Wednesday Morning Devotional

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

I don’t think there is greater evidence that one has been saved than this:

The sin that I once loved, I now hate.

I’ve never really liked the definition of hate. Not that it is a bad definition, but because hate is generally thought of as the opposite of love. I’ve concluded that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. As life goes on, we spend the most time doing what we love. For example, I used to love playing video games, but now I see them as a colossal waste of time. I don’t care about them anymore. They get no more of my time, money, or efforts. I don’t see myself as hating the games I once loved, I’m just indifferent towards them. I couldn’t care less about them.

I think about the thief on the cross that was saved next to Jesus. He simply asked if Jesus would “remember him when he came into his kingdom.” He even said that he knew that he was justly being punished for the wrongs he had done. Think about that, for probably the first time in his life, he felt remorse for things that, up to that point, he carried out with pride. It didn’t bother him then, but it bothered him now. The thing that he once loved, he now looked back on with regret.

I say all that to say this: I was somewhere that I shouldn’t have been yesterday. I knew it before I went. I even felt like I had to leave Jesus at the door to go in. For maybe the first time in my life, I didn’t really enjoy what I was doing . . . I couldn’t enjoy it. God continues to change my heart, my mind, and my spirit . . . even after following Him for over three decades. Sure enough, God was there to meet me at the door when I came back out and rode home with me. Just like those video games back in the day, I no longer need or want this in my life.

Take an honest assessment of the things you allow into your heart, mind, and life. Which ones please God? Which ones don’t? I think a great prayer to pray would be, “Lord, help me to love what You love, and hate what You hate.” Of course, then don’t be surprised when your little world gets turned upside down. Mine sure was.

Thank You, Jesus that I have so little to do with my salvation. You are the author, and you are the finisher of my faith. I’ve come to the conclusion that if it were possible to lose my salvation, I certainly would have done it. Thank You for the Bible, thank You for the Holy Spirit that convicts, and thank You for life change. There is and never will be another like You! Amen!

It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the Sun and the Earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient He must be, ‘cause He’s still working on me.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20

I just had a dream. It was a short dream. I dreamt that I was in a classroom. Everyone was quiet and ready to listen to me. I simply said, “Today, I want to talk to you about how important it is to treat people better than they deserve to be treated.” Immediately and all at once they all began to make excuses and talk to one another about why they couldn’t do it. “You don’t know what this person did to me” and many more reasons were vehemently blurted out. I was trying to get the class back in order, but they would listen to me no more.

Then I woke up.

The dream was so real. I thought and thought about what it meant. My mind went back to so many church services that I went to as a teenager. I remember sermons on “the rules:” lying, adultery, sexual immorality, not cussing, and certainly heard my share of sermons on backsliding. It reminded me of a song by Ty England called “Backslider’s prayer” that came on country radio. Every time it would come on, I’d say, “That’s me!” I’d say that because no matter how hard I tried or how many times I said I was going to stop my favorite sins, and no matter how many times I went to an altar . . . I just couldn’t do it. I always found a reason or an excuse to do the exact opposite of what I knew God wanted me to do. I gravitated towards living life my way on life’s highway.

In real life, I’ve talked to so many teenagers about following the Lord, doing right, and turning from the way they are living. Most of them are brutally honest about it all, which I respect greatly. They pretty much tell me flat out that nobody has, and nobody will follow the rules that they know deep down in their heart are right. I remember thinking the same thing as a teenager, I just didn’t have the guts to say it out loud like they do.

So what do we do?

We preach Christ!

The beauty of an honest answer from a sinner is that they know they are separated from God. Many are willing to admit their sin. At this point, a conversation can be had about how that sin will keep a soul out of heaven for all eternity. God is not going to allow stinkiness and filth into His house any more than we’d allow someone into ours who is covered in mud and been sprayed by a skunk. That person has a date with a water hose before entering any of our homes. The person loaded down with sins must repent. Jesus will always hear from heaven, always forgive their sin, and slowly but surely restore their soul.

