God's Promises: Yes in Christ"

Good morning, and a blessed Thursday morning to you.

For our time in God’s Word today—here in 2026—the days of this new year are still fresh, aren’t they? A new year brings with it a whole host of possibilities. And along with that, there can also be an anxiousness as we wonder what the days of 2026 will look like. How do we navigate our way through whatever may come?

Because of that, I would like us to look at a promise of God—a promise we can cling to and hold onto all ye

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"Grace and Peace in Abundance"

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you as we share this time of devotion together. This morning in God’s Word, I want to share one of the sweetest introductions to a letter found in Scripture. It comes at the very beginning of Peter’s second letter, where—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—he writes to those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

That is who he is addressing: those who hav

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"A New Year in Christ"

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you—and a blessed 2026 as well. Happy New Year! What a glorious way to begin the year together, devoted to the Lord and gathered in God’s Word. What a joy it is to share God’s Word with you at the very start of this new year.

I want to keep our devotion fairly short today and look at a couple of verses from the Book of Hebrews. If you would, please turn with me to Hebrews, chapter 13. These verses give us a centered focus for the

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"The Right Focus for Advent"

Good morning and a most blessed Thursday to you. I want to share with you a prayer that was in one of my devotional readings last week. This is a prayer by Robert D. Hershey. He writes or prays:

"Not that many shopping days till Christmas. That, dear God, is bad news. It is not just the shopping, but everything else too: getting presents, buying cards, writing, mailing, baking meals, parties. Can it be, Lord, that I'm working on the wrong things? Help me to concentrate on t

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"Pointing to the Messiah"

Good morning, and a blessed Thursday to you. Please open your Bibles to Luke, chapter 3 for our time in God’s Word today.

When I was on my internship, my supervising pastor, Pastor Gravrock, and I went out to lunch one day at a local pizza place. It was a good lunch, and as we were leaving, Pastor Gravrock went through the doors first. I was just a few steps behind him. The doors were clear glass, and as he stepped outside, we suddenly heard a shrill cry of joy from a child

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"The God Who is Just"

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you. In our devotion time together this morning in God’s Word, we’re going to look at two different verses, each through the lens of two different meanings of one word: just.

When you look up just in the dictionary, you’ll find both an adjective form and an adverb form. We’ll begin with the adjective.

When we describe something or someone as just, we mean guided by truth, reason, and fairness—something that is right, lawful, prope

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"The Creed that Unites Us"

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you in our time of devotion.

This morning I want to share with you an incredible reading that recently came up in one of my devotional books. It’s a beautiful and profound reflection on the Apostles’ Creed, written by a man named John Ross, who was born in 1919. I don’t know if he is still with us on this side of heaven or now in the presence of Jesus, but he wrote this beautiful piece on the Creed that I’d like to share with you

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"Trusting the Lord to Provide"

Good morning, and a blessed Thursday morning to you. Would you please open your Bibles to Luke, the 21st chapter—Luke chapter 21—for our time in God’s Word today.

One of the great hymns that we sing is Take My Life. Beautiful, beautiful lyrics: Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. When you look at the various verses in that hymn, this life wholly consecrated to the Lord touches so many areas—it affects our life, our moments, our hands, our feet, our voice,

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"Everyday is Precious"

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you.

I was visiting my mom in North Carolina, and on my flight home, it turned out to be what’s known as an honor flight. At first, I didn’t quite understand what was happening. Then I looked up at my gate and saw a line of military personnel—some in fatigues, others in their dress uniforms.

An announcement was made that a ceremony would soon take place. As it began, they explained that this was an honor flight home for a fallen p

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"Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Word Alone"

Good morning, and a blessed Thursday to you.

Would you please open your Bibles to Ephesians, chapter two?

For our time in God’s Word today—this Sunday is a wonderful day in the life of the Church. It’s Reformation Sunday, when we remember how God used Martin Luther to call the Church back to the truth of God’s Word. It’s also Confirmation Sunday—a great, great day of celebration.

As we think about Martin Luther, we remember that he really struggled. He wrestled deeply with on

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"Many Moments of Change"

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you.

An interesting phrase came up in our Wednesday Night Alive small group on “Families in Faith.” The group focuses on parenting through a Biblical lens, but this phrase really rings true not only for parents with their children, but also for all of us as children of God the Father.

The phrase is: “Committing to many, many moments of change.”

What does that mean? It means finding small pockets of time to build relationships—to sh

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"The Yearning Love of God"

Good morning, and a blessed Thursday to you.

I want to start off with a little pop quiz? Are you ready? What is the longest book in the Bible—the book with the most words? If you said Jeremiah, you are correct. The book of Jeremiah contains more words than any other book of the Bible.

Please open with me to the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 20.

Jeremiah is often called the weeping prophet. What broke the heart of God also broke the heart of Jeremiah. In the first 29 cha

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"Good Stewards of God's Grace"

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you.

In many of our Bibles, we find small headings above chapters or sections. Recently, as I was reading, one heading especially caught my attention. It was above 1 Peter, chapter 4, and it read: “Good Stewards of God’s Grace.”

That phrase made me stop and think—what does it mean to steward God’s grace? We know we receive grace as a gift from God, but how do we then live as its caretakers?

Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:1: “Since there

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"A New Name"

Good morning, and a blessed Thursday to you. Would you please open your Bibles to Revelation, chapter two for our time in God’s Word:. Sometimes the name of an actor is not the name they were given at birth. In other words, they change their name.

Here’s a name for you: Archibald Leech. That was his given name at birth, but we know him as Cary Grant.

Or how about this one: Eric Bishop. Did you know that’s the birth name of Jamie Foxx?

And this one: Karen Johnson. We know her

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"Parable of the Prodigal Son" Part 2

Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you.

Today we continue with part two of our devotion on the parable Jesus shared in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15—the parable of the prodigal son and his brother. We’re going to revisit what we read last week and then move forward with the rest of the parable.

So let’s open our Bibles to Luke 15, beginning in verse 11:

Then Jesus said, *“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the

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