Pastor Tom's Daily Devotional

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NKJV) 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Here, we have three verses that have so much in them.  Let us take one each day for the next three days.  Verse 16 says, “Rejoice always.” Well, I do not know about you, but if you are living on planet earth and you are still breathing, to do this verse is not always easy.  To rejoice when things are not going our way, or when things are just going badly, is difficult.  Yet this verse tell us to do this, and one thing I have learned over the years is that if God gives us a word in the Bible to do, then He will give us the strength and power to do it. How do we rejoice always?  Well, I believe that we need to see the best in what is going on around us.  We need to be positive, and to know that even if the devil is bringing something against us, our Heavenly Father will get ...

Psalms 91:1 (NKJV) He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. There is no place like the secret place!  It is a place in Him; a place of His rest and His assurance.  It seems like we can never get there, but in this verse, it states that we can.  We can make a decision to get away from the rush of life, and dwell in His presence. I know that we do not always have those big God moments, but I have found that as I make decisions to get away and get with Him, those moments give me the strength to get through the hardest of times. When I talk about getting away, some might think that means I have to fast for 40 days, or go and live in a cave like a hermit.  No, sometimes that secret place can be on a pillow, or a walk, or even a drive.  Do not put restrictions on where God, your Father, can meet with you.  Remember, He is everywhere! This week, or even today when you lay down, talk to Him....

Nehemiah 8:10 (NKJV) Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength. The joy of our Father is our strength.  God wants us to be strong in Him.  True strength is not just muscle, or outward ability, but it is strength within us.  When we look at Samson, he had great strength on the outside, but inwardly he was very weak. As we look to the Word of God, we see that we can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us.  I want my life to be in His strength. Now, this is not to say that taking care of our physical man is not important; it is!  But what we do on the inside, what we do with our character, our true lives, is what is going to last.  So today, make a decision to put together a plan of action for what you can do every day to strengthen your inner man.  It might be to start each day with a devotional like this.  It might be to read a portion of the Bible every day.  It might be to have a quiet time with you...

John 15:15 (NKJV) No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. We used to sing a song that said, “I am a friend of God.”  A person who invited a friend to one of our services asked her friend how she liked the service.  She responded by saying that she had a problem with that song.  She did not think we could be friends with God. Now to me, that is what religion has done to us.  It says that we are so unworthy, and that there is no way that a holy God could be a friend with “worms” like us.  What I see is people who believe their feelings over what God has stated as fact in the Word. I can say over and over that I do not believe in gravity because I do not feel like it is true, but if I jump off a cliff I will see its effect.  The same way we believe in gravity and its effects on us, we believe that we...

Lamentations 3:22-23 (NKJV) Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. Today is a new day!  God, our Heavenly Father, has given us this day to be victorious through His Son, Jesus Christ.  We can look back at our yesterdays and say, “I made so many mistakes,” but this verse tells us that His mercies start new in the morning! So let your mistakes of yesterday be gone, and start a fresh new day!  God has given you this new day, so receive it as a gift from Him.  He wants the best for you, because He loves you and only has your best in mind. In this life, we are going to make mistakes.  We all do!  God, your Father, knows that.  That is the reason that He is giving you a fresh start each day.  Too many people hold onto the hang-ups of their yesterdays, and it keeps them in bondage today.  But that is not how God wants us to live....

1 Peter 5:7 (NKJV) Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 (AMP) Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. When we look at this verse from these two different translations, we get a bigger view of what God, our Heavenly Father, wants us to do with our anxieties, worries, cares, and concerns.  Here it is in one big sentence: Give them all to Him! Why is that?  Because He has much bigger shoulders than all of us put together.  Our bodies and minds were not made for the stress and anxieties of this world, and the Bible says that we are not of this world.  So let us do what the Word says: Cast all of our cares on Him, for He cares for us. What an amazing Father we have, Who loves us so much that He wants to take all of this, cast it away from us, and take care of it for us....

Hebrews 2:11 (NKJV) For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren. What an amazing fact that we receive from God’s Word, that Jesus would call us brothers!  Here we are talking about the King of the universe, and He calls us His brothers! They say that Alexander the Great, one of the greatest military persons of all time, would take his mighty soldiers and bring them up on a platform and tell everyone of their feats and then say, “This is the brother of Alexander.”  In everyone's eyes, this soldier was now close to their leader. Well, I do not know about you, but I am close with Jesus!  God is my Father, Jesus is my Brother, and the Holy Spirit is my Helper.  How can we lose?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  God, our Father, is on our side, and He wants us to win in life.  Do not get discouraged and say, “How am I going to get this don...

Proverbs 10:22 (NKJV) The blessing of the LORD makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. This is such a rich verse, right?  When God blesses, it makes us rich.  So what is rich?  Well, to the world, rich is having lots of money and lots of things.  We know from the scripture that money and things in themselves are not bad, but what they do to us can make them bad. So when we say, “God’s blessings make us rich,” I think we need to look beyond just earthly wealth and see the spiritual wealth that God, our Father, has for us while we live on this earth, and for all eternity.  To be blessed by God, to me, means having a close and intimate fellowship with Him.  It means to be blessed spiritually, mentally, and physically. For us to be well in heart, soul, and body is beyond the few things that this world can offer.  When I look at some very rich people, I would not want the life that they have.  Yet I look at others that have earthl...

Psalms 30:11 (NKJV) You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness... When we are going through those times that feel like we are in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, God has not left us!  His Word declares that He will never leave us or forsake us.  This verse brings out that God, our Heavenly Father, will turn our mourning into dancing.  Wow!  What a contrast: mourning to dancing. These two are on separate plains, yet this is what our Father says He will do.  He will take those times in our lives when we hurt and mourn within and give us such joy that we want to dance in His presence, and to enjoy Him and all that He is.  God is so full!  He is so great!  He is the One who will take our sackcloth away, and clothe us with His gladness. So today, if you are struggling with something and it seems like you cannot get the victory, hold on!  There is a dance coming your ...

Psalms 30:5 (NKJV) For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Have you ever had a time where there was such weeping in your heart?  Not necessarily physical pain, but pain of the heart?  Maybe somebody did you wrong, or something happened that hurt so badly you just about put yourself to bed with tears.  Or maybe it was a pain that you did not understand; something within you made you weep the night away.  It could have been tears in a prayer as you interceded, not knowing who or what you were praying for, but you knew that you could not, or you should not, let go. This verse is for you then, because there are times that we are in anguish of heart.  Words cannot describe what it is, but we need to weep, we need to pray, and we need to hold on.  Even if it is because someone did us wrong, and we struggle in those times.  We hurt within, yet God says when we...

Mark 16:17-18 (NKJV) And these signs will follow those who believe... 18....they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. God, our Father, has made provision for us in all areas.  God cares about our eternal well-being, and He cares about our life here on the earth.  Jesus came that we might have life, and that more abundantly. Healing is the children's bread, and it belongs to those who are in Christ Jesus. When we look at this verse, it says that the believing ones would lay hands on the sick and they will recover.  Many times, we miss it when we have hands laid on us and we do not see any change. But this verse says that they shall recover.  It might happen instantly, or it might happen in a while.  What we need to do is to hold on to the promise that we will recover. We are not to be moved by sight, but by faith in His Word, and as we hold on to his precious promises, they will come to pass.  There are times when holding on seem...