Lately, I have been very much aware of my own sins when they rise to the surface. For years, I’d just quickly ask for forgiveness and try to put them out of my mind. Recently, I’ve been holding on to those sinful thoughts on purpose. While holding onto them, I quote Galatians 2:20 and I picture myself being crucified on a cross next to my Lord. I’m dying a slow and painful death, but I’m forcing my sin suffer with me. As I die, the sin which I obviously will not let go of is dying with me. When that sin pops up later, I simply say in my heart, “that sin is dead, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

We don’t need a world full of people trying harder to do right.

We need a world full of people who have been crucified with Christ, and now He is living through them.

Lord, thank You so much for re-igniting in my spirit just how desperately we all need Jesus in our lives. Help each and every person reading this to truly be the light that shines in the darkness. Help us to never look down our noses on anyone. We must all realize that we were great sinners in need of a great savior. Help us to live our lives in such a way that we make You attractive. Give us the boldness we need to speak Your Name to a lost and dying world. May others see our good deeds and glorify You, our Father in heaven. Amen.

If we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. — Romans 8:25

The Lord has had me on two projects for YEARS! I’ve written some songs to the Lord and for the Lord over the course of my life as a Christian. Last week, I finally recorded the last song. I play on releasing “My Life’s Songs” by the end of 2024.

I have also been working on a book called, “The Process: Using the Beatitudes to Explain How God Makes Us Holy.” I am right now halfway through the final edit. These two things are what God has me completing before I write another WMD. I hope this one doesn’t count. 🙂

The reason I’m telling you this, is because it is going to be expensive to produce a physical copy of these two things. I’m writing this to do kind of an interest inventory. If 100 people would be willing to give me $50, I’d be pretty close to being able to print 500-1000 books and 500-1000 Cd’s. This would guarantee you a copy of each one along with a free ticket to whatever venue I choose when I officially release them both.

I’m NOT asking you to send me a thing right now . . . I just need to know if you’d be willing when I’m much closer in a month or two. I’m really hoping to do an event at one of the local performing arts centers where I perform the entire set of songs that I have written, preach a bit from my book, and give out the copies. I don’t know exactly what this is all going to look like, I just want to be done by the time school is out and have the event scheduled for the Fall.

Lord, there is no one like You! Thank You for working in my life like You have. All I ask is that You use me to work in the life of others. May someone else go to heaven because You have worked in my life. Amen .

I do believe that I see God moving around me like never before. The thing is, I don’t know if He is simply more active and I’m witnessing it, or if He has simply opened my eyes more so that I can see what He is doing all along. I have seen with my own eyes a young man come to the Lord in a parking lot at a store. I’ve seen a bunch of teenagers who care nothing about the Lord absolutely captivated by the story of Joseph. I’ve seen someone contemplating a return to church years after being hurt by it. I’ve even seen my own unforgiveness melt in the presence of my enemies.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. – Matthew 6:6

When is the last time you prayed? I mean really prayed like Jesus tells us to pray. Yes, I pray while riding down the road. I pray while sitting comfortably in front of my heater reading His Word. Throughout the day, I offer up little prayers here and there. I’m not going to stop any of that. At the same time, none of it is praying the way Jesus says to pray. Do it the way He says to do it and feel what a difference it makes.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. – Matthew 6:4

Jesus tells us that the poor will be with us always (Mark 14:7). Every time I’m confronted with the opportunity, my mind plays this game of imagining what the person will do with the gift that I give. Sometimes, I rationalize my way out of it. However, I’ve never failed to be blessed when I simply did Matthew 6:4. There is a way to meet a need without simply throwing money at a problem. There is a way to help and both of you be blessed. Ask the Lord for an opportunity to give in secret. Find out what this reward feels like. I think this even includes sharing the Gospel. We love to air on Facebook that “so many got saved this week,” and “hell lost another one.” Yet, when Jesus shared the Gospel to the woman at the well in John 4, He didn’t even tell His disciples what had happened. He simply said, “I’ve got food that you know nothing about.”

