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  Titus 3:4-7 Listen to today's devotional Christmas is not just the celebration of a birth. It's certainly more than Jesus' birthday. It is the celebration of an appearance. Titus tells us, "When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared..." God stepped into our world, into flesh, and into history. Now, notice what Paul emphasizes: not because of righteous things we had done. That's how we win contests. When I was in middle school, I had the opportunity to meet Chuck Norris. He came to our school as a reward for our participation in his new karate program. And, somehow, our family even got a Christmas card from him! But Christmas confronts our instincts to try to earn our way to God. The manger reminds us that salvation begins not with our effort, but with God's mercy. Before we could ever clean ourselves up or figure everything out, God came near to us. Jesus arrives as love embodied. God's grace with skin on. Marcy wrapped in swaddling cloths...

  Isaiah 9:2-7 Listen to today's devotional I've been through many blackouts, and I think every time I eventually do the same thing. I'll walk into a room knowing the lights do not work. Still, I flip the switch, and for a split second I'm surprised when nothing happens. Some of that is muscle memory. That's what you do when you enter a room. You reach for the light because darkness isn't helpful. My body remembers the light, even when I know it's not there. I'd like to think that's something God can teach us to be: light expectators. That is, people who live with the expectation that God will shine. We aren't people who deny darkness. But we are people who refuse to believe it gets the final word. We are people who still reach out, still pray, and still show up, expecting God to act. Not because our conditions have improved, but because God has been faithful before. Of course, the switch isn't the source of light. Flipping it doesn't res...

This weekend, our oldest daughter married her best friend. It was a great day for both of our families. There was a packed church, a lot of smiles, and sore knees after dancing to too much Selena! Yes, I got a little choked up when I presented her during the ceremony. That’s my BGirl, after all. I want to always remember the joy and pride I felt this weekend. She wanted me to be Dad for the occasion. So, I got to take everything in. Of course, I know there’s a lot that can go into a wedding. But being on this side of the planning was hectic. I wasn’t dressed until 20 minutes before the ceremony! Everything went perfectly and as planned. What I will remember the most is why we had a December wedding to begin with. Originally, the date was set for March 2026. But our son is scheduled to leave for the military this weekend, and wouldn’t be able to make the March date. His big sister couldn’t have that. So, to make sure her brother was there for her wedding, she kicked everything into high...

  Galatians 3:6-9 Listen to today's devotional Faith is often misunderstood as only an agreement. We may think it's about believing the right things, checking the right theological boxes, or nodding along to truths we've heard our whole lives. But Paul reminds us in Galatians 3 that Abraham's faith was something far more lived than that. The text says that "Abraham believed God." That belief is revealed in the Bible not just in Abraham's thoughts, but also in his actions. Abraham trusted God enough to move. Enough to leave what was familiar to him. Enough to walk forward without a map, timeline, or proof that all would work out for him. His faith wasn't a certainty. It was a trust. And trust almost always involves risk. I'm sure most of us would prefer a faith that feels safer than that. When faith demands more of us than we expect, that's often when resistance begins. We want clarity before obedience and reassurance before surrender. We want G...

  Revelation 22:16-21 Listen to today's devotional Last night, our church hosted a service of the Longest Night. For several years, this has been one of the gatherings I look forward to most. It's a time to acknowledge our pain and need before God and one another, especially in the midst of a holiday season that can fly by. Of course, we all need healing and peace. But what I've observed is that this service is a gathering some of us need sometimes. So, guessing how many people will show up is impossible. Some years, more people feel like they need to be there. Others, not as much. This year, more than ever, I think, I needed to be there. I prepared everything for the service a week before, and was ready to lead. As the service began, everything went as planned. By design, it's a simple gathering. I do most of the talking, and we sing only a few verses throughout the entire time. This year, we sang "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Who knows how many times I've ...

