Some 30 years before the above verse was penned, Paul found himself on the road to Damascus with letters in hand giving him the authority to arrest any who were “of the way,” to bring them to Jerusalem to be tried and maybe killed. As he went, “breathing threats and murders against the disciples of Christ,” he saw a bright light, fell to the ground, and heard a voice from heaven saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” That was the day that Paul was apprehended and Christ laid hold of him.

Paul writes here after walking with the Lord for years, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” You would think that if anyone could say, “I have arrived, I have paid my dues, I have come as far as I can go in my service to God,” it would be Paul. Yet he wasn’t satisfied with what the Lord had accomplished in him, he wanted to finish well, using the life that had been given to him to glorify the God who saved him. Paul knew that God had a plan for his life and he wasn’t finished until the Lord took him home.

Are you finished, have you arrived, or are you ready to “press on and lay hold of that for which Christ has also laid hold of you?” If so then let’s “forget those things that are behind and reach forward to those things that are ahead, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Pastor Doug Hardin

When Jesus told His disciples that He would be leaving them, their hearts became troubled. Jesus settles their troubled hearts by telling them that He was going to prepare a place for them in heaven. If your heart is feeling troubled, remember that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you. 

As Christians, our home is not in this world, it is at our Father’s house in heaven. We are sojourners in this life making our way home. When the cares of this world leave your heart troubled, remember that this place is not your home. Everyday we are getting closer and closer to our Father’s house. If that does not bring your heart joy, nothing will.

For the King,

Pastor Daniel Batistelli

I always found it interesting that when you read the prison epistles, Paul mentions how he is a prisoner of Christ. The magnitude of something like that didn’t really hit me until recently. When I have unfair things happen, all I can think is “why is this happening?” Paul did not view his imprisonment in that way. 

In Ephesians and the other epistles, Paul says he is a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of others. Not a prisoner of Rome, Caesar, the Jews, but of Christ! Imagine what a witness we could have today if we shared in this view as our circumstances become less than ideal. I am here because of the sovereign hand of my God to serve and love you. I pray that we can share in the same mind as Paul.

Resting in Him,

Pastor Sean Boehm

Growing up I always wanted to please my dad. I disobeyed him plenty, but I still constantly looked for his approval. How much more should we want to please and glorify our heavenly Father? We’re called to bear fruit but fruit is not something that is attached to the branch and fastened on the outside, but is pushed out from the inside and displays the health of the branch to the vine. Here’s a familiar list of spiritual fruit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

That’s the fruit that will get pushed out of our lives from the inside as we abide in Christ. So this fruit is having Christ-likeness in our character and affections as well as the works in which they are displayed. Bear that kind of fruit and people will say, “They have been with Jesus.” Then we can share with them how they too can glorify the Father.

To be pleasing to Him,

Pastor Gerard Deleeuw

As Paul was talking to the Ephesian elders, he used the above verse as a selling point to them. He did not fail in teaching the whole Bible to these church leaders. Paul realized the importance of knowing the entirety of Scripture and the effect it has on life.

Wherever you go to church, I hope it’s a place where the entire Bible is taught. If pastors teach through the Word, verse-by-verse, then you won’t be able to hear just the favorite pet scriptures of the pastor. Eventually you’ll hear every aspect of the word and there will be a part of it that exhorts or convicts you. Or both!

God gave us His whole word to minister to our lives and He knew we’d need it. Pick up your Bible and spend some time reading through the whole thing and let the Lord speak to you about all things that pertain to life and godliness.

Delighting in His word,

Pastor Ron Kitchell

2 Timothy 4:2

Paul’s last letter written before he was executed for his faith was this letter to his favorite disciple, Timothy, who was pastoring the church in Ephesus at the time. His words of encouragement, his life of hope and faith, and his accomplishments will stir your heart as you read it.

One thing he continued to hammer home to Timothy was the need to preach God’s Word! To seek to convince the hearer to follow the Lord and His ways. After 40-plus years in ministry, I find that same need to rally the troops constantly. To call on the church to get busy preaching God’s Word, to be in the harvest field laboring for Him, to be fishers of men, to love the lost as our Lord does, and pray daily for the salvation of the lost. To be as Paul writes here, ready in season and out of season, meaning when it is easy and when it is extremely difficult. I want to encourage you today: get out there and tell someone about Jesus and His great love!