But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. – Matthew 6:17-18

A lot of people get lost right here. Fasting is very difficult, especially the first few days when your body goes through withdrawals. I’ve learned that if you eat well, fasting is a bit more tolerable than if you eat poorly. I read that Jonathan Edwards fasted for 24 hours before he preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Afterwards, all churches in the area opened their churches during the day during the lunch break hours. People, on their own, forsook their food to simply go to the nearest church and pray. They didn’t worry about denominational lines, they just wanted to hang out with their Lord at the closest available church.

How would you like to see a reward like that?

Lord, prompt Your people called by Your Name to humble themselves. There is no better way to do this than to fast. May American Christians be brought to a place where they want spiritual food more than physical food . . . even if just for 24 hours. Bring revival, Lord. Bring Your presence to Your people like You have so many times in the past. Bless us, keep us, make Your face shine upon us, and be gracious to us. Amen.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  – Psalm 51:10

Sitting here this morning, I can remember six times when I was truly broken over my sin.  In the verse above, David had taken another man’s wife, got her pregnant, and murdered her husband to cover it up.  He wasn’t even broken over that sin, at least until the preacher came and talked to him.  You can read it in 2 Samuel 11-12.

I only bring this up because it happened to me this past Sunday.  Right in the middle of preaching Daniel chapter 1, I apologized to my wife.  I apologized for doing something that I didn’t really even think about again until that moment in the pulpit.  I looked at her and told her that I was sorry.  Somehow, the sin that lived inside me, all of it, just surfaced and I began to weep . . . I mean sob.  I was in God’s presence, so I didn’t really think to be embarrassed about it.  I simply asked the people to pray while I emptied my soul at the altar.  It felt wonderful.  I don’t know if I have ever felt cleaner than after I said “Amen.”  

I don’t know why I tell you that this morning.  If you’ve never had a moment like this, where God is so present, where you truly see how big He is for just a moment, while at the same time seeing how small you are.  I’m talking about a moment where you see what sin truly does.  I’ve started my Bible Recap Bible study for 2024.  I don’t see where Adam nor Eve was truly sorry for their sin.  All they did was eat a piece of fruit . . . it gave a death sentence to mankind.  You’d think they would have wept bitterly before the Lord.  I’m going to look for it as I read through the Bible again, but I think David is the first person we get to who is truly broken over his sin.

Would to God that each of us would have such a moment.

Lord, I pray for each person reading this.  Give each of us a moment of clarity where our sin is ever before us.  Show us how it is only Your blood, Your mercy, and Your grace that covers it up.  You are so good, Lord . . . yet that goodness is so easy for me to forget.  Help me love You!  Grant me staying power, O Lord, for I know how prone I am to wander.  Bless us and keep us in 2024.  Bless us and keep us for all eternity.  We owed a debt we could never repay, and You paid it.  Help us to never forget.  Amen!

By now you should be teachers. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the first things you need to know from God’s Word. You still need milk instead of solid food. Anyone who lives on milk cannot understand the teaching about being right with God. He is a baby. Solid food is for full-grown men. They have learned to use their minds to tell the difference between good and bad. — Hebrews 5:12-14

I love going on trips. Sometimes I don’t always enjoy driving those trips. At 60 miles per hour, you can knock out a mile a minute. However, when traffic hits, sometimes it takes quite a while to go one mile. I always seem to have an expectation in my mind of where I should be after a certain amount of time.

When it comes to following Jesus, there should be some mile markers in our lives. After we come to faith in Him, it is vital that we grow in Him. If we have a 500 mile trip to take,it would be hard to not be aggravated if three hours into the trip, we had only traveled 10 or so miles. Likewise, a year or two after receiving Christ, there should be a difference in where you were when you received Him, and where you are now.

