove Jesus from any of the storyline of the Scripture, you just have ancient stories. The Bible, all of it, points to Jesus. Whether…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 8)
Today I bring you Tip #8 in the “How to Read Your Bible” series. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. TODAY’S FOCUS—TIP #8: rEAD aLONE On Good Friday this year, we had small groups of people read the Holy Week story out of John 17, 18 and 19 out loud around the room. It was powerful. Hearing the Word of God read aloud with others in this kind of setting is an incredible experience, and…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 7)
Today I bring you Tip #7 in the “How to Read Your Bible” series. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. TODAY’S FOCUS—TIP #7: Use Bookmarks to guide your reading and Pray for the World This tip to reading your Bible is actually a bridge into learning to read God’s Word combined with spending time praying. If you have followed the pattern of reading from four locations in the Bible (as stated above in Tip #2),…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 6)
Today I bring you Tip #6 in the “How to Read Your Bible” series. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. Today’s Focus—Tip #6: Treat weekends as worship and preparation As stated in Tip #2, I like to read from four locations from the Bible and I encourage you to consider the same. But I also recommend that you consider this method for the 5 days of the work week, then treat the weekends differently.…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 5)
Today I bring you Tip #5 in the “How to Read Your Bible” series. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. TODAY’S FOCUS—Tip #5: Mark up your Bible! Take notes! This is one of my personal favorites. I love to mark up and write in my Bible. Now, I am a note-taker in most meetings. My notes are not always clean in form, but I get inspired and like to write stuff down because I…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 4)
Today I bring you Tip #4 in the “How to Read Your Bible” series. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. Today’s Focus—Tip #4: Choose your Bible Translation When you begin to get serious about reading the Bible regularly for yourself, you quickly notice that there are many different English versions of the Bible. This can be very confusing. You may wonder to yourself, “What is the right version? Is there a more correct version? Does…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 3)
Over the next many weeks, I am giving you my tips as to how to go about developing a habit of reading and mediating daily on God’s Word—the Bible. Scroll to the end for a full explanation of each previous tip. Today’s focus—Tip #3: Use a Study Bible as your primary Bible to read from each day I highly recommend that you find a good Bible (I always recommend a printed Bible, not just electronic) to be your “go to”…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 2)
Scroll to the end for a full explanation of the previous tip. Today’s Focus—Tip #2: Choose the location of where to read When I say “location,” what I really mean is, “Where should I start in the Bible?” The Bible has 66 books—39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. There are multiple subsections of the Bible as well. The 39 books of the Old Testament are divided into… The Pentateuch & the Law: the first 5…
How to Read Your Bible (Part 1)
One of the best practices in a growing disciple’s life is the habit of reading God’s Word personally on your own. There is everything good about a Bible study group with people, or listening to a sermon out of scripture. But none of this replaces the value of you personally sitting down in a quiet place and reading God’s Word, then reflecting on it—in other words, letting God speak to you. For several weeks I am walking you through some…
The Only Way to Be Set Free
I want to give examples to our church family on how to build a lifelong habit of reading and absorbing the Scripture on your own. Over these few weeks I’m showing you how I read the Bible each morning; maybe you will be able to develop a similar pattern. This is just an example of my devotional thoughts—not so you can use my devotional, but so you could instead cultivate your own time with God. Currently, I am reading every…
Is There a Reward for Hard Work?
Psalm 127 Last week I told you I wanted to share a few weeks of personal devotion time with you—not to show you what I have learned while reading the Bible, but to encourage each of us to learn how to have our own personal time with God, letting him speak to you. As an example this week, here is a simple devotional that I had a few days ago, and what God showed me. Psalm 127:1 ”Unless the Lord…
Developing Your Own Devotional Guide
Hearing God Speak to You Every Day One of my greatest desires for our church family is for each of you who calls LifeWay Church home to develop the life-long habit of picking up your Bible personally every morning (or evening, or during your noon lunch break) and listening to God speak to you. To borrow a phrase from youth director Kevin P: “If you want to hear God speak, then open your Bible. If you want to hear God…