Pastor’s Blog
Daily Devotion March 12, 2025
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15, ESV).
Spring training has begun. The start of baseball season always brings to my mind a beloved memory. My son, Garrett, played one season for a team that had not won a single game. In the bottom half of the final inning, an opposing batter popped an easily catchable ball into short right field. The second baseman back peddled, signaled to his teammates that the play was his, and incredulously watched as the ball bounced off his glove and onto the ground. The opposing team scored and summarily won the game.
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Daily Devotion March 11, 2025
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7, NLT).
The Kombo Loi, or worry beads became popular during the middle part of the twentieth century. The origins of the Kombo Loi date back to the time when Grecian monks lived on Mount Athos. They began making strands of beads by tying knots on a string at regular intervals as they offered their prayers to God.
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Daily Devotion March 7, 2025
“The Lord gave these instructions to Moses: “Command the people of Israel to remove from the camp anyone who has a skin disease or a discharge, or who has become ceremonially unclean by touching a dead person” (Numbers 5:1-2, NLT).
This command is a foreign concept to many of us. The idea that a person can become “ceremonially unclean” as a consequence of a skin disease or by touching a corpse seems antiquated. Yet such was once a prevalent understanding within Judaism.
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Daily Devotion March 6, 2025
“He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So, it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other” (Matthew 12:9-13, NRSV).
I love the opening line of this Bible passage: “[Jesus] left that place and entered THEIR synagogue” (Matthew 12:9, NRSV). We’re not talking THE synagogue or even God’s synagogue. We’re talking their synagogue. From Matthew’s point of view, the ownership of who gets in and who doesn’t get into to their synagogue is up to the members of that synagogue.
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Daily Devotion March 5, 2025
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, NIV).
I am watching perseverance in action as I write. A squirrel has figured out how to navigate around the baffle I installed last night to the bird feeder. It took about thirty minutes and countless attempts. But the rodent finally scored it prize.
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Daily Devotion March 4, 2025
“But anyone who is alive in the world of the living has some hope; a live dog is better off than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4, GNT)
In 1972, Walter Mishel conducted an experiment with a large group of four and five-year-old children. Each child was given a binary choice to either eat a marsh mellow or wait fifteen minutes and receive a second marsh mellow. Follow-up studies on delayed gratification observed that the minority of children who held out for a second marsh mellow went on to enjoy better outcomes in life, to include better social skills, higher test scores, and healthier bodies.
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