DAILY DEVOTIONALS

SERMON QUOTE “Crossing the Jordan meant taking a big dramatic step of faith.”   DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT God said to Jeremiah, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.” (17:7) – whose hope, confidence and assurance are God Himself. Faith and trust are closely related. To trust someone, we must know them well enough to believe they are worthy of that trust. God said to Habakkuk, “The righteous will live, be alive and flourish, by his faith.” If we want to live the new life Jesus has given us, we must make Him our…

SERMON QUOTE “We are called to be: light in the darkness; a source of hope; salt; Good Neighbors; Good Stewards; those who consider others more important than themselves; those who love their enemies; those who live in light of eternity.”   DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT Growing up in Brooklyn, I lived in an apartment building adjoined to other buildings. The noise of neighbors and sirens were customary sounds throughout the day and night. Thus, the New York way was to keep to yourself, make no eye contact and mind your own business. Being too inquisitive could…

SERMON QUOTE “There are no heroes other than Jesus in here. We get the real story about how bad people can be, I find to be a good thing – a comforting thing – because I am deeply flawed. It is encouraging to see God work with Abraham after he does some spectacularly bad things.”   DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT One of the many benefits of reading through the Bible is that it underscores the fact that the Bible is not a collection of stories, it is God’s story. In that story, God uses many individuals….

SERMON QUOTE “This is the game changer. The intervention of God – more technically – ‘the call of God,’ changes everything.”   DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT In the Bible, God sometimes got people’s attention in BIG ways. Like a talking snake in a beautiful garden, or people waking up one morning and finding that everyone in town spoke a different language, or a flood that lasted forty days and nights and wiped out everyone on the face of the earth who wasn’t aboard Noah’s boat. All these attention-getters happened in the first chapters of the Bible….

SERMON QUOTE “The first thing we see about the call from God, is that Abraham had to take some next steps. The second thing we realize is that this call demands a surrender of his will.”   DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT Abraham might have thought he was surrendering to God when he agreed with God’s vision for his life: that he would be the forefather of a new nation and promise and that God would use him to bless all the earth. I wonder if he would have agreed with God’s vision for his life if…