  2 Samuel 7:18-22 Listen to today's devotional There's a lot happening during the holiday season. It's easy to be overwhelmed this time of the year. That's why I think I was drawn to David's prayer today. Notice what he does before he begins to pray. The text says he went and sat in the Lord's presence. Before he says or asks anything, he slows down just enough to be present. And isn't presence what we celebrate at Christmas? Then David says, "Who am I, Lord God, and what significance is my family, that you have brought me this far?" Now, that may sound strange or a bit like false humility. He's King David, after all. That's who you are! But that's just a reminder that no matter what our accomplishments are or what we've made of our lives, we are still creatures standing before God in need of grace. So, let's use his question to reflect on our lives. When we slow down enough to look back, we can see how much of our story is und...

  2 Samuel 7:1-5 Listen to today's devotional When everything slows down and we look around at the blessings we have, gratitude often wakes up our initiative. We feel blessed, secure, and at rest. When we do, something in us wants to do something for God in return. Now, that feeling isn't wrong. It's often a prompting of the Spirit. But it can also move us from thanksgiving to assumption. King David looked at his cedar palace and assumed that God must have wanted something similar, and he was the one who was meant to build it. The faith lesson isn't that he had bad intentions. Good intentions say, "This seems right." And, sometimes, that's the best way we know to move forward. But, when we learn to be still before God, another question emerges: "Has God actually asked for this?" That question matters because many of us stay busy for God because stillness feels unfaithful. Waiting can feel like wasted time. But Scripture reminds us that obedience ...

  Matthew 8:14-17 Listen to today's devotional This weekend, I'm going to become someone's in-law. So, today's reading has a little bit more connection for me. When Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, the story moves along quickly. Almost too quickly. He touches her hand, the fever leaves, and Matthew tells us, “She got up and began to serve him.” I remember reading that the first time and feeling a little bad for her. At first glance, it can sound like Jesus healed her so she could get back to work. But Matthew isn’t describing an obligation she had, but a restoration Jesus gave her. Before the fever hit, she had a role. She had a place everyone knew and loved. A way of loving others through hospitality. So, as she lay in bed with a fever, her illness didn’t just take her strength. It took away her ability to participate in the life of her household. When Jesus heals her, he doesn’t simply make her comfortable again. He gives her life back. Service here is not some burd...

  Jude 17-25 Listen to today's devotional Today, I'm reflecting on Jude's admonishment to "build each other up on the foundation of your most holy faith." It's got me thinking about the people I've known who have wanted to grow in faith, but didn't know how. Most of them have been new to faith in Jesus. They wondered what they were supposed to do. How were they supposed to grow something they knew next to nothing about? Of course, there are things I can do that grow my faith. I learn how to read and study scripture, pray, fast, and serve. Worship is another way to increase our sense of faith in God. And that's saying nothing about learning to be generous, more patient, or humble. Do those things with and for yourself.  But also understand that faith was never intended to be a solo venture. Notice Jude didn't say, "Build yourself up and move on." Instead, the call is to build each other up. That means our words, attitudes, and assumpti...

  Psalm 42:1-5 Listen to today's devotional Recently, I heard The Bible Project discuss a paradox reflected in Psalm 42. It's the idea that in God we have everything we need. God is enough. But as we seek God, we long for more. I know I want a strong faith. I want to feel that my faith in God is full, confident, and that in Christ I am satisfied. Psalm 42 opens with another equally important image. It's not one of fullness, but of thirst. The psalmist describes a deep longing for God, even though he already knows the Lord as his solid rock. That reminds me that our faith isn't a final resting place. It is an ongoing thirst for God. And that thirst is not a weakness, as if to imply you're lacking something. Only living things get thirsty. Living faith longs for more. Do you have a spiritual hunger? I'd be worried if I didn't. That hunger doesn't mean something is wrong. It means something is awake in you. There's an ache for God that doesn't show ...

