LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, July 31, 2025

We’ve come to the thirtieth chapter of Isaiah, and it is one of contrasts. In it we see the rebellious nature of man and the gracious nature of God. Our pride seeks to protect us from looking at the reality of our nature. Our hearts long to know the depths of God’s grace. The truth is the magnificence of God’s grace towards us cannot be fully comprehended unless we also understand the depths of our depravity. It is where sin abounds that grace abounds more.

We are taught by our flesh and all those around us under the influence of their flesh to avoid any focus on our faults. We grade our spiritual condition on a huge curve of comparison. So many people are worse than us, and very few are better, so we believe we are in no real danger of flunking. But when compared to the holiness of God, all of us fail, and all of us need forgiveness, and none of us can save ourselves. This is the truth that makes the grace of God so grand.

The contrasts between our condition and God’s compassion in this passage have really spoken to my heart. But it will take two days to properly express them. You may want to open your Bible and follow along. Today in verses one through fourteen we will see how Isaiah describes man’s rebellious nature. Then tomorrow we will see God’s grace. I guarantee you that when we are done it will bless you with a deeper appreciation of who God is and what He has done for us.

The Lord God reveals man’s rebellious nature in Isaiah chapter thirty verse nine.“For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord…” Here’s what makes us rebellious.

• We tend to devise and pursue our own plans rather than God’s. Verse one says, ““Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin;”
• We seek protection and provision from the world and not from God. Verse two says, ”who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! Then God declares in verses three through five that all such attempts for self-preservation will end in shame and disgrace.
• We build ourselves up in our own eyes by oppressing others and we make ourselves look good to others by lying about who we are. Verse twelve says, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them,” But note the serious consequences of not being honest about who you are in verses thirteen and fourteen. ”Therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
• We even reach a point where we don’t want to hear the truth anymore and reject all attempts by God to help us. Verses ten and eleven describe the depraved condition of a rebellious person. “Who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

What a sad and scary predicament we are in when we reject what the Lord God has to say. And we have all been there. That’s why we need God’s grace, which we will unfold tomorrow. I would encourage you to take some additional time today to really let God’s Word speak to you about our own tendency toward self-sufficiency, which is rebellion against God. It will prepare your heart to embrace the splendor of God’s grace.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, July 30, 2025

It’s just too true: we all fall into varying degrees of discouragement at times. We tend to fix our eyes on the here and now instead of the soon to be, and as a result we get bogged down in what’s wrong instead of rejoicing in the hope of the coming righting of all wrongs. Then, as if we need to make matters worse, we go to great lengths to devise our own plans for fixing it all, only to have our lives more completely turned upside down.

Isaiah recognized that problem in people. He saw the inward spiral of self-fulfillment and how we are trapped in the vortex of vanity. He wrote in Isaiah 29:14-16, “the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing”?

All the plans of man will fail. When we learn that we will start thriving rather than just surviving. When we finally fall on our knees in humble surrender to the plans of our Provider and Perfecter of our faith, we will be rescued from the whirlpool of worldly wants and transported into the peaceful port of God’s purpose. Isaiah says in verse 19, “The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.”

Later in verses 22-24, there are several clues to how this transformation can happen in our lives.

Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob: “No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will their faces grow pale.

As Isiah continues he lists six principles from these verses of overcoming discouragement.

• When we begin to see everything as the work of God…  “When they see among them their children, the work of my hands,”
• When we keep the name of God Holy… “they will keep my name holy;”
• When we apply the holiness of God to every area of our lives… “they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob”
• When we live in complete worship of God… “will stand in awe of the God of Israel”
• When we commit to following God’s way and not our own we will be made wise… “Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding”
• When we learn to praise God no matter what the circumstances we will gain understanding…”those who complain will accept instruction”

Picture a ruler…you know, a measuring stick. It’s six inches long. Each inch is one of the above challenges. How do you measure up? I know I’ve got some growing to do to overcome discouragement.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, July 29, 2025

What is our motivation to do menial tasks of service that interrupt our regularly scheduled programming?

I remember many years ago having to answer that question. It was a Saturday morning. My wife rose early and went over to the grandkids house to babysit, and I remained at our house to get some work done. We had the blessing of having some students from the Moody Bible Institute Men’s Collegiate Choir staying at our house the next weekend while they were in Eau Claire for a concert at our church. I needed to get the house ready. Not only that, but on the following Monday our very dear friends, Dudley and Inge, would arrive back in the States from Swaziland and they were invited to live with us for the next three months.

The details of my duties are not important, but suffice it to say they covered cleaning, carpentry, and cataloging. It took me well into the afternoon to get it a lot done, but there was still more to do. Why would I spend my whole weekend getting everything ready for all the upcoming events that weren’t a part of my regular routine?  I wondered if my motivation was obligation or duty. But I soon realized that deep in my heart the love I have for my wife was what drove me to accomplish everything. I served her because I love her, and love has no limits on service.

Unfortunately that doesn’t always apply to the way we serve God, does it? Our worship of Him is not always the product of our love for Him. Isaiah saw that in the people of His day as well. They talked about their faith, they prayed, and they worshiped, but it was insincere.  Isaiah 29:13 says, And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men.”

The hypocrisy of the heart is obvious. But before we come down too hard on them, we must not be in denial about our own hardness of heart and double-standard lifestyles. We just might be as guilty as they were.

Here are some serious questions to consider:

• Do you truly love God more than you love yourself in EVERY area of your life?
• Do you do the “religious” duties of your church while in your heart you are longing to be elsewhere doing something else?
• Do you seek to serve God out of fear of His punishment or as a response to His grace and love?
• Is your worship of Him an expression of your love to Him?
• Is your whole life a living sacrifice given in service to your Lord as a reasonable act of worship?

Those questions give me cause to pause. It will be plenty to chew on for today.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, July 28, 2025

I love music. Certain styles of music move me more than others. Some of it touches deep into my soul and spirit. Music is God’s medium of connecting our minds with our emotions and moving them both into the realm of the spiritual.

I am reminded today of something that happened years ago. My wife and I sat down together at the end of a long day and checked to see what was on television. One of our favorite movies was coming on so we turned to it and spent some quiet time enjoying Sister Act 2. The music is incredible. That got my wife to thinking about the soundtrack to that movie that was somewhere in our library. She found it, and along with a couple of other older cd’s, she put them in the van for her trip to Madison the next day.

When I got in the van the morning after her trip, one of my favorite cd’s of all time was playing in the van. The incredible trumpet sounds of Phil Driscoll filled the van with a vision of heaven for me. I cranked up the volume and found the song I wanted to hear; a song that was also on the Sister Act 2 soundtrack. It’s familiar to most of you, I’m sure. The song is “His Eye Is On the Sparrow.”

Granted, the duet that the two students sing on the Sister Act 2 soundtrack is more beautiful, but the Phil Driscoll Live version is more powerful. I turned up the volume a little more. “Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come, why should my heart be lonely, and long for heav’n and home, when Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is He: His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.” 

What a trumpet that man can play. But it is nothing compared to the sound of the Lord’s trumpet. Someday the Lord will blow His trumpet and Jesus will return.

Just then I arrived at the office. I chose to turn the song off and listen to the rest of it on my way home for lunch. When I opened my Bible on my desk and looked at the next verse in Isaiah, these are the words that jumped off the page at me in Isaiah 29:1 – “Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on.”

Immediately the Holy Spirit touched my