November 14, 2026

John 10: 10 (NIV)

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

You have two choices. You can live for the moment and reap a shallow, temporary joy or you can live for God and reap a deeper, eternal joy.*

In this passage, Jesus contrasts his purpose with that of a thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus says that he came so that we could have life to the full – or more abundantly, as the King James Version puts it.  We are not surprised that Jesus came to usher us into eternal life but we might have overlooked his desire for us to live it up while we are earthbound.

It might be possible to live a Christian life and make it to heaven when you die without having lived an abundant life. Those of us who spend our lives in the free world can’t imagine anyone in the persecuted church having life to the full – but they might tell you something different. “Life to the full” by Jesus’ standards may not meet earthly qualifications for a rich, full life, but if you are living the life that Jesus wants for you, you have abundant life.

If your life lacks joy, perhaps you need to examine the choices you have made. Jesus doesn’t promise an easy life, but with or without him, life is hard.  If life is going to be hard anyway, why not get the most out of it by accepting the abundant life he offers? If he wants a better life for you, why don’t you?

The hardest life with him would be better and more meaningful than the best life without him.*

November 13, 2026

Psalm 141: 2 (NIV)

May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

Heart worship and spiritual joy render praise more glorious than vestments, incense, and music could do.*

What’s your favorite smell? Some of my favorites are vanilla, cinnamon, and evergreen (not something that supposedly smells like an evergreen forest but the real thing). And then there are the smells that bring back memories: freshly mowed grass reminds me of summer afternoons when I was growing up; the smell of popcorn puts me in a dark theater, anticipating the start of a good (hopefully!) movie. And let’s not even get started on the smell of bacon frying!

In this passage, David’s prayer about prayer refers to the burning of incense, which was an important component of worship in the Old Testament. God is spirit so he probably doesn’t actually have a sense of smell (who knows?), but the “fragrant fumes” of the incense represented the prayers of his people.*

What is God’s favorite aroma? Your prayers. Do you delight God with your sweet-scented prayers? Or do your prayers present a foul odor that causes him to wrinkle his nose in disgust? Perhaps God is sniffing around in hopes of catching a whiff of one of your infrequent prayers. When you pray, picture your praise and petitions going up as if in the scent-laden smoke of God’s favorite incense recipe. Imagine God’s smile of pleasure as he inhales. Who wouldn’t want to bring such joy to our heavenly Father?

When our prayers glorify Christ Jesus and seek the will of the Father, they are fragrant incense to the Lord.*

November 12, 2026

I Kings 19: 13-18 (NIV)

He [Elijah] pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came . . . Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel – all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”

We ultimately belong to a kingdom, not a congregation.*

This is Elijah’s third pity-party. First, he sat down and prayed to die. God sent an angel to feed him and send him to a safe place. From the safety of his cave, he whined that he was not getting the treatment he thought his zeal for the Lord deserved, so God gave him a breath-taking demonstration of how his presence is not in the wind, an earthquake, or fire, but in a gentle whisper. Not satisfied, Elijah whined again about being in danger and being all alone. God is less nurturing and dramatic this time. He just tells Elijah what he wants him to do when he goes back the way he came. But he also addresses Elijah’s complaint that he was the “only one left” of God’s prophets, assuring him that he is not alone. Elijah was one of 7,000 prophets remaining in the land!

I would hope that we are not guilty of being such cry-babies as Elijah was in this passage. On the other hand, how many of us have served God faithfully under the conditions that Elijah experienced? Perhaps that explains God’s patience with the whining. We may not face death for our faith, but every Christian in this world has probably felt alone – or at least outnumbered – upon occasion. But look around you on Sunday morning.  Whether you attend a small congregation or a large one, you are in the company of others who believe in and worship the same God as you. Every hour of the day on Sunday – and perhaps every other day as well – around the world, people are gathered with unity of purpose. Satan may have more numbers on his side but nowhere in the world do large groups of people assemble for the sole purpose of honoring and serving him.

Brothers and sisters, we are not alone. We are armed with the power of God’s Holy Spirit, and if we are united in our purpose, we are mighty. Satan is doomed.

Jesus calls us to engage the world in spiritual battle, not retreat from it in fear.*

November 11, 2026

Leviticus 26: 41, 42 (NIV)

“‘When their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant  . . . and I will remember the land.’”

The heart is the heart of the matter.*

In this passage, God speaks of uncircumcised hearts. Let’s be indelicate for a moment: the heart is not the body part upon which the ritual of circumcision was performed. It is interesting, though, that the condition of neither organ is obvious to the public. An outsider could not walk up to a Jewish man and know for sure that he had been properly circumcised. Likewise, the naked eye cannot discern the condition of a Christian’s heart. Circumcision, whether of the heart or otherwise, is for God’s eyes only.

The Jews had a secret pact with God and now so do we. And while it is true that the state of the heart is between us and God, there must be some outward sign of our covenant relationship with him. For the Jews, it was the law and its associated rituals that set them apart from the world. For Christians, it is our faithfulness to Christ’s example that tells the world that our hearts have undergone a secret, life-changing surgical procedure. It is not done without our permission and submission, but we are not saved by what we do but by what is done to us and for us.

While works do not justify us, they do identify us.*

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.*