LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, September 17, 2026

Unfortunately we are not a naturally thankful people. It takes many years of training for your children to learn to say thank you after they have received something that was given to them. Even to this day my teenage grandchildren have to be reminded sometimes to say thank you after I’ve paid for their lunch or done something special with them. It would be wise for all of us to pay attention to how thankful we are for everything God does for us.

In yesterday’s devotional we referred to an incident in which the ark of the covenant had been taken away from the people of Israel by the Philistines. As the people repented of their sin God began to restore them and restored the ark of the covenant to their possession. Now many years later under King David the ark has been taken away from them. But God directs David in battle and they defeat the Philistines again and bring the ark of the covenant back to Israel.

The ark of the covenant was representative of the presence of God. It was to be treated as holy and sacred so that people would learn to honor and respect who God is and to seek his presence in their lives. So when the ark was returned to the nation of Israel they rejoiced that the presence of God was once again with them.

On that day that the ark was returned King David wrote a song and declared that it should be sung to the Lord by the Levites, the worship leaders of Israel. You can read all about it in First Chronicles chapters 15 and 16. Notice especially chapter 16 verse seven.

“Then on that day David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers.”

On that day King David basically said to all the people, “We do not give God enough credit and we certainly don’t thank him enough for all that he has done. So I am commanding us to be more thankful.”

I wonder why it’s so hard for us to recognize all the things God does for us every day and then to be thankful to him for what he has done. Well I guess I don’t wonder. I guess I know. We are so self-centered and so self-absorbed that we live in a constant state of entitlement. We believe we deserve everything good that happens to us so we have no reason to be thankful. But God says to us through David that at the moment that something good happens we are to be thankful. In fact later on in the Bible we are told by the apostle Peter that even when things aren’t going well there are many reasons to be thankful. Paul repeats that and so does James.

So today is the beginning of a training period for all of us. They say it takes 20 or so days of repetition for something to become a habit. Start today start forming a new habit that in all things you will give thanks to God. You don’t necessarily have to be thankful for the event that happened but you can be thankful for the God who is using the event to make you a better person. And then take the time every day to read David’s song of Thanksgiving in First Chronicles 16. It starts this way:

“Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!”

Make Thanksgiving the ongoing song of your life.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Did you know that some of the hardships you go through in your life may be caused by your own sin? Now not all of them to be sure. But many times the difficulties we are in are God’s way of disciplining us so that we repent and returned to obedience to him.

Such was the case in the nation of Israel under the rule of Samuel. The nation is being besieged by the Philistines and they captured and took away the ark of the covenant. The people of Israel were hurting, but they finally started to come to their senses that their sin of rebellion against God was the cause of it. So they began to cry out to God in first Samuel chapter 6 and God started to restore them. The ark of the covenant was returned. And with it the hearts of the people were returning to the Lord. Then in Chapter 7 we read this:

And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only. Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you.” So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.”

I see a very practical and simple application of truth from the use of the phrase “on that day” in this passage. When the people were reminded of their sin they did not wait for a period of time to confess it and make it right with God. They did it on the day that they acknowledged  it.

So many times when we know we have been wrong or have sinned we postpone acknowledging it and confessing it before the Lord. We certainly postpone confessing it to other people who have been hurt by it.  We are a proud people and we don’t like to admit that we have been wrong and that we need to be forgiven. But covering up our sin only adds to the distress of whatever circumstances were caused by it. But when we discover that God is working through the circumstances to bring us to a point of forgiveness so that we can accept his grace and love and be restored we should act on it immediately.

That’s what Israel did. On the day that they were asked if they were truly returning to the Lord with all their heart and ready to sever all connection to their sin they poured themselves out before the Lord and confessed. And God brought peace to their land and to their individual hearts.

God will do the same for us when we confess our sin the moment we are made aware of it. His grace will wash it away. His love will overflow into us. Our relationship with him and with those who have been hurt will be restored.

Stop trying to protect yourself from additional pain by burying the sin. Open up your heart and confess what you have done on the day that you are made aware of it and you will find the restoration of peace and contentment.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Yesterday I related one of the joys of being a grandparent. But I confess that there are challenging times as well. One such challenge is to see your grandchildren behaving in a way that is disrespectful to others and to God and not feel comfortable correcting them. After all, that’s the parent’s job, right? But we live in a world that minimizes correction and exaggerates personal choice. To whatever degree we did it as parents we would have been offended if our parents tried to correct us. So, we don’t believe we have the freedom to correct other parents as they raise their children, and we certainly get in trouble if we try to correct the grandkids.

