Pastor Tom's Daily Devotional

John 17:3 (NKJV) And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. Many people have different definitions of eternal life, and I will say many are correct.  To live forever, to live in heaven, and to live with Jesus are all accurate.  But this verse says that eternal life is to know God. What a thought!  When we know God, it gives us His fullness of life like nothing else.  I am not talking about an acquaintance with God, but knowing Him; being intimate with Him.  God, our Father, could have called Himself by so many names, but He chose, from the lips of Jesus, to be called Father . God is the greatest Father that there is, and to know Him does nothing but bless us our entire life.  When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, God came down in the cool of the day to fellowship with His man and woman. God longs for us, and desires intimate times with us.  Just like any good earthly father lo...

Romans 3:23-24 (NKJV) …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Many people read verse 23, and never read before and after it.  The Apostle Paul is showing that all people under Adam have sinned and cannot ever have what God has for them, which is His glory.  But verse 24 shows us that we are freely justified by His undeserved grace, and that He has given us our redemption in Christ Jesus. Again, it is not something I am trying to earn.  God saw that we were fallen and without hope, and He gave us Jesus, Who became our substitute.  He took our place so that God, my Father, can now see us justified, or just as if I had never sinned. I am always amazed at what Jesus did for us at the cross.  Through His work at Calvary, He is now seated at the right hand of God, I have been made His very righteousness, and I am accepted in the Beloved! ...

Isaiah 54:13 (NKJV) All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. When we take time to teach our children about the things of God, and that God is their personal Father, it will change them and bless them throughout their lives.  They may be our kids, but truthfully, they are God’s kids, and we get such a short time to help introduce them to their real Father. I have found that when we talk about God in the morning during breakfast, or pray with them before they go to sleep, or even when we are on a trip and we say things like, “Wow! Look at that sunset that God, your Father, made!” or “Look at that mountain that your Father made just for you! You must be really special to Him!” it instills within them who their real Father is, and it brings such peace into their little hearts.  As they grow, their personal relationship with their heavenly Father will get dearer and dearer to them. So take today’s verse, and also...

Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV) You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3 (AMP) You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You. Perfect peace is so hard to even imagine in this world that we live in, yet here is a promise from the Word of God to help us.  The world offers a very selfish peace, but God’s peace is perfect. There are times that we need to just stop, take a deep breath, and say, “Father, I need you, and I need this perfect peace that you promised in this verse.”  The key to this verse is being a doer of it, and the way you become a doer of it is to have your mind stayed on Him.  That is the condition to living in perfect peace. Too many times, we are listening to the cares of this world and all that is going on around us, but what w...

1 John 5:21 (NKJV) Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Many times when we think of idols, we think of a statue, or some wooden object that people worship.  The Amplified version of this verse really shows us what the Apostle John was talking about when he used the word idol.  Check it out: 1 John 5:21 (AMP) Little children, keep yourselves from idols (false gods)—[from anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due to God, from any sort of substitute for Him that would take first place in your life]. Amen (so let it be). That gives a much clearer picture of the word idol, right?  It is anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart that is due to God, or any sort of substitute for Him that would take first place in your life.  That means anything ! When things start pulling you away from God, and it can even be good things, it is time for you to pull away from those things.  Everyt...

1 Kings 2:2 (NKJV) I go the way of all the earth; be strong, therefore, and prove yourself a man. Psalm 23:4 (NKJV) Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. Unless the Lord Jesus returns in our lifetime, each and every one of us will die one day.   As born-again Christians, we should not fear this, but know that He will be there to meet us. King David was about to die, and He said, “I go the way of all the earth.”  We know that because of the sin of Adam and Eve, it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment.  As we see in David’s writings in Psalm 23, even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why is that? Because HE IS WITH US!  He promised us that He would never leave us or forsake us, even unto the end of the age.  So we can see that if He would not leave us in this life, He is definit...