Pastor Tom's Daily Devotional

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV) For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. Our Father has given an amazing gift to us, and anyone who would believe.  That gift is Eternal Life!  So many are taught that you have to work to receive this gift, or you have to be good enough for God to give it to you, but in these verses we see that it is a gift of God .  I think to myself, “How good do I have to be to be accepted by a holy, righteous God?  How many good deeds do I have to do?”  I have found out that I cannot ever do enough!  What I need to do is trust God, and believe His Word that it is a gift from Him, and it is not of works. Now, if someone gives me a gift and then puts a bunch of requirements on that gift, it is not really a gift.  Why does religion put so many requirements on us for salvation?  According to this verse, and so many oth...

Acts 1:8 (NKJV) But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Thank God for the Holy Spirit!  In Him is all power, and He gives us the power to be victorious in this life.  Before Jesus left the earth, He promised us that He would send us another like Himself, and that is the Holy Spirit. In the John 15:26 in the Amplified Bible, it gives us seven names for the Holy Spirit.  It says, “But when the Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Advocate, Intercessor, Strengthener, Standby) comes, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth Who comes (proceeds) from the Father, He [Himself] will testify regarding Me.” The Holy Spirit wants to have a big part in our lives, but it is up to us to let Him in.  You might say, “Well, I have the Holy Spirit once I get saved, right?”  Yes you do, but are you acknowledging ...

1 Samuel 30:6 (NKJV) Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God. Have you ever felt like that?  Maybe you do right now.  It feels like everybody is against you.  It feels like nobody cares and no one would even listen.  Can you picture David here?  He had done so much for this group of people, and now there is a war and their children and wives have been taken captive, and the first thing that they want to do is stone David.  We can feel this way at times.  “I have done so much, and I have gone out of my way to help them, and all I get in return is this abuse.  I have tried my best to help and they took it all wrong, and now they are all mad at me.”  You see, we are all going to have days like this, when people take us wrong, or we know we gave it our best...

2 Timothy 1:6 (NKJV) Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. In this verse, Paul is talking to his young friend Timothy, and he is telling him to stir himself up. He is telling him to get the fire within him going again.  Timothy, like any of us, needed to get his passion going again, and Paul is reminding him that sometimes you have to stir yourself up. When I used to go camping, one of the treats of being outside was to start a big campfire.  You know, you get that thing going and hang out there with the smell and the flickering of the flames.  But if you just left that fire to itself and did not stir it up, or shake it once in a while, it would go out. It is the same way in the spirit.  Just as you have to shake a fire so it does not go out, you need to shake yourself, also.  There have been times that I have gotten cold in my walk of faith.  It does not even mean ...

Jonah 4:2 (NLT) So he complained to the LORD about it: Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. So many people put the tag on God that He is out to get you.  They think if you make one mistake, He will bring some calamity on you to teach you.  I was taught growing up that God sits up in heaven on a big throne with a lightning-bolt in His hand, and He is just looking for someone to tick Him off and then, look out!  Even insurance companies call a disaster an, “Act of god.”  Well, that is not our God! Jesus told us so clearly in John 10:10 who the destroyer is, and it is not God!  Here it says, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abun...

Joel 2:28-29 (NKJV) And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. 29 And also on my menservants and on my maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. We are living in a great and wonderful day!  It is a day when God’s Spirit is being poured out like never before!  It is also a day when satan knows that the end is near, and he is trying to steal, kill and destroy like never before.  We can rest assured, however, that the Greater One has won and gives us the victory. God has promised us that His Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, and we are seeing many being saved from all nations.  Nations that would not even let the Gospel in before are now having great revival!  We are seeing this on every continent of the world.  It is a very exciting time to be alive and supporting work...

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...