Such is the context of the story of Eli in the book of 1 Samuel. Eli’s sons are described by the Lord as “worthless.” That seems offensive but look at what caused such an evaluation. The sons were extremely selfish, taking anything they wanted from the temple worship for themselves. That included taking women who were dedicated to service in the temple and using them for their own sexual gratification. They blasphemed the name of the Lord, and in the Lord’s eyes that made them worthless to His service.

Eli tried to rebuke them and correct them, but only after the effects of sin had totally captured their hearts and they were unwilling to listen to him. God was about to take action, and He would use Samuel to deliver the message of the consequences or Eli’s poor parenting.

Now let me say something right now so you don’t misunderstand. Great parenting can still produce rebellious children because they all make their own choices. But poor parenting that tolerates sin and disrespect for the Lord will not go unpunished.

God sends a man to tell Eli that his family is going to be cut off from Israel and his sons would be killed. You can read it in 1 Samuel chapter 2. Then because God is also compassionate along with His justice, He comes to tell Samuel, Eli’s ministry assistant, what He is about to do, He says, “Then the Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Oh dear people of God, there are severe consequences to rebelling against God. There are also severe consequences for not getting involved in correcting those who are rebelling. One day the Lord will hold us all accountable for how we parented our children. We live in a culture that is constantly bombarding our children with images and words that are in direct rebellion against God, and we do nothing about it. We allow our children to become involved in the corruption of sin and we justify it by saying it’s their freedom to choose for themselves. That’s what Eli did and look at the price he paid on that day when the Lord visited him..

Parents. Grandparents. Don’t minimize the activity of sin in your family’s life. Correct their disrespect. Remove the access to the images and influence of Satanically motivated movies and music. Work together as parents and grandparents to raise children who fear the Lord and desire to remain pure before Him. The reward will be far greater than any temporary pain your children may try to inflict on you for being unreasonable.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, September 14, 2026

One of the great joys of being a grandfather is to pay attention to what the grandkids like and then plan to do things with them according to those likes. This summer has been a perfect example. Several of my grandkids truly love fishing and golfing. So I take it upon myself to plan fishing trips and golf outings and then invite them to participate in them with me. But what I fail to recognize sometimes is that my invitation is perceived by them to be a promise. So if I talk to them on a Friday and say on Monday we could go golfing, they hear that as a guarantee that we’re going golfing on Monday. Now if it rains they understand but there’s not very many legitimate excuses for not fulfilling the promise.

You see the promise made on Friday becomes the objective for Monday. It captivates their thinking. It fills them with hope. They lay out their clothing and their golf clubs and their water bottles the night before because they fully expect that the promise will be fulfilled.

God does the same thing for us with the one difference being that there will never be a promise that will ever be broken for any reason.

As we continue our study looking at the various ways the phrase “ on that day” is used in Scripture We come to a place in the book of Joshua where it’s used multiple times. It’s the story of the people of Israel conquering the promised land. They have captured a large portion of it already and many of the tribes have already taken up residence. One man named Caleb comes to the nation’s leader Joshua and makes a request based on a promise that was given to him. Forty years earlier, when the nation failed to enter the promised land the first time because of the unfaithfulness of the people, Caleb had been recognized by Moses as a faithful servant, and Caleb reminds Joshua what Moses had said.

“And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’”

Then a few verses later Caleb reminds Joshua that on that day it was the Lord who had given him that promise through Moses and that this was the day that it would be fulfilled. So Joshua awards the land that Caleb had walked on as one of the twelve spies forty years earlier. God always fulfills his promises.

There’s a great lesson in this for us today. How many of us are actually living in the constant hope that God will fulfill every promise he ever gave us in his word? I think we probably have to admit that we fall short of living in that kind of hope. Caleb carried that hope for forty years. We seem to forget after forty minutes. And yet we have the opportunity to look into his word every day and remind ourselves of his promises. The promise for peace. The promise for contentment and joy. The promise for the provisions for every part of our life. The promise for a mansion being prepared for us in glory and that Jesus is coming soon to take us there. The promise that once he does there’ll be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more heartbreak. The promise that when we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be.

