Pastor Tom's Daily Devotional

Galatians 5:16 (NKJV) I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. This is a verse that used to stump me.  How do I walk in the Spirit if I live in the flesh?  Is this some sort of twilight-zone type of walking?  Is this for people who just meditate and live in caves?  Then one day, as I was thinking about this and studying it, I saw that walking in the Spirit means staying occupied with spiritual things . Like a flash, it hit me!  When I am reading my Bible, I am walking in the Spirit.  When I am praying, I am walking in the Spirit.  When I am going to church, I am walking in the Spirit.  I am walking in the Spirit when I am doing what the Bible says, like loving my wife, taking care of my children, working as unto the Lord, and loving God and people. All of a sudden, it got out of the spooky and got to the normal.  I walk in the Spirit every day as I strive to live the way that Go...

2 Kings 22:1-2 (NKJV) Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. 2 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. When you read about the lives of the different kings of Israel and Judah, sometimes it makes you scratch your head.  Here they were given a great opportunity to be a blessing to a nation, yet so many of them lived for lust and fame. Josiah, however, was not one of them that messed up.  From the very young age of eight, he made a decision to serve God.  I can just imagine all those that tried to put pressure on him to do it like everybody else.  “Life is to be lived to have fun!  Enjoy the moment, for today we live and tomorrow we die!”  But not this young king.  He had something deep within him that...

Luke 16:10 (NLTSE) If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities. Many people want the big things before they are faithful in the little things.  But according to this verse, if we are not faithful over the little things, our Heavenly Father is not going to give us the big things.  You see, God is looking for faithfulness.  He is looking for those who will say yes to doing whatever He asks; not whatever we want.  He knows what He has placed within us and as we are faithful to that, then promotion comes.  I read this little quote many years ago and it has stuck with me regarding this subject.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep s...

1 Corinthians 15:10 (NKJV) But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Each one of us has been given unique gifts from God our Father, and we are to use them as He sees fit.  Here the apostle Paul tells us that he is what he is by the grace of God, and it is the same for you and me.  We each have been blessed by the Father with the ability to be a blessing to others in our sphere of influence. Whatever we have been given, we need to give away.  You might say, Pastor, what does that mean?  Well, what it means is to whom much is given much is required.  You see, our lives are most blessed when we are a blessing.  Our lives are most fulfilled when we get out of ourselves and look for ways to be a blessing to others. I am so glad that the apostle Paul said yes to use all that God had given him. Withou...

2 Peter 1:20-21 (NKJV) Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Bible is like no other book.  It is a book that has not come from the will of man, but the will of God.  God put Himself into the Bible, and that is why it is still the number one selling book of all times. If I take a balloon and blow into it, my life is in that balloon.  My very DNA is in it.  It is the same with the Bible.  It has the DNA of God, and that is why it is a living book.  I read this quote by Max Lucado years ago: "The Bible has been banned, burned, scoffed, and ridiculed. Scholars have mocked it as foolish. Kings have branded it as illegal. A thousand times over it the grave has been dug, and the dirge has begun, but somehow the Bible never stays in the grave. Not only has it survived, it has thriv...

Matthew 5:11-12 (NKJV) Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Do you know the old saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going?"  That is the way it is for you and me.  When things get tough, we get tougher.  That is what God is looking for: Committed people, faithful people, people who will stick around even when they are reviled and persecuted, and all kinds of evil is said against them falsely for His sake. The Bible says that Jesus is going to judge us by our faithfulness. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable about three servants who were given a certain amount of money. The master went off on a journey, and when he returned there was a day of accountability.  Two of the servants were faithful, and the master said to them, “Well done, go...

Psalm 31:24 (NKJV) Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your   heart, all you who hope in the LORD. Our God is the One who strengthens us.  He is the One who makes sure that all things work out.  He is the One who cannot be moved in His love and goodness to us.  As you read the Word of God, every time you see a scripture that talks about Who God is, what He has, and what He can do, underline it or write it in your journal.  You will see the goodness of the Lord! We can be of good courage, as this verse says, because our God, our Heavenly Father, cannot lie.  If He said something in His Word we need to trust and believe Him, just like we would believe the word of a trusted friend.  Our God is there for us and wants the very best for our lives.  And the amazing thing is that He knows what is best for us! As we stand in courage, and as we declare what His Word declares, we see a connection that brings the answers to th...

Numbers 23:19 (NIV) God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of   man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act?   Does he promise and not fulfill? Did you ever think of that?  It is impossible for God to lie!  There is no way on planet earth or this entire universe that one lie could come from the lips of God.  What is so big about that?  Well think of it.  If God cannot lie, then whatever we read in His Word has to be truth, and if it is truth, then I can believe it and receive it! See, faith is born from the seed of trust.  If I believe your word, then I will trust you.  If you say, “I'll be there at such a time” and I trust you, I will be waiting for you at that time.  But if you are inconsistent with your word and I cannot trust it all the time, then I will not be sure if you are going to be there, so it builds within me a lack of faith in your word. Brothers and sisters, on...

1 Corinthians 1:9 (NKJV) God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We could stop with the first three words of this verse and have all that we need to be victorious!  GOD IS FAITHFUL!  What a true statement.  We have seen it over and over in our lives.  So many times we think something is not going to work, or we think something is going to get worse not better, and then it just comes together.  Sometimes it comes together so smoothly that we do not even notice it! God is faithful.  He is the Creator, and if we can ever get into our minds that He is responsible for us, it will take so much weight off of us.  Think about it.   God has to provide food, not just for all of the humans on earth, but also for all the animals and all the fish and all the insects.  Do you kind of get the idea?  Yet He does it in such a way that we do not even think about it...