I remember having supposedly been a Christian for 5 years. I didn’t read my Bible, didn’t make any effort to live my life for Jesus, and therefore looked no different than a non-believer. Well, I decided after a super powerful church service that I’d tell my friend about the Lord. He laughed and told me I didn’t get to tell him about Jesus. He pointed out that I cussed the same as him, partied the same as him, and slept around the same as him. He told me not to act like Christ made a real difference in my life.

I use this mile marker in my life a lot when evangelizing. You see, after five years of having a supposed faith in Jesus, I was still at the starting line. Keeping my analogy going, several hours into my trip, I hadn’t traveled the first mile. I knew in that moment that I had to finally move forward in my walk with the Lord.

I say all that to say this, if there has been no change since you’ve come to Christ, you should be frustrated. If you have no hatred for sin and no desire to put simple things behind you like a foul mouth, lying, and sexual immorality, you need to wonder why. If you have no desire for the things of God, like joining a fellowship of believers and reading the Bible for personal growth and change, why even claim to be a Christian? Don’t you want to be different than the world? Many believers have a long trip ahead of them, and are still in the driveway.

I’m just seeing a lot of “believers” expect an awful lot from God, but not giving Him anything. Many are questioning His goodness. One guy I know was railing against how God hadn’t done anything for him. I asked him about his relationship with the Bible. This guy said he “knew it like the back of his hand.” I asked him if he knew how many books were in the Bible . . . he didn’t know.

I don’t know what is going on right now in the world. But it sure seems to either be going downhill fast, or it is falling off of a cliff. The Bible says there are two roads, one is wide and leads to destruction. The overwhelming majority of people are traveling that road. Then there is a narrow road that leads to life. Very few people choose to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Christ. Lots of people say they are traveling that path. If they are, they don’t seem to have traveled very far on it.

Lord, I sure hope this doesn’t come across as judgmental. I have been the epitome of what I’m talking about. I’m so thankful for my college friend who let me know that I hadn’t left the garage. To this day, I feel like my walk with You began after that conversation. Help people who say they are Christians walk this stuff out. There is a lost and dying world that really needs to see what this looks like. Amen.

All the believers were together and had everything in common.  – Acts 2:44

As I put all the finishing touches on this Bible I plan to give away this Friday, I realize what a beautiful thing it is for the community of believers to really come together.  I received a half-dozen letters (with hopefully a few more on the way) from my request last week.  They are full of simple support and encouragement to hang on to the Lord and never let Him go.  

I look at it and think, “How many hurting believers would benefit from something like this?”  I know I’d be blown away.  Yet, it sounds like similar things happened a lot in the early church.  Numbers were added daily to the church because everyone saw how they treated each other, or maybe just simply saw how they were, and wanted to be a part of it.

How is it that nobody wants to be a part of the church now?  How is it not a main topic of all conversations?  Right now, at best, you can find maybe a few good churches in an area, but this is out of an awful lot of churches in an area.  People, even the ones who call themselves Christians, mostly look out for themselves.  So, when these same Christians form a body of believers, it makes sense that they form a “church” that mostly looks out for themselves.  Believe me, I’m not even saying I’m any different.  I just get it right sometimes and wonder why in the world I don’t get it right more often . . . it’s not like it is terribly difficult.  In truth, the reason I don’t get it right most of the time is I’m inward focused.

These last few days, I’ve poured into someone other than myself, and the peace of God is so ever present with me.  I’ve done less Bible study but had so many more conversations about God with people.  It’s like the years of Bible study just pours out of me onto others in our conversations.  Crazy enough, the more I pour out, the more God fills my cup. Something tells me this is how it is all supposed to work.

Lord, help us, Your church to get this right.  You can certainly start with me.  With all my heart and with all my life, I want to be used to lead, guide, and point others towards You!  It is amazing how close we get to feel to You when we are pouring into others.  I know a lot of people claim to love You.  If we claim to love You, we are supposed to intentionally love people as well.  What better time to start than the Christmas season?  By the power of Your Holy Spirit, lead us to truly help others and point them to You.  Amen.