My friends it’s time to start focusing on the promises of God rather than the problems of today. May the joy of Jesus swell up from the springs of living water in your life as you focus on the promises of God and the faithfulness of God to fulfill them on that day.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, September 11, 2026

On this day twenty-five years ago the nation reeled in fear because of terrorist attacks on our land. Today many people are still living in fear because the same political and philosophical agendas are being supported by voters across this land and are threating our countries founding principles. But one day, maybe soon, the Lord Jesus Christ will reveal Himself to the world and all people will stand in awe of Him. Until then, we who follow Jesus must remain vigilant to stand in constant awe of and obedience to Jesus so others can see the reality of His presence.

Joshua, the successor of Moses, lived such a life as an example to us all. The Lord instructed him to lead the people across the Jordan river to conquer the promised land. He gave specific instructions of how it should be done. And when Joshua and the people obeyed every detail of God’s plan God revealed himself in a powerful way to all the people.  Here’s what we read in Joshua chapter 4 verse 14.

“On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.”

The people of Israel got to see two things that day. They saw the mighty workings of God on their behalf and they were in awe. But they also saw the mighty workings of God in an individual life and they also stood in awe.

I’m challenged by this. Am I only looking for the mighty workings of God externally in all the circumstances of my life so that I can be thankful for what God is doing or am I also looking for the mighty workings of God in my own heart that are transforming me into a living example of God’s power so that others may see him?

Seems like a very simple lesson but it’s also a very difficult one. So many times we pray to ask God to do something so powerful that other people can’t ignore it and will turn to him. But God has chosen you to be the one through whom other people will be able to see his power. They should see His power to transform a life from one driven by sin to one driven by the love of God. That’s you. They should see God’s power to reprioritize a life around His purpose rather than selfish purposes. That’s you. They should see the character of a person who has been transformed by the Holy Spirit’s fruit of love and joy and peace and more. That’s you!

Every one of us has been called and empowered to be a Joshua. May the people of the world stand in awe of who God is because they see the power of God in us!

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, September 10, 2026

I’m about to state the obvious. It is extremely hard to overcome selfishness. It is difficult to put others ahead of me. It is nearly impossible not to consider every choice and decision in life within the context of personal benefit.

Such is the condition of our sin nature. The first sin ever committed by Satan in the presence of God was to put his own desires ahead of God. It’s called pride, and God hates it. We are all guilty of it. We are all driven by it. We spend our lifetime trying to conquer it. We expend a lot of energy trying to avoid the consequences of it.

Such is the condition of the people of Israel as we come to the next usage of the phrase “on that day.” It’s found in the book of numbers chapter thirty two. “And the Lord’s anger was kindled on that day…”

Here’s why God was so angry that day. For the second time the people of Israel have come to the Jordan river with an opportunity to go into God’s promised land and conquer it for their eternal possession. But two of the tribes, Reuben and Gad, came to Moses and said the land on this side of the river is adequate for our livestock. Please don’t take us across the river with you. We will stay here and just enjoy the benefits of this land. They saw the immediate benefits of peace, freedom from having to fight the wars, and prosperity, and it caused them to deny the eternal reward that was promised if they would follow God’s plan.

Moses tells them that they are selfish. They are acting just like their forefathers when they came to the Jordan river the first time. They put their personal safety ahead of God’s purpose and voted not to go into the promised land. God’s anger was kindled on that day and he declared that none of them that were of legal age of 20 or more to make that decision would be permitted to ever enter the promised land. And Moses says to them that if you choose not to go with us you will bring the same condemnation on yourselves and you will bring destruction upon all the rest of the people.

God requires unity to his purpose in his people today. God’s anger is kindled against his people today who cause division in his church by distraction from or disillusionment about what God’s purpose is. In Christ Jesus we have one purpose. To conquer lives for Jesus Christ. That requires spiritual warfare. Unfortunately many of us want only spiritual privacy. We want personal contentment. We want to use the world for our gain instead of bringing gain to the world by introducing people to Jesus Christ. We want the church to accommodate our preferences for music, preaching style, political positions, and theological compromise. We have become a very selfish people who live only for the immediate gratification of what we can find in the world.

My friends the Lord’s anger is being kindled on this day because we have not joined his son Jesus Christ in the mission that he gave us to go into all the world and make disciples, to teach them all the ways of God, and to trust that God is with us no matter how hard the battle gets. We have decided that personal happiness in this life is more important than the joy that should be set before us for what is to come when we’re in the presence of Jesus.

