Posts with the category “daily-devotionals”

For anyone that has ever been in AWANA this verse should sound very familiar. This is AWANA’s theme verse and where it derives its name, which is an acronym for: Approved Workers Are Not Ashamed.Growi...  Read More

This last Sunday I preached from 2 Timothy 1:3-7, reminding us all about: “Rekindling Your Fire for Ministry.”The second half of the message spent a lot of time on spiritual leadership with regards to...  Read More

Throughout high school and college, I took several communications, speech, and writing classes. I figured they were things I already enjoyed doing, so taking a class on them would not only meet a requ...  Read More

Having substantial reason to be afraid of what surrounds us is not new. Perhaps it’s been a while since you read the story of King Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20-21. He wakes up one morning surrounded...  Read More

I have a multitude of pictures in albums, and on the walls of my home. I treasure these collections.  They represent memories; snap shots of important events, people, vacations. A few years ago, we ha...  Read More

Sitting in my living room, I hear the sound of a helicopter flying over my house. It’s heading to the Sierra National Forest to drop water on the Creek Fire where 220,000 acres have been burned and 63...  Read More

As the children of Israel set up house in their new land they continued to be influenced by the people around them and gave into their own sin natures. Each time God would bring hardship on them, luri...  Read More

Dark, smoke-filed skies, isolation weighing on nearly every heart…and yet the Lord still speaks. But what is He saying to you now? Do you know? Is your heart so clouded with ache you can’t tell what H...  Read More

Most of you know that Lynette and I live in the foothills about three miles south ofPrather on Auberry Road. Over this past week we have been under an evacuationwarning due to the Creek Fire. Living u...  Read More

We're all interested in the news nowadays, praying we hear something good. Most of the time we're proud to share the good news we have. Whether it's our children receiving an achievement, a new birth ...  Read More

My wife and I love to read. The natural consequence of this is that we have a lot of books. Having a lot of books means that we need a lot of shelf space to display them all and this is why our books ...  Read More

Jesus is coming back soon.Yes, I know, the world is falling apart.Jesus is coming back soon.Yes, I know that you’re scared and nervous and frightened.Jesus is coming back soon.Yes, I know that everyth...  Read More

Have you ever watched Grey's Anatomy? My wife Alexis loves that show and every time I watch it with her, one of the doctor's are always performing surgery on somebody. I've come to understand, a surge...  Read More

Do you remember what happened in Exodus 20:18-20? God has just given Moses the Ten Commandments. He then follows it up with thunder, lightning, sounds of trumpets, and a smoking mountain. It's quite a...  Read More

Several years ago someone close to me asked, "If I'm going to believe part of the Bible, I have to believe all of it, right?" It's such human nature to want to pick and choose what we believe in God's...  Read More

There are two mistakes we can make in the Christian life that are equally dangerous: we can be too hard on ourselves, or we can be too easy on ourselves.  The second mistake leads to a life of unrestr...  Read More

I’m sitting, watching the Pacific Ocean churn and swirl and crash. The air smells wonderfully of the sea! The sound is both soothing and rhythmic. This smell and sound reminds me of my childhood home ...  Read More

Daily our news reporters insist we have something more to worry about personally, locally, nationally and globally…physically, emotionally, financially, socially, and politically. It feels like an imp...  Read More

On a scale of 1-10, how “done” do you feel right now? Jeremiah was a prophet that God used significantly, and yet he had to walk through much challenge himself. As his faith walk turned heavy, he bega...  Read More

A while ago while I was reading a magazine on an airline, I noticed an add that said: “How to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking, Flying and Other Phobia in Minutes.” The article went on to boast t...  Read More

I have been thinking over the past few months about God's unique purpose for my life. These are difficult and changing times and I know that the new normal in our world is going to be very different w...  Read More

I keep waking up at 4:00am. (Don’t you hate when that happens? Ugh!) Around 4:00am is when I get hot at night, I wake up in a sweat, and soon turn the air conditioning lower. Then, I struggle falling ...  Read More

Shortly after I was medically discharged from the United States Marine Corps, a friend of mine, who I played volleyball with in high school, called me and asked me if I wanted to help him coach girls ...  Read More

In February of 2015 a single question took the internet by storm…“Is the dress blue and black and or white and gold?” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a picture… If you’re like me, you...  Read More

This verse comes in the middle of a passage, verse 12-17 describing the character of the “new person in Christ.” I would encourage you to read the whole passage a reminder of what our life should look...  Read More

It's one thing to know you should be walking in the statutes and ordinances of the Lord, desiring to do them. But it is another thing to actually do it when it goes contrary to what you really want or...  Read More

Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness three times, and each time the results were the same.  Jesus crushed the devil’s lies with the truth of Scripture.  If you go back and read Matthew 4:1-11, you’ll...  Read More

I remember the day I visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  Our guide first led us through the checkpoint. My thoughts were in a swirl, as I approached the steps leading up to the Mount. “This is rea...  Read More

Growing up I attended Hume Lake summer camp every year. There were lots of things I looked forward to when summer camp approached. I got to hang out with my friends for a week, play awesome recreation...  Read More

It was William Barclay who said,  “Christianity should be characterized by an open hand, an open heart and an open door.” How unlike the American mentality, where our homes are our castles, impregnabl...  Read More

We serve a great God. He is great in might, in power, in love, in wisdom; in every way we can imagine. Not only is God great, but His greatness is unsearchable. Unsearchable literally means “not capab...  Read More

Through the years of my ministry, I have seen how God has enabled me and others to serve Him. He has uniquely fashioned us to serve him in special ways. God is the One who puts within us the desire to...  Read More

Oh what to do with the “Red Letters” when they are contrary to how we feel. It’s true we spend so much time training ourselves to react to how we feel…but what about when the Savior of the World has d...  Read More

When I was in seminary I had an interesting side job to help me pay the bills. I worked for a company called Senior Felix and…among other things…they made what I still think is the best 7-layer dip on...  Read More

As I was reading through Genesis I was really impacted by the life of Joseph. Through each stage of Joseph's life you can look at the events through a miopic lens, only seeing his life from one situat...  Read More

We truly don’t know the long-term impact of the things that happen today. Every choice we make, every interaction we have, every conversation that takes place can have ripple effects that we couldn’t ...  Read More

My spiritual life is impacted in many ways. I’m impacted by time in the Bible, by time in prayer, by time talking with other brothers and sisters in Christ, and also by time spent in worship. I was re...  Read More

Right now, Pastor Wil and I are co-teaching the students a series about the questions and doubts that we all have at one time or another. In our most recent video, we talked about the fact that God do...  Read More

Right now, I’m reading through the four Gospels in a way that is called a “Harmony” of the Gospels. The idea is to take the four Gospel accounts and divide them up so that they are all compiled togeth...  Read More

Change is something that is completely normal. Every 12 month period that we call a year has some amount of change in it. We’re only 7 months into 2020 and we’ve seen tremendous change on a daily, som...  Read More