A gift ushers the way and ushers the giver into the presence of the great. – Proverbs 18:16

I want to give a Christmas gift, and I need you guys to help me.  Would you be willing to write a letter?  I have a person in my life that is going through the roughest set of holidays she has ever gone through.  She has lost her husband recently and it has caused her to really doubt her faith in the Lord. On top of all this, she still has the day-to-day responsibilities of parenting, paying bills, and everything else life throws at her.

I’m going to buy her a really nice Bible.  In that Bible, I want to put your letter if you will write her one.  Pray, and then write as the Lord leads.  Maybe you could write about a tough time you went through and give a Bible verse that you held on to that helped you get through.  I will put the letter in the Bible where the verse can be found and maybe highlight it.  

I would like to have these by next week.  I have one church working on this now and hopefully they will bring me their letters this Sunday morning at Mt. Freedom.  You could drop it off at Salem Methodist Church at 4:00 this Sunday if you don’t mind coming to one of our services.  If you message me directly, I’ll give you the girl’s name and an address to mail these letters to if you live far away.  I could also give you more details if you need them.  Encourage anyone you might know to join this as well.  I’m hoping that I can put 50 letters in this Bible.  I’ll write 2, so 48 more would be great! 

Lord, please make this effort successful.  Help my little group come together to make one person’s Christmas crazy special.  I pray for her, Lord.  Lift her up!  The valley is a tough place to be . . . help her walk through.  Use the words that we write in our letters to help her draw nearer to You.  May she come to know this peace that passes all understanding.  Amen!

Job 1:18 a messenger came to Job and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house.  It collapsed on them, and they are dead.  

Matthew 2:16 When King Herod realized he had been outwitted by the wise men, “he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys two years old and younger in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.”  

John 11:21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

John 5:5 One who was there had been an invalid there for 38 years.

Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as if were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Everywhere I turn lately, there seems to so much pain, suffering, and death.  Really great people, men, and women of God are leaving this world and, from what I can see, are not being replaced.  I think I’m trying to say that there seems to be a lot of great leaders like Moses dying, and there aren’t a whole lot of successors like Joshua replacing them.

In addition, there is so much sickness and death.  I’m finding myself praying out loud with people more and more.  Whether I am sitting with someone at church, praying over the phone, or even on the cereal aisle at Ingles, there is no shortage of people who need prayer.

I used the verses today to show us that we are not and have never been alone in the things that we go through.  The people in the Bible knew the same pain that we feel now.  I don’t know how he is so good at it, but the devil seems to convince us that we are all alone in our suffering and that it is unique.  Sometimes I can even doubt my own salvation and be convinced that John 3:16 is for everyone but me . . . as if I wasn’t included in “the world” that God so loved.  It is crazy.

I don’t know about you, but evil seems to be working overtime right now.  I know just about every generation has believed that they were in “the last days,” and I will say that I’m no different . . . I believe we are in the last days.

Dear reader, please pray.  Let’s find out if 2 Chronicles is 7:14 is true or not.  Today, agree to get alone with God, meditate on Him, and pray.  If possible, pray out loud.  If possible, set a timer so that you remain in His presence for at least 20 minutes.  Christians today talk a lot about prayer, but I’m not so sure that they actually pray.  I’m also not saying that I’m the best example of a prayer warrior.  I wish that I did it more “just because” and not because I simply need or want something.  Every time I get into His presence, I wonder why I do anything else.

Today, Let’s pray.

Lord, I praise Your Name.  I know Your Word is truth, and I know that it works.  There is nothing difficult that You’ve asked me to do that I haven’t reaped incredible benefits from doing.  Every time I am a doer of the Word, my faith increases, my ability to persevere increases, and best of all, my love for You increases.  Following You and Your ways breeds more following You and Your ways.  Lord, help us . . . save us.  I know where it will all begin.  It will begin with people who say they are Christians actually living out Christianity.  It will begin with Christians praying.  Let it start with us.  Let it start with me.  Amen!