Please consider carefully the truth that has been taught today in your own life and let the Holy Spirit change your thinking and your activity.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, September 9, 2026

For those of you who may be just joining us we are studying the various applications of the phrase “on that day” in the Bible. Each usage fits into one of three categories:

1. A specific day in history when God does something that teaches us about who He is;
2. A prophetic day in which God would work and accomplish His divine purpose;
3. A coming single day in which God will bring everything to conclusion.

 Today we come to a difficult passage in the book of Numbers chapter nine. It’s been two years since the people of Israel came out of  slavery in Egypt. God is giving Moses instruction about how the people are to institute the celebration of the Passover, to remember the deliverance that he provided for them. But with the Passover feast came certain regulations, one of which was that anyone who was considered unclean could not participate in it. One of the ways a person would be considered unclean was if they had touched a dead body. This disqualified them from celebrating God’s deliverance into life.

On that day, as Moses gave these instructions to the people several men came forward and asked, “Why should we be excluded from this celebration just because we had a death in our family and had to take care of the body?” Moses recognized the value of such a question and so he told them he would bring it before the Lord. God then instructed him to tell the people that if they were unclean they could celebrate the Passover one month later after going through the purification process.

I want to share two very simple principles for us today. First, notice God’s grace. Being unclean does not exclude you from participating in what God did to rescue us from sin. God wants every member of his family to participate in the remembrance and the celebration of his sacrifice to cleanse us from sin and deliver us from its slavery.

But second, Notice that God still requires holiness to be in intimate relationship with him. I see here some very personal and challenging applications. I wonder how many of us come to a time of worship in our churches, especially the communion service, with known sin in our lives. Do we truly expect God to intimately fellowship with us in the celebration of his Son’s death when we stand impure before him? And I also wonder how many of us come to him in prayer on a daily or frequent basis and expect him to answer when we have not come to him with purity in our hearts and minds.

It would seem to me from the example of unclean people and the Passover celebration, that God requires us to deal with our sin before coming to him for perfect intimacy. God does not permit sinfulness in his presence. The psalmist tells us that if we regard sin in our heart the Lord will not hear our prayers. I don’t think we take the holiness of God seriously enough. So on that day that you come to worship the Lord prepare your heart and your mind with repentance and surrender so that any sin that you regard as important to you is cleansed in the blood of Jesus Christ so you can receive from God all that he has promised you.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, September 8, 2026

The older I get the more my memory fails me. My wife is actually beginning to make fun of me because of it. Simple little things that just don’t get remembered. But one thing I will never forget. The day my Lord Jesus Christ saved me from my sin.

As a young child I had broken a rule which caused serious injury to my brother. I could not understand how I could ever be forgiven. But my mother showed me from God’s Word how Jesus Christ had died to cover all of my sin. On that day I became His child forever by placing my faith for my life’s eternal existence in what Jesus did on the cross for me.

But I dare not simply remember that day for my own benefit. My salvation experience with Jesus Christ is to be shared with others as often as possible.

We learn that lesson in another story where the phrase “on that day” is used in scripture. It’s found in Exodus chapter 13 verse 8. God is giving instructions through Moses to the nation of Israel that every year they’re supposed to have a seven day feast to celebrate what God has done. It’s called the feast of unleavened bread where the people were called to eat unleavened bread for seven days and then celebrate with a big feast at the end.

But God, who sees all and knows all, understands that children will wonder what’s going on. They’ll probably even be complaining that they can’t have their regular food. So what’s a parent to do? Here’s what God says to the people.

“You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’”

Built into our lives every day should be events and choices that cause other people to ask us why we’re doing it. That’s our opportunity to tell them that it’s because what the Lord has done for me. He delivered me from the eternal consequences of sin. He delivered me from the everyday bondage of sin. He has set me free and put me on a path to the promised land of eternal life with Jesus Christ. We are to be telling people that story every day.

I wonder how many of us intentionally do things in our lives to create curiosity in the lives of unsaved people. Unfortunately I think most of us live so much like the people of the world that they don’t notice a difference. That should be embarrassing to us. We should seriously be ashamed of how we are not living lives in such a way that people want to know why we’re different. Our lives should cause people to question the choices we make. Is service for Jesus Christ our highest priority? Is the character of Jesus Christ revealed in the choices we make every day?

