A Very Different Payment

Posted on May 7, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the Name.  – Acts 5:41

I’ve read Richard Wurmbrand’s book, Tortured for Christ a couple of times.  He was a Romanian preacher who preached when he was not allowed to do so.  The simplest of recantations would have gotten him out of prison and reunited him with his family, but he always refused.  In prison, he was still forbidden to preach.  He and a few others decided that it was worth the beatings to be able to share the gospel.  Hence, Richard Wurmbrand was “Tortured for Christ.”  

This past Sunday I preached up at a wonderful little church up in Mountain Rest.  Every time I fill in, they pay me.  I was discussing with someone about just how much they pay me.  I told them, “Look, I’m more than glad to do this for free.  I feel the Presence of God mightily when I’m here . . . that is all the payment I need.”  They ended up saying that they were going to pay me anyway.

I sit here wondering if I would still do it if I knew my payment would be a beating.  The council of the Sanhedrin told the disciples they were not to preach.  The disciples knew it would cost them if they did.  Acts 5:40 says that they were flogged . . . simply for preaching about Jesus.  A quick Google search says there are about 370,000 church congregations in the United States.  How many of them would still hold services if the money was taken away and the payment was 39 lashes from a whip?  

Richard Wurmbrand said it was worth it.

The apostles said it was worth it. 

I think it is worth it.

I wonder if the days are approaching where we will be made to prove it.

Lord, I live in the ease and comfort capital of the world.  All of us give so much of our resources to eating out, streaming services, phone and internet services, overpriced drinks, and comfortable cars and homes.  Richard Wurmbrand missed how present You were to Him in prison.  He said You were worth the torture that he received.  I’ve endured threats and I’ve had people reject me for Your Name, but I’ve never received anything like Richard or the apostles.  Lord, give me the strength I need to never reject Your Name.  Sometimes, when I play music at certain places, I get a little scared when it comes time to play a song for You.  I’ve even chickened out a couple of times.  Help me to never ever do that again.  I love You, Lord.  You are still and always will be the best thing this life offers.  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Sight

Posted on April 30, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak he could no longer see, — Genesis 27:1

It is wild to me how I notice verses in the Bible because they simply pertain to me now.  As a young man, I read right over Isaac’s poor eyesight and never gave it a second thought.  Now, I pause and simply wonder if he had cataracts.  I wonder if he lived in today’s time if he could have a simple surgery and regain his sight.

I remember the first time I put on a pair of glasses.  I honestly didn’t know that I saw poorly until everything was crystal clear looking through those lenses.  I was used to seeing everything poorly.  Today, these glasses don’t make things so clear anymore and I’m very much aware that I’m seeing poorly.  I wonder if I lived back in Isaac’s day if I’d be doomed to a Genesis 27:1 fate.  As it stands, I have a shot at seeing much more clearly one month from now.  Isaac didn’t have that kind of shot.

In a similar way, I remember being filled with the Holy Spirit one evening at Fairview Church of God.  I didn’t speak in tongues that night, but I received a hunger for God’s Word like never before.  I began to read it and I began to live out many of the principles that it taught.  I forgave when I didn’t feel like forgiving, I told the truth when it was the last thing I wanted to do, and I began to slow down and be patient when I was in a hurry.  I received spiritual sight.  I didn’t realize how blind I was until God began to really change the way I saw the world.

I want so badly for Jesus to use me to help others spiritually see.  As it stands, most people just don’t care about the spiritual things of God.  I don’t let this stop me because I know that God is the great changer of hearts.  He changed me.

He can change them.