  Psalm 146:5-10 Listen to today's devotional There's a kind of happiness the world can't give. As the song says, the world can't take it away from you either. Psalm 146 describes a happiness that doesn't depend on a perfect morning, an easy week, or everything going the way you planned. This happiness is a blessed assurance that you are held by God, who keeps faith forever. The psalm opens with praise and circles back to it at the end. It's like the psalmist knew how easily we can drift. We start with good intentions, but life has a way of distracting us. Our problems get loud. Our worries push their way to the forefront of our lives. Before we realize it, our trust has slipped into whatever feels most accessible right now. That's why the psalmist points us toward praise. Praise doesn't ignore reality; it helps us regain perspective. Praise reminds us of what stays true about God. We can see God again and realize that what frightens us doesn't frigh...

  Ruth 1:14-18 Listen to today's devotional The modern worship song many of us know, based on the line from Ruth 1, is about following where God leads. To be sure, that is an important idea to think about, how willing we are to follow where the Holy Spirit leads us. Sometimes, it's through the valleys and other times it's beside the still waters. But Ruth has something else in mind. In fact, Ruth would not have thought about following God the way we do. When Ruth makes her vow to Naomi, she is doing more than offering companionship. Listen again: Your people will be my people, and your God my God. She is stepping into Naomi's grief and letting it shape her own life. Ruth doesn't try to fix Naomi's pain, explain it away, or lighten it with easy, awkward words. Instead, she does something more powerful. She shares it. Think about the beauty of that kind of faithfulness toward another person. Scripture speaks of bearing one another's burdens, but this is a vivi...

  Matthew 12:33-37 Listen to today's devotional If talk is cheap, words must be a dime a dozen. But not according to Jesus. In one sense, the Lord reminds us there is accountability for the words we use. Do we use idle or useless words? Jesus has a word for that. In a world full of Twitter rants, comment sections, and hot takes, we'd do well to reflect more on what we say. Even throwaway comments can wound or heal long after we forget them. Now, Jesus isn't demanding flawlessness or perfect speech. But he is connecting our speech to relationship and faithfulness. Careless words reveal the deeper currents of our heart. When Jesus said we will have to answer for every useless word, he was speaking to a group of Pharisees. They had just said he was performing miracles by the authority of Beelzebul. In particular, he had just healed someone who was blind and unable to speak. Imagine the power of his words after meeting Jesus. And then the religious leaders use their words to di...

  Romans 15:14-18 Listen to today's devotional There's a personal pet peeve that our social media focused culture keeps in the forefront of how many of us are used to doing church. It's when churches use advertising to promote themselves. I don't mean when we announce our activities online or in print. I mean when we take what we've seen and heard from commercials and try to impress upon people how good we are. In a sense, we're trying to sell our church. I'm thinking about that today for a good reason. Romans 15:17 says, "So in Christ Jesus I brag about things that have to do with God." Now, we might assume everything we do as a church has to do with God. If only that would always be true. Many times, we're focused on what we want to do and how we want to do it. We may not even recognize how we're even focused on certain kind of people when we promote ourselves. As churches, maybe we can learn to be better reminder-ers than sellers. That i...

  Isaiah 24:1-3 Listen to today's devotional In Isaiah 24, the prophet paints a picture of the world being emptied out. Every part of life is impacted. It sounds dramatic because it's supposed to be. Anyone who has lived through loss, severe illness, conflict, or change knows what it feels like when the life you knew begins to crumble. Something happens that teaches us how little control we truly have. For the people Isaiah spoke to, this disruption would be felt by everyone. There would be no escaping the emptiness brought on by the people's failing to keep their covenant with God. But even that dramatic scene would not be the end of God's work. The devastation Isaiah envisioned was also an invitation. The prophet reminds us that there are things God longs to empty from us. There is our fear that keeps us from knowing the abundance of God. Our pride keeps us distant from God's grace. We have habits that dull our compassion and numb our awareness of God's presen...

