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Looking Higher

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Psalm 121 I’m not sold on it yet, but Psalm 121 has me considering putting up a billboard for my church. I’ve thought about it for weeks as I travel over the highest point in town. When you reach our bridge, two digital billboards rise into view and grab your attention. I’ve wondered whether displaying an invitation on one of them would be worthwhile. After all, as you climb the bridge, you have to look up to see them. Why not see a message from our church? That may connect with one reading of this well-known psalm of ascent. The joyful traveler is making the uphill journey toward the sanctuary of God. Along the way, he sees the surrounding hills. Some may have held rival places of worship, each offering its own god, its own promise, and its own invitation. So, the traveler looks at the hills and asks, “From where will my help come?” Then comes his answer: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” The hills may advertise ...
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Check Your Inbox

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Check Your Inbox September 4, 2026 Romans 10:15-21 I have an old backup email account that’s mostly subscriptions. There are newsletters, promotions, updates, and who knows what else I signed up for twenty years ago--it's a Hotmail account, after all. Thousands of emails can pile up. For the longest time, I would scan through them before deleting anything. Because what if I missed something? Only recently did I decide it wasn’t worth it. Now, I select them all and hit delete. Every one of those emails was delivered. But delivered doesn’t mean read. I wonder how often that’s true of what God is trying to tell me. In Romans 10, Paul asks, “have they not heard?” His answer is yes, God's good news had gone out. But hearing isn’t the same as listening. You can hear something and not really hear it. Not really receive it. You know that. You can sit through a sermon, sing a hymn, hear the same nudging from God again and again, and still men...

Quit Pro Quo

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional 2 Corinthians 12:14-18 “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours" sounds friendly enough. Helpful, even. You do something for me, and I’ll return the favor. There’s even a familiar Latin phrase for it: quid pro quo. This for that. But if we’re not careful, “this for that” can become the math we use for relationships. I helped you, so you should help me. I showed up for you, so you should show up for me. I gave, so eventually you should give something back. Paul wants nothing to do with that kind of relationship with the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 12, he tells them, “I do not want what is yours but you.” Then he uses the parent-child relationship as an example. “Children ought not to lay up for their parents, but parents for their children.” Paul’s not saying children never give anything to their parents. He's describing the direction of mature love. Mature love asks, “What can I give?” before it asks, “What am I getting?” Tha...

Plant Another Tree

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Matthew 13:1-9 This weekend, we traveled to Corpus Christi to celebrate our son’s birthday. Well, that was the official reason. The real reason was to get our hands on our newborn granddaughter. Knowing I’d spend the day with our kids and then drive four-plus hours home, I needed to make time for some reading. So I woke up early Saturday and went downstairs to the hotel lobby. There was only one other person there. Breakfast was still being set up. And the Weather Channel was the background noise. I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard something that sounded familiar. I was reading about innovation in the church. One of the images was nurturing saplings. That is, planting something new, tending it carefully, and giving it room to become what it might become. At almost that exact moment, an apple farmer appeared on television. He explained that some trees produce more fruit than others. The same orchard can receive the same rain, su...

When the Bible Bothers You

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional When the Bible Bothers You September 1, 2026 2 Samuel 12:7-15 I've read dozens of commentaries and articles based on 2 Samuel 12:15. None of them satisfy me. Not that the Bible has to prove anything to you or me. But it is our sacred text, and there are stories within it that I know trouble me. Most people remember that King David created for himself a web of adultery, murder, and cover-up. God responds by sending the prophet Nathan to confront David. David hears what the prophet says and repents. But, as a consequence of "utterly" scorning the Lord, the text says, "the Lord struck the child..." that Bathsheba had. Again, I've read many words that seek to resolve the tension we probably all feel when we read that. Some talk about that child being spared from living in David's family. Others assert that life and death are in God's hands. Does this passage connect to the practice of child sacrifice? Nothing ...

It's Not Rocket Science

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Revelation 3:1-6 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to remind myself, “It’s not rocket science." Have you ever made a mountain out of a molehill? John Foxe used the “mountains out of molehills” language in 1570 when he warned about our tendency to make small things too big. Interestingly, he also warned that we can do the opposite: make big things too small. Apparently, we’ve been getting the size of our problems wrong for a while. And maybe that’s part of the problem in Revelation 3. Jesus sends a simple message to the church in Sardis: “Wake up, and strengthen what remains.” Then he says something even simpler: “obey it and repent.” Sardis had a reputation for being alive. Apparently, you could look at the church from the outside and think things were going great. But Jesus saw something different. “You are dead.” I wonder if they were surprised to hear that. Churches can get pretty good at looking alive. We can have programs, c...

Another Round of Memes August 2026

There's no rhyme or reason to how I create memes. When I'm paying attention and think of something, I make something quickly BEFORE I FORGET IT! So, don't look for order here. Just laughs.  Stay blessed...john