Lord, use me to help others see.  Use me to bring people to You.  I get discouraged sometimes, but I’m also aware of how suddenly and how massively You can work.  I bet I went two months without praying out loud with someone, then this past week I bet I prayed with five or six.  Your Spirit was ever so present each time.  Let us, Your people, see revival.  Let us see the extent to which You can turn a life around.  I look so forward to the day that I’m like Isaac.  He has been seeing perfectly with You for thousands of years now.  One day, every hurt, every disease, every health problem, and every tear will be wiped away.  It will happen on that glorious day when our faith becomes sight.  Until then, help us be about the King’s business.  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Day I See Perfectly

Posted on April 23, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see with perfect clarity.   All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.  – 1 Corinthians 13:12

Right now, I physically see horribly, but I see spiritually perhaps the best I ever have.  As a young man, I saw the world clearly but felt no real need for God.  Now, I see the world as one big giant blur, and I know I need Jesus every moment of every day.  You guys can certainly say a prayer for me as I hopefully have cataract surgery before I write my next WMD.

I read of Fanny Crosby the other day.  I’ve read her story many times, but I saw a detail that I’d never seen before.  I knew she was blind, but I didn’t know that it was caused by the mistake of a doctor.  She had every reason in the world to be bitter and angry, but she was having none of it.  She even said that she was glad she lost her sight, for if she had it all along, she knew for certain that her attention would quickly shift to the things of this world.  I’ll think of this for the rest of my life when I hear my favorite hymn that she wrote:

Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord

To the cross where Thou hast died

Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord

To Thy precious bleeding side

I also remember reading in Billy Graham’s book “Nearing Home” about his eyesight.  He spoke of how perhaps our eyesight grows worse as we get older simply so we are forced to set our minds on heaven and not on this world.  I really think God is going to allow my sight to be corrected for a season, but I am wondering and even worried about what I’m going to do with it.  I don’t want to go back to life as usual.  I want to honor my Lord and Savior with everything that I am.  I want to point as many people to Him as I can.  I want His love to infiltrate my heart even more than it does now.  

Lord, I sit here this morning painfully aware of my sins.  I’ve sinned knowing exactly what I was doing, and I’ve sinned and wasn’t even aware that I was sinning.  I have sins of commission and plenty of sins of omission.  But I looked afresh on Calvary this Sunday while I was at church.  You are a great God who covered and is still covering a great multitude of sins for all who think to ask.  All I can say is thank You.  Thank You for my ability to see clearly for all those years.  Forgive me for never even thinking to thank You for such a great gift.  I thank You now for my dimming sight, for perhaps I’ve seen You working in my life more than I ever have.  I need so much help, Lord.  Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me and help me keep the joy of my salvation for the rest of my days on this Earth.  Help all who read today to see a little more clearly.  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Stick

Posted on April 16, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

Take your staff and throw it in front of Pharaoh, it will become a serpent. – Exodus 7:9

I was looking at this story in the Bible and it appears to be the only time Aaron or Moses’ rod did anything in and of itself.  Aaron’s rod did sprout and miraculously produce almonds as well.  It was this particular rod that was place in the Ark of the Covenant.  The majority of the time, the rod was simply in the hands of its owner while God performed mighty signs and wonders.  

I was kind of down recently and went on one of my prayer walks.  I was simply telling God how sorry I was that I felt like I wasted the entire year of 2024.  My mind kept going back to times when I felt really used by God.  When I got home, I read an old sermon about a stick.  The stick was the rod of Moses.  The stick was simply in the hand of Moses when the Nile turned to blood and the Red Sea parted.  There was nothing special about the stick itself, but the stick is mentioned because of who owned it.

2024 wasn’t necessarily a horrible year, I just spent too much of it chasing money.  Up until that year, I had only taken extra jobs out of a willingness to help when help was needed.  For some weird prayerless reason, I started taking jobs simply to make a lot of money.  Even though it worked, I basically bled money that year.  So many different and unusual things happened that caused me to pay for things that were not normal expenses.  When I finally brought it to the Lord, He simply said, “I’m not going to let something as trivial as extra money be a source of comfort to you, I supply all your needs according to my riches in glory.”   I immediately felt like a fool, He was the shortest and simplest prayer away the whole time.  