  Isaiah 30:19-21 Listen to today's devotional An alarm this week reminded me of something personally meaningful. As of today, I have written 1,500 of these daily devotionals. Now, there are many other more thoughtful and wise preachers and thinkers who have written many more important things. But I'm grateful to have taken this opportunity to share these few minutes every day with you. These are a fruit of my daily reflection, prayer, and Bible reading. It is rare that I use anything from one of these writings as preparation for a weekly sermon or use a sermon to fill one of these daily thoughts. I will say, with as much writing as I have to do for school, don't be surprised if in the middle of a semester a few of them sound a little more academic than usual. I share this with you as a thank you for your reading, reflection, and encouragement. Another Note began as a daily devotional back in 2019. Not only did I want to try to share time with you, but I also wanted somethi...

  Psalm 51:10-12 Listen to today's devotional I had been reading and reflecting on the image of God's Spirit as breath. God breathed life into humanity. God's Spirit breathed new life in Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones. One of Job's friends said it this way: the breath of the Almighty gives me life (Job 33:4). And that idea is not just in the Old Testament. The Spirit is at work in the life of Jesus and fills the early church with power and renewal. That same Spirit is with us, too! Maybe that's why one word stood out to me during a recent men's Bible study. We were reflecting on Jesus' parable of the farmer who sowed seed in the field. Different obstacles kept three out of the four seeds from bearing fruit. Only one seed grew as the farmer would have wanted. The word that caught my attention was  choke . Jesus said the cares of the world choked some of the seed. And there's the tension of our life with God. God is always breathing life into us. Bu...

  Isaiah 54:1-3 Listen to today's devotional In a patriarchal society, barrenness carried deep shame, a failure to continue the husband's family name. It was also seen as a kind of divine punishment. Today, most of us don't think of barrenness in the same way. But that doesn't mean we haven't found new ways for shame to mark our lives, name us, and follow us around. You may not relate to the Bible's concept of barrenness, chances are, though, you know shame. In Isaiah 54, the barrenness of the people was their exile. It was their suffering, their displacement, and being cut off. As a pastor, I can tell you many of us feel like the things we go through are too embarrassing, too heavy, or too complicated to share. So, yes, we know shame well. That's why God's promise in Isaiah 54 remains such a beautiful reflection point. God told the people that their past humiliation would not define their future. At one point in the chapter, God says "You will forg...

  Psalm 124 Listen to today's devotional When we're in the hard moments, everything feels bigger than it really is. That doesn't mean what we're facing isn't real. It's just that our perspective about it is often skewed by the urgency of what's happening. Our worldview shrinks to the size of whatever's in front of us. That's why faithful hindsight is important. For many of us, it's after we've gone through it all that we are able to say that we were not abandoned. We may have been overwhelmed, but we were not left alone. That hindsight helps us reinterpret the stories we may have misread in the moment. Have you noticed how quick we are to usually focus on all that went wrong? Psalm 124 teaches us to pay attention to what didn't happen. The trap didn't hold us. The waters didn't sweep us away. Sometimes God's greatest mercies are the troubles we never had to face. And when the dust settles, God's deliverance becomes clearer...

  Genesis 8:6-12 Listen to today's devotional I'm not sure I've ever thought too much about Noah's raven. Most of us remember the dove and the olive leaf. After sending the dove out again, it never came back. That was the sign the great flood was over, for sure. But before that, Noah initially sent out a raven. Now, there's no consensus on why there are two birds in the story. That's often a part of Bible study. We don't get answers to every question. There is much we are left to reflect on and wonder about and muse over. Today, I'm reflecting on the idea that ravens are known to be scavengers. Maybe Noah expects the raven to return with a piece of carcass, suggesting where he was wasn't going to be a good place for him to live after leaving the ark. But a dove brings back an olive leaf. And that was a small enough sign of life. Ravens can live off what's dead. They hover over old losses and old wreckage. I wonder if we sometimes do the same. We ...