Shout it from the rooftops!

Pastor Jack Abeelen

Romans 12:15

A mother sent her little girl to a neighbor’s house down the street one afternoon to get a toy she had left there. Thinking it would only take her about 10 minutes, the mom became concerned when her daughter hadn’t returned after about 30 minutes.

So the mom stepped outside to look down the street to see if she saw her daughter. Sure enough, the little girl was on her way back. “What took you so long?” the mom asked.

“I’m sorry mom. When I got to the house, my friend had broken her doll and she was crying. So I helped her fix it.”

“Well, what did you do to fix it?” questioned the mom.

The little girl responded, “I cried with her. And now it’s all better.”

That’s exactly what a lot of folks need today, not someone who can be Mr. or Mrs. Fix-it and put the pieces back together, they need someone who will grieve with them first. They need someone who will take time out of his or her schedule to empathize.

Be that person for someone else. Take time to share grief and bear burdens together. That’s what it really means to love one another through pain. Love others who hurt by spending time and sharing in their pain.

Pastor William Del Casale

2 Corinthians 5:5

In 2 Corinthians 5:1, Paul tells us that once our earthly house is destroyed — meaning our body — that we have an eternal dwelling in heaven waiting for us. This is the thing mentioned here in verse 5. The wonderful revelation here is that the Spirit has been given to us as a guarantee, or in other words, a down payment. This transaction is completely opposite of what we experience here in an earthly sense in terms of purchasing a home. In most cases, we make a deposit in order to place a serious offer with the seller, guaranteeing that we are serious about proceeding with the sale. From there we come up with more money in order to guarantee to the bank that we are serious about paying off the mortgage loan that they are funding. Then we make payments over the course of many years to finally earn the right to call the home our own.

The transaction for our heavenly dwelling is entirely different. This future dwelling is a free gift from God, paid for by the blood of Christ, and there is no payment that we could begin to make to cover the cost of this gift. Even more amazing is that God gives us a deposit on this free gift as assurance that His promise is true. What are we to do in the meantime as we anticipate the final receipt of our heavenly “building?” We are to live our lives by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7) and we are to make it our goal to be well pleasing to Him (2 Corinthians 5:9). Not to repay God for His gift, but to demonstrate our loving response to Him for what Christ did for us on the cross.

Jeff Mericle

Proverbs 1:2-3

The scriptures tells us that God gave wisdom to Solomon along with other blessings. The wisdom of God brings blessings to every area of our lives! When we walk in His wisdom, everything else just falls into place. Our lives are in a place where God can bless us.

Where would we be if we were not walking with God? Everything I have is from the Lord! We all have so much to be thankful for and it all comes from walking with God.

Wisdom has nothing to do with being smart. It has everything to do with making the right choices based on what you know. That is wisdom. And the older I get, the more I just want wisdom and the more I realize I need to walk in God’s wisdom!

So next time you need to make a decision, seek God’s wisdom. Look to His word. When we seek God’s wisdom we will be blessed.

Seeking to walk in His wisdom,

Rich Kikuchi

John 8:24

The above verse is a sobering word from the mouth of Jesus to some of the unbelieving Jews and religious leaders of the day. Those words from Jesus a couple thousand years ago are just as true today as they were then. If you don’t believe that Jesus Christ is God, you will die in your sins. To die in your sins means you face God on judgment day and explain every action, decision, or thought you had in this life that didn’t reflect the righteousness of God. And in order for God to be just and remain just, as described in His Word to us, He must carry out justice for this life of sin. In God’s eternal court room, a fair punishment is eternal damnation. As much as we don’t like to think about that reality, it doesn’t change its severity.

Many Christians today are trying to work out a new theology to accommodate the many different belief systems or religions. They try to do this because it makes them feel better to believe something more palatable and less restrictive for themselves and others. All this means is that they think they know better than God and their understanding of righteousness, justice, and mercy are better than His.

Make no mistake, we are not God and we are not more righteous than He or more gracious than He. If there was another way to Him, we would know what that way is, but due to sin, any and all sin, there is only one way. That way is through the person and work of Jesus Christ, to deny that is to die in your sins. On the other hand, to believe that is to live eternally with your sins covered by the gracious spilling of His blood.

Pastor Jason Witt