So far, in 2025, I have simply been a stick in His hand.  He can do with me as He wills.  Even if I do something that I look back on years from now as great in the eyes of the Lord, it is only because I was in His hands to begin with. 

Lord, help me to simply exist in You.  You are the greatest thing ever happen to me.  I can go to work today and simply be a stick in Your hands.  If I wasn’t in Your hand, I’d be as useless as any other stick just lying in the woods unable to do anything on my own.  You’ve saved me, You’ve raised me, and You have filled me with the Holy Ghost.  Help me to always be mindful of You and help me to always ask before I do the simplest things.  Help me go to work and make a difference in the lives of others.  I want to take as many as I can to heaven with me.  Only if I am in Your hands is any of it even possible.  I praise You, Lord.  There is none like You.  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

No Matter What

Posted on April 9, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

We have been beaten, jailed, and mobbed; we have been overworked and have gone without sleep or food.  – 2 Corinthians 6:5

I maintain that the biggest enemies of Christianity are ease, comfort, and convenience.  As long as we have one or more of those things, we really don’t think we need God.  I also maintain that the words “Christian” and “church” are no longer useful.  Nobody in the Bible ever called themselves a Christian.  They used “disciple,” or “follower.”  As far as church is concerned, Jesus said He would build it.  He never meant physical buildings, but when we say, “let’s go to church,” that is what we mean.

Nearly 100% of my witnessing conversations this year have been with people who say they are Christians who used to go to church.  Yet, in almost no context would anyone look at their lives and say, “here is a disciple who follows Jesus.”  I’m not dogging them at all, I lived in this place for years.  Even now, I can go through the motions and look the part without being the part.  

Look at the verse again, have you or I had any of those things happen to us because of your faith in Christ?  Only very recently have they begun to happen to me, and most certainly not to any kind of extent that they were experiencing.  The closer I get to God and the more I walk in step with Him, the more hell’s fury seems to come at me, my family, and those I love.  

I think I’m going to begin reading Foxe’s Martyrs again.  Somehow reading story after story of followers who died for their faith rejuvenates my own.  I wonder often how so many of those guys sung songs to God while they burned alive.  I can only assume that God gives them the strength, courage, and determination at exactly the right time.  The Bible says that the righteous have never been forsaken. Never.

Almost all of those stories have an element of, “If you simply deny Christ, persecution will end, you will go free, and all will go back to normal.”  I feel that way right now.  I feel like the offer is on the table that if I will simply stop pursuing Jesus so fervently, then evil will leave me, my family, and those I love alone.

Are any of you guys feeling anything similar?

Lord, I know what I want in this life.  I want You!  I want my family to know You.  I want my friends to know You.  I want strangers that I strike up conversations with to know You.  Hell hates it when I try to make this happen.  Yet I know that You have conquered hell, death, and the grave.  As a spoiled American, I want to be able to witness free of persecution, but there aren’t any examples in the Bible where that happens.  All that to say, Help me Jesus!  Fill me with Thy Holy Spirit that I might be found spotless.  There is and never will be another like You.  I love You!  Help all who read today to become true disciples who love and follow You and Your ways.  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Real Miracle

Posted on April 2, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

I don’t know how many times I’ve read Acts 12 and marveled at the angel opening prison doors while the people were praying.  Peter walked right out of there a free man.  As I was reading it this time around, I saw something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, and I wonder how in the world I could have missed it.  

And now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.  – Acts 12:11

I have read the Old Testament.  God parted waters, put bread on the ground every morning, and did many other great and mighty wonders.  But these things did not change the hearts of the people.  They were amazed, but they weren’t changed.

In Acts 12, I see that the miracle changed Peter’s heart.  He was free from expectation.  I imagine that with James, the brother of John being executed at the beginning of the chapter, Peter knew his time was up.  I don’t think he minded at all, but he thought this was the end of the road.  When he stepped out of that prison, he knew that God truly was in control, and that he was free to live for Him and Him only.  What could Herod, the Jewish people, or any mere mortals do to him?

