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Growing Old and Growing Up

  Listen to today’s devotional Psalm 90:1-8; 12 If you can believe it, my family and I once visited a church with a sign that read, “Children Not Allowed.” Worship had already begun, and we were looking for a place to sit. The church had several entrances to the sanctuary. That sign greeted us at the first door we chose. Now, I’m sure there was a service for children somewhere. Maybe keeping the sanctuary quiet was important to their production. But when we saw the sign, my wife and I looked at each other and left. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. During a Sunday message, I mentioned how important it is for all of us to worship together, especially our children. A young boy immediately began shaking his head no. Apparently, he had a different opinion. His head had been down. He looked like he was writing or coloring. You might have thought he wasn’t paying attention. But when he shook his head, he helped prove my point. We don’t always know what someone is hearing or what will stay...
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Looking for Faces

  Listen to today’s devotional Psalm 123 I always thought I was a weird kid. Everyone talked about seeing shapes in the clouds. But nobody talked about seeing faces everywhere else. Coffee stains, tile designs, shadows, car parts. You name it, and I could probably find a face looking back at me. Imagine my surprise when, a few years ago, I discovered online groups like Things With Faces and Faces in Places . There are other weird people like me! People post pictures and ask whether everyone else sees the face they see. Personally, it’s as fun as looking for dinosaurs in the clouds. Someone once joked in a comment, “This group has ruined me. Now I can’t stop looking for faces everywhere.” What we practice looking for shapes what we learn to notice. Psalm 123 gives our eyes somewhere to go. One of the Songs of Ascents, associated with the journey to worship in Jerusalem, it offers this prayer: “Our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy.” When there is turmoil arou...
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What a Relief!

  Listen to today’s devotional Jeremiah 31:31-34 Two lessons from a preaching class helped me be a better preacher. One was about brevity. The other was about knowing how unoriginal I am--remember, I'm just just Another John. My professor taught me I would never preach anything that hasn't already been preached in 2,000 years of preaching. What a relief! I had spent plenty of time wondering how to make a message "pop." I would look for movements in the text that, surely, no one else had ever noticed. Then my listeners would think, "I've never heard anything like that before." But realizing I was just another Jesus-loving preacher in a long line of others freed me to truly listen and let God's Spirit open my eyes to what was most important. You may not be a preacher, but you may know the pressure to make something happen. When it comes to faith, the idea is we need to pray harder, do more, or find the right words. As a result, we treat God's mercy...
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Tell Me Something Good

  Listen to today’s devotional Tell Me Something Good November 10, 2026 1 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Our youth group was hosting a free car wash when two people approached us without a car to wash. They wanted to know what we were doing and why. They attended a nearby church, and when they learned I was a pastor, one said, “Pastor, tell me something good.” No Bible study or sermon. Just a good word. I should’ve told them to sign up for my daily devotional or text messages. Instead, I told them what God was doing through our youth group. I shared the growth I was seeing in our young people. I got to brag on God. And these visitors got to hear how God’s Spirit was moving among their neighbors. That’s the blessing of a testimony. We get to share the joy of what God is doing. In 1 Thessalonians 3, Timothy returns with good news about the Thessalonians’ faith and love. Paul receives that news in the middle of distress and affliction. And their faithfulness encourages him so deeply that he wri...
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Fluent in Church

  Listen to today’s devotional 1 Corinthians 14:20-25 Imagine leaving worship having heard everything you wanted and missing someone who needed to hear from God. That's a part of what Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 14. In this chapter, he discusses prophecy and speaking in tongues and then tells the church to grow up. “Be infants in evil,” he says, “but in thinking be adults.” It almost sounds like he interrupted himself. But he is actually getting to what matters most. The Corinthians had spiritual gifts. What they didn't have was the maturity to consider whom those gifts were helping. Paul asks them to imagine someone walking into their gathering. What would that person encounter? Confusion? A roomful of people speaking past one another? Or something that reaches their heart and helps them realize that God is here? The whole talk about prophecy and speaking in tongues might confuse a lot of us. But it's a conversation that helps us consider whose experience we take into ...
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What We Already Know

  Listen to today’s devotional Amos 3:1-8 I don't remember what it's like to drive a car without a check engine light on. But when it's on for so long, there shouldn't be too much of a surprise when the car finally stops. There's no sense wondering, "Why is this happening to me?" when there's probably an answer under the hood that I’ve tried to ignore. To be sure, there are things we cannot explain about our life and the world around us. Grief and hardships, for example, should not always be so easily interpreted. But sometimes, when we say, “I don’t understand," we really mean something like, “I don’t want to admit it.” Amos 3 starts asking questions. Does a lion roar without a reason? Does a bird fall into a trap when there isn’t one? His questions build toward something his people probably don't want to hear. That what’s happening has something to do with how they’ve been living. Israel has mistaken being chosen for being excused. But God r...
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Amos Ruins Dinner

  Listen to today’s devotional Amos 1:1 You know how you can be halfway through a really good meal, and then somebody says something that makes you put your fork down? Amos would’ve been that guy. Amos 1:1 introduces him as one of the shepherds of Tekoa. I like that we learn what he did for a living before we hear what he had to say. Later, when a priest tells him to go preach somewhere else, Amos tells him where God found him in the first place. He was out with the flock. I imagine there is a lot to learn out there. Lessons about which sheep need your attention the most. Noticing the needs of an entire flock. A few chapters later, Amos talks about people stretched out on couches, eating lamb and drinking wine. And I keep thinking about the lamb. Somebody raised it. Somebody like Amos got up and went out to check on it even at the most inconvenient times. That's what shepherds do. I wonder how much of that kind of work ever crossed anybody’s mind over dinner. What gets Amos going i...
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