My friends we have been called by God to represent his son Jesus Christ in every part of our lives. On that day when we stand before Jesus and give an account of our lives and how we served him, will Jesus say, “Well done. You were a good and faithful servant.” Or will Jesus remind us as he reviews our lives of all the days that we had a chance to tell someone about Jesus and we didn’t? Now that’s not meant to shame anyone. It’s just an honest reminder to remember the day that you were saved and remember to tell others how Jesus did it.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, September 7, 2026

I don’t know about you but I want to know more about God. And the best place to gain that knowledge is in his Word the Bible. As we read it we will see the ways God has revealed Himself to us. We will discover his divine attributes. We will come to understand his character. And we will see how his attributes and character influence his activity with mankind.

The book of Exodus in the Bible is a great example. It’s the story of the deliverance of the nation of Israel from the bondage of slavery in the nation of Egypt. Moses has been chosen to reveal God’s deliverance to the people and to the ruler of Egypt. But the Pharoah was a hard sell. So God used Moses to introduce a variety of plagues upon the nation of Egypt. One of the plagues was a swarm of flies that would affect the entire nation. Well almost the entire nation. You see God was going to make a point about who He is and how He works to protect his people. Here’s what we’re told in Exodus chapter 8 starting in verse 22.

“But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. Thus I will put a division between my people and your people.”

God speaks through Moses and tells Pharaoh that the plague of flies will not affect his people. I see one very simple but very profound lesson in what God does here. He declares that the consequences of sin will not be enforced upon his chosen people.

Now obviously when we sin there are consequences and they are enforced to help us to learn not to sin. But the nation of Israel was not guilty of sinning in this case. Only the Egyptians were guilty. And in this practical example of God’s faithfulness to protect his children we can take great comfort in knowing That the ultimate consequence of sin has already been paid for by Jesus Christ and that God will not cause his children to come under His wrath. Our faith in what Jesus did on the cross has brought us under the eternal protection of God so that none of the consequences of sin will ever be eternally experienced by any of us.

On that one day in Egypt God said, “I will protect my people.” On that one day when Jesus died on the cross God said, “I will protect all who trust in my Son as their Savior.” God has put an eternal division between his people and sinners. Never will the consequences of sin be experienced by those who are in Christ. But equally true is the reality that never will those who are separated from Christ ever experience victory over sin, either in this life or in eternal life.

Take heart my friend. You are separated from all the eternal consequences of sin. Now go and help others understand what God has done.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, September 4, 2026

For those of you who remember back to Wednesday you know that there are ninety-two uses of the phrase “on that day” in the Bible. After yesterday’s devotional you may be thinking, “This is going to be a long study if he takes only one verse each day.” While there’s nothing wrong with long studies, and as disciples of Jesus we should want to dig deep into God’s Word, let me assure you that many of the usages of the phrase refer to the same event. The study won’t take nineteen weeks. But we also aren’t going to bypass important principles.

Today is a perfect example of that. In Genesis chapter fifteen we hear from God as He makes an unbreakable, unconditional covenant with Abraham that has powerful significance in today’s world politics. Here’s what God says in verse eighteen:

“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,”

Here’s the context. Abraham has just rescued Lot from the five kings that had taken him captive. He has met the Priest-King of Salem and honored him with a portion of the spoils of the war, He declares that he is a servant of the LORD God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth.

When Abraham returns home The LORD God speaks to him and tells Him what He is going to do. Abraham will have a son, and from that son will come countless offspring. “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them…So shall your offspring be.” And Abraham believed what God said, and God counted his belief as righteousness.

Abraham then questions God and asks for evidence that the promise will be fulfilled. So God confirms a covenant by asking Abraham to cut three animals in half and separate each half creating a path between them. Then God caused him to sleep in a deep sleep of dreadful darkness. During his sleep, God prophesied what would happen to his descendants, and it all historically came true. Then a smoking firepot and a flaming torch, representing the presence of God, passed through separated animals as God made this unbreakable covenant with Abraham and his descendants.  “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,”

On that day, God declared for all time that the land of the Middle East from the River of Egypt in the Sinai peninsula all the way up to the Euphrates River, originating in Turkey through Syria and Iraq and to the Persian Gulf. All of that territory claimed by other countries has been promised to Israel, and that promise will be fulfilled.

No country can claim what God possesses. No nationality can claim what God has given to Israel. No religion can lay claim to what rightfully belongs to Abraham’s chosen descendants. They may temporarily try to stop God’s purpose, but they can not change the inevitable outcome. The son of Abraham, Jesus Christ, will reign as King on that day!

Rejoice, for on that day, God will bring peace to the world through the Prince of Peace. Until then, don’t be swayed by religious or political theories that deny the authority of God’s Word. Pray for Israel, and pray for the return of Jesus.

Pastor John