Early this year, I felt God like never before.  I’ve felt Him many times and it led me to do what I thought I was supposed to do for a little while.  This time is different.  I don’t have to meet people’s expectations anymore.  So far, I’ve been able to simply walk in obedience with God.  He has given me so many indicators that He has given me the grace, mercy, and power of the Holy Spirit to walk in His ways.  I don’t walk, nor talk like I used to.  I can forgive and even pray for those who have hurt me the most.  Even now, my mind and my flesh want to think this is all temporary and will end soon enough.  But this morning, I think I’ll believe that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do.

Lord, it is so easy to forget the miracle of all miracles.  When a man or woman comes to You and they no longer love the sin that they once loved, You have performed the impossible.  You took our sin on the cross.  You said it is done.  What was done?  All that needed to be completed for us to walk in Your ways, to no longer conform to the pattern of this world, and to be able to live by the Spirit and not expectations.  I want this for my own life.  I already see it happening, yet I get afraid that I’ll mess it all up.  So often, I don’t even live up to my own expectations.  Help all who read today to follow You day by day, hour by hour, and moment by moment.  Make us disciples.

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love

Moment by moment I’ve life from above

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine

Moment by moment O Lord I am thine.

Amen

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Using SOAP

Posted on March 19, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will also be clean.  – Matthew 23:26

More and more these days, especially where I work, I’m having to tell more and more young men that they stink.  We have the conversation that standing in the shower and letting the water run over you is not the same as using the soap and scrubbing in the shower. I don’t necessarily like having this conversation, but if I were in their place, I’d certainly want someone to tell it to me straight.

Sometimes, I do this spiritually.  Instead of really digging into God’s Word and praying, I’ll just listen to it while I do other things.  I might listen to as few as one, or as many as five or six chapters.  I might listen to a sermon online.  Of course there is nothing wrong with these things, but it isn’t the same as digging in, studying the words, memorizing the words, praying the words, and asking God to help you live out the words.  The difference is as vast as washing in the shower and letting the water simply run over you in the shower.

I have really enjoyed reading my prayer journal from 20 years ago.  I’ve enjoyed it enough that I started another one this year.  This one is digital, so I look forward to reading it years from now and not having to work so hard to make out the words that I’ve so poorly written.  

I want to share with you how I’m doing it in case you want to start your own.  It ensures that you scrub and don’t just rinse.  I didn’t come up with the method but have heard it mentioned many times over the years.  It is an acronym called SOAP.  

S – Scripture – Write down the scripture that speaks to you as you are reading God’s word.

O – Observe – Write down what it was that struck you about the verse, passage, or chapter.

A – Apply – Write down how it applies to your life.

P – Pray – Write down your prayer.

This, of course, is my own simplified version.  I thought I’d cut and paste one of mine just to let you see how I use it.  I hope it helps you as much as it has helped me.  

Jan 27, 2025

Scripture:  In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.  – 1 Kings 6:7

Observation:  Like Heaven, God is chiseling us and fitting us for heaven down here on Earth.  Once we get to Heaven, the work will be completed.  He will have done all that is needed to my heart, mind, and soul.

Application:  I need to quit beating myself up when I fall short.  God is working in me and through me.  Yesterday, heading to church was proof.  My little truck broke down and didn’t make it, but I still listened online, and God still visited me.  My first thought was to have a bad attitude when I broke down, but He was having no part of that.  He sent His spirit, He filled me up, and He allowed me to pray for so many people zipping by in their cars as I walked to the nearest store.  He’s still chiseling on me.  He’s still working on His people.  I don’t get to do any chiseling on others, but I can, and I must introduce them to the Great Chiseler.  I want all of us to have our proper place in Heaven.

Prayer:  Lord, Jesus . . . You know my heart as I sit here comfortably by the fire and bow my heart towards You.  You’ve done so much work on this raw material in 33 years.  Yet, I realize there is so much more work to be done.  I can’t wait until I fit perfectly into Heaven.  I’m looking forward to being placed in the perfect spot that You’ve prepared for me.  Help me to point others towards You, Lord.  Let my light so shine before men.  Let me truly be full of joy.  Give me the desires of my heart so they match Yours.  I praise You and love You as I’m learning to love You with all my heart, mind, body, soul and strength.  I lift my wife up to You, Lord.  Bless her, keep her, and make Your face to shine upon her.  You’ve already been so gracious to her and to me.  Pour out Your blessing and protection upon our family and our marriage.  We need You so badly, Lord.  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Eternal Rewards

Posted on March 12, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. – 1 Corinthians 3:14

One of the many things that keeps me on track with the Lord is the idea of forever.  I’m watching my classmates turn 50 left and right.  I remember the birth months of many of them.  My turn is coming up in June.  I’m incredibly aware that I have less life in front of me than behind me.  I want to serve God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.

Yet, I can still get caught up in the temporary.  I can gravitate towards books, tv shows, and YouTube videos.  The only way I can describe it is that it is like filling my soul up on junk food.  Then, I get back to the presence of God and that temporary stuff seems so stupid and futile.   It seems like something to keep my mind numb and away from what is important.  I must ask myself:  What am I really building that is of eternal value?  It takes a lot of time and effort to build something of lasting value here on Earth.  How much more should it take to build something of lasting value in heaven?

I’ve watched several people be set free in the past several months.  They’re free from needing a relationship, free from addictions, and free from their past.  They’ve confessed the Lord as their Savior.  But as weeks have gone by, they’ve sprinted back to what had them bound.  The temporary overshadows the eternal in weak moments.  This world is designed to keep you away from God and His Word.  

Of course I empathize with them.  I did the same thing as a teen and young adult.  I distinctly remember knowing that I was finally going to be free from a certain addiction.  Yet, it was hard to let go of because God always convicted me when I did it.  I knew that God was always present in that way, even though it was disciplinary.  I wondered if He would truly show up in other ways on the other side.  Was there something more outside of conviction?  Thank goodness there was, but it took faith to find out.

Today, let’s work for the inheritance that God says we can have if we work as unto Him!  Today, let’s use materials that will be refined in the fire as opposed to be burned up.  One day, a select group of people will hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”  May you and I work today as if we want to hear these words.

Lord, please help this generation!  They are absolutely addicted to vapes, games, relationships, and basically ease and comfort.  They get clean and run back to the pigsty so fast.  I’m not condemning, for I was one of them.  Fill us with Your Holy Spirit!  Give us new hearts and new minds that want to seek after You and truly follow You.  Make us so different from this world.  May we simply remain about the Lord’s business.  Amen. 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The End from The Beginning

Posted on March 5, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.  I say, “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” – Isaiah 4:10

I was cleaning out my garage at the beginning of this year.  I found an old steno notebook from 2005.  When I opened it, it was full of prayers that I had written for about three years.  Sometimes I’d write on back-to-back days.  Sometimes weeks or months would go by.  But there is only one entry when I wrote prayers on the same day.

I kind of want to just type them out, but they are super-duper personal.  But here is the gist:  In July of 2005, God was really working in my life.  I wrote notes from messages I heard where God was really speaking to me.  I knew in my heart that God was going to give Tonya and me a child.  I received what He said, and I believed what He said.  At the time, we had no children.  I was 30 years old.

On August 12, 2005, Tonya and I must have really thought that she was pregnant.  I wrote this whole journal entry praising God, thanking God, and letting Him know how I see what He is doing.  I even wrote this whole line about Him getting all the praise, honor, and glory.

On that very same evening, I wrote a very different prayer.  I’ll write part of it:  Lord, I have to vent.  Cast all my cares upon You, right?  Well here goes, I don’t have to tell you that we did NOT get pregnant this month.  I’m so bitter and mad at You!  I really don’t want to be.  To Whom else will I go?  You hold the answers to life and death.”  According to that entry, if I had thought there was somewhere else to go . . . I would have gone.

My prayers after that are mostly just me examining my own heart, wondering just what the heck is in there, and asking God to make me like Him and help me to get on His timetable and off my own.  Only looking back now could I know that in 11 short months from writing that prayer, we would be holding our daughter in our arms.  

More than ever, I just want to place my life in His.  I am more than reminded that God knows the end from the beginning.  I can only see this little moment right here in front of me.  Yet, here He is already standing at the end of my life.  He sees it all.  How could I possibly refuse to place my entire existence in His hands?

Lord, it is so cool to see how You grow people.  In so many ways, I’m still immature.  Yet in other ways, You’ve worked in my life and I’ll never be the same.  I place the years that I have left in Your hands.  I sure wish I could go back and do it as a teenager.  I’ve wasted a lot of years, but You are the great restorer of years.  Bless me indeed.  Increase my territory.  May Thy hand be with me.  May You keep evil from me.  Help me to always remember that You know what You’re doing in my life . . . even when I don’t.  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Authority

Posted on February 26, 2025 by wednesdaymorningdevotional

And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him.  Some said, “He is good,” others said, ‘No, on the contrary he deceives the people.” – John 7:11-12

“You can’t please everybody,” is a phrase that I’ve heard my whole life.  As a math teacher, there are students that absolutely loved me and think I was great.  There are also students who think I was terrible.  As a minister, I’ve been called “the real deal,” and I’ve been rejected and never asked to come back.  If Jesus couldn’t please everyone, then I don’t have a chance.

I live now in what I imagine is the most toxic political environment that has ever existed, though I’m sure that is arguable.  In the next verse after John 7:12 it says, “However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews.”  How nice would it be for no one to speak openly of people today?  Social media has become a shrine to ourselves and our opinions.  I think we honestly believe that if everyone thought like us and believed as we do that the world would be just fine.  Lately, I’ve adopted more than ever Hebrews 13:14, “For this world is not our home, we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven.”

When I first became a Christian, I honestly hoped the Lord wouldn’t return.  I didn’t want to go to heaven yet.  There were things I wanted to do in life.  There was stuff I wanted to accomplish.  Jesus was someone I could put on the backburner and follow later.  This is all an indictment to the fact that I didn’t have a clue about my new life in Christ.  Now, more than ever, I’d sure like to be with my Lord in glory.

I’ve been meditating on John 7:11-12 every day since Saturday.  In the previous chapter, Jesus fed five thousand people from five loaves of barley and two small fish given to him by a young lad.  That was enough for many to follow Him.  However, others could only question His motives.  When Jesus refused to do the miracle a second time only offering Himself as the bread of life, the Bible in John 6:66 says that “many who believed in Him went back and followed Him no more.”  Obviously, there is nothing worse than a human who doesn’t get his or her way.

All that to say, it doesn’t matter who is in authority.  Israel had good kings, and it had bad kings.  I’m sure someone who lived under a good king thought they were bad, and someone who lived under a bad king thought they were good.  Today, I want to put my whole trust in Jesus.  I’m finishing up the gospel of John this week.  Jesus has never done anyone wrong.  I don’t think He is about to start now.

Lord, thank You for the breath in my lungs.  I’m sorry it took so long for me to trust You.  I’m sure even now that things could happen to me, and I’d begin to doubt.  You parted the sea for the Israelites, and they so quickly thought You’d let them starve afterwards.  May Your Holy Spirit continue to dwell in me.  Fill me afresh.  Without that life source . . . I know what I’d quickly become.  Lead, guide, and protect Your people today. Strengthen the host of heaven that evil may be easily defeated.  There is and never will be another like You, Lord. You are Holy, Holy, Holy!  Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment