November 10, 2026

James 5: 20 (NIV)

Remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Do heroes know when they are heroic? Rarely.*

I have never saved another person’s life but I am sure that it is an exhilarating experience. Those who do it on a daily basis – firefighters, EMTs, medical professionals – truly are heroes. But behind each one of these lifesavers we find support personnel without whom they could not perform their valiant deeds. File clerks, dispatchers, janitors, mechanics – all provide an invaluable contribution back-stage.

Never won anyone to the Lord? Never turned a sinner from the error of his ways? Are you sure about that? If you are the parent of adults who are faithfully serving the Lord, you are a successful soul-winner. If you have ever prayed for someone until she finally gave her life to the Lord, you have made an invaluable contribution to the salvation of that soul. Do you have some “little” task that you perform at your church, enabling your preacher to concentrate on his job? Have you ever encouraged someone who was out there in the trenches with the lost souls? Do you regularly provide financial support to a missionary family?

According to Paul in I Corinthians, chapter 3, we are only servants through whom others come to believe. God has assigned to each of us our tasks, he says. Paul uses himself and his friend Apollos as an example of the teamwork required to fulfill our mission. Paul says he planted, Apollos watered, but God made the garden grow. We may not all do the same job but we have the same purpose.

Whether we perform our soul-saving in public or behind the scenes, “we are God’s fellow workers” (I Corinthians 3: 9), and we are instrumental in turning sinners from the error of their ways. 

When the church pulls together in God’s intended direction, great things are accomplished.*

November 9, 2026

Mark 16: 1-4 (NIV)

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so that they might go anoint Jesus’ body. . . . [O]n their way to the tomb . . . they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone . . . had been rolled away.

Difficulties and obstacles are God’s challenges to our faith.*

I see a good news/bad news scenario in this passage. The bad news: the women were worried that the stone blocking the entrance to Jesus’ tomb would prevent them from accomplishing their task. Worry is always bad news. The good news: in spite of their worries and in spite of not knowing how it was all going to work out, they proceeded with their mission. Going forth in faith is always good news.

Jesus spoke often about the perils and pitfalls of worry (as did Paul and Peter); he also mentioned that faith could move mountains. Like the women in these verses, we worry too much about those big obstacles that we can’t possibly move on our own. We can’t worry enough to budge those heavy obstructions. If we know we can’t move them, why can’t we trust God to move them for us?

What does that kind of trust in God look like? It looks like the women in our story – minus the worry. We demonstrate our faith by going forth in faith, equipped for the mission with the physical tools we need and the faith that God will roll the stone away – or send an angel to do it for us. 

We can either look at the circumstances surrounding us or we can see Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.*

November 8, 2026

Matthew 11: 5 (NIV)

“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”

His ministry with them [the poor] was never just about material provisions or the healing.*

John the Baptist was in prison but he was not out of touch with his disciples. When news about Jesus reached him, John sent his disciples to gather information. They were to ask Jesus if he was “the one who was to come” or if they should keep looking for the Messiah.  This verse contains Jesus’ reply to their inquiry. Jesus told John’s disciples to report what he was doing – and then left John to form his own conclusions, it seems.

Jesus was restoring sight to the blind, healing the infirmities of the crippled, curing leprosy, causing the deaf to hear, raising the dead, and making the poor rich . . . wait, what? No, he didn’t say anything about eliminating poverty. He just preached the good news to the poor. Based on other scripture passages, we might speculate why solving the problems of the poor wasn’t included in Jesus’ marketing strategy - but not today. Today we will look at Jesus’ ministry to the poor.

In Jewish society of the day, no one would have expected the Messiah to stoop to minister to the poor. Apparently, it was believed that they were to blame for their condition and they deserved what they got. Jesus changed the way we look at the poor – and at anyone whose life choices have led to poverty of any type.

Jesus performed miracles among the people who needed them most as a sign to all people. Not everyone needs to be healed of a physical disability; not everyone is poor. But everyone needs to hear the message of Jesus. His miracles were part of a carefully crafted plan to get people to listen to his words of life. As someone else observed, he “restored sight to many blind people but not to every blind person he encountered. He healed many lepers but not every leper in Israel. He did his Father’s will.”*

Who is poor? Not just those who lack material possessions and money but anyone who hasn’t heard the good news. Jesus is no longer walking the earth as a man who performs miracles, but his message is still good news and, in his final words to us, he commanded us to preach it.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy 

this kind of poverty.*

November 7, 2026

Ephesians 6: 10 (NIV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

The more we progress, the less we are self-sufficient.*

My first reaction when I read this verse is to think that I somehow have to dredge up some strength from within myself in order to be strong in the Lord. Wrong. That kind of thinking just sets the stage for frustration and failure. When you continue reading the next few verses you will see that Paul doesn’t expect the strength to come from within ourselves.

Strength? The belt of truth; the breastplate of righteousness; the shield of faith; and the helmet of salvation – they can hardly be described as implements of self-defense. Basically, they allow us to hunker down under their protection. Our one weapon – the sword of the Spirit – is the word of God. That’s where our strength comes from. Our sword allows us to defend ourselves, while it can also be used to attack our enemy.

The next time you’re not feeling so strong in the Lord, pick up you sword. Learn how to wield it in his mighty power!

Memorized Scripture is an effective weapon against sin.*

November 6, 2026

Ephesians 1: 16 (NIV)

I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

Our love and compassion grow along with our faith when we come before God on behalf of others.*

In the movie, Once Upon a Crime, one of the characters is a handsome but sleazy fellow who lives off of rich old women. The plot of the movie involves the murder of his current benefactor. At the end, when the mystery has been solved, we find our parasite sitting on the deck of a yacht with his latest prey. The camera pans to a close-up of his face and for a second he seems to look slightly ashamed that the audience has caught him in the act. Then he shrugs and says in his defense, “It’s what I do.”

Paul might say that giving thanks for the saints at Ephesus, and remembering them in his prayers, is “what I do.” Like the character in the movie, Paul has chosen the behavior by which he will define himself. In all his letters, Paul professes that he prays for and/or thanks God for those to whom the letter is addressed. If Paul, with his somewhat erratic lifestyle, found time to pray daily for everyone that he claimed to pray for daily, then it must be a pretty important activity. He might have made excuses – after all, he traveled and preached, fled from angry mobs, spent time in prison and on desert islands – but for all his other heroics, Paul was a prayer warrior.

We all have someone in our lives who needs prayer. Like Paul, we should determine to make intercessory prayer a daily priority. I don’t know how Paul kept up with his “prayer list” but we should easily be able to maintain a list of those for whom we will pray daily. It would be awesome if praying for others became such an ingrained habit that we could proudly say, “It’s what I do.”

We are really doing our business when we are praying for our friends.*

November 5, 2026

Luke 7: 44 (NIV)

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?”

[Read 7: 36-50 for the whole story.]

Christian love is not blind!*

For 25 years I worked in an office where the staff was always composed of more women than men. At one point, we had one lone male working with us – and he was only part-time. As long as he was doing his job, we treated him like he was invisible. He was exposed to sights and sounds that no man should ever have to witness. Women talk about everything – and sometimes we resort to some Show & Tell in order to get our point across.

My co-worker is not the only invisible man in the world. It’s not that we simply ignore these people – we really don’t see them. Simon, in this passage, didn’t see a person – he saw a problem. A nuisance.* A homeless person standing on the corner with his “Will Work for Food” sign: do you see him as a human with feelings and needs? That woman who is not quite right in the head – don’t make eye contact with her or you might have to talk to her.

My church has opened its doors (and eyes) to the invisible people.  Our congregation meets physical and spiritual needs in several different ways, one of which is breakfast and a sermon  every Sunday morning. It is an avenue of ministry for a lot of our church members but it touches all of us – in unexpected ways. Even those of us not directly involved in the ministry are forced to see these invisible people because many of them don’t stay contained in their “assigned” area. Some of them want to worship with the rest of the congregation. Many of them are mentally challenged in one way or another and they don’t understand boundaries.

Every week, we are presented with opportunities to love as Jesus loves – in so many socially awkward encounters. How would Jesus treat Randy if he saw him sleeping on the church lawn? Would Jesus turn away from someone who hasn’t bathed in months? What would Jesus say to the young man who often misdirected visitors because he led them to believe he was on the church staff? How should we talk to the drunks and drug addicts, the prostitutes, and the crazies who hear voices?

When Jesus was finished with him, Simon finally saw the woman. Whether it changed his life or not, we don’t know. But when we begin to see the invisible people as souls for whom Jesus died, we cannot stay the same. We will have to start pretending that we still don’t see them, or we will have to ask ourselves, What would Jesus do?

Poverty has real faces and real names.*

November 4, 2026

Hebrews 2: 8 (NIV)

In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.

The church is not a nation, and as grateful as I am for our Christian heritage, America is not the promised land.*

It's the day after mid-term elections and God is still on his throne. He has not abandoned his position of authority, no matter who won. At this point, we have "projected" winners, and people on both sides are wondering what hope there is for our country if their candidates didn't win.

While I accept that God has not abdicated his throne, it seems like someone else is in charge of the world right now. My outlook is not new or unique. The writer of this verse in Hebrews reminds us – from long ago – that right now we cannot see that everything is subject to God. But it is.

Another reminder that we American Christians need is this: The USA is not God’s chosen nation. As blessed as we have been, this country is not the center of God’s plan to save the world. He sent his Son to the whole world and his people are commanded to make sure the world knows about him. Patriotism is an honorable pursuit but evangelizing should always be our first priority.

I will continue to pray that God will bless America. Our freedom as a nation allows us to freely spread the gospel. But if we don’t use it, we might just lose it.

From the very beginning Christianity – whose founder, after all, the state executed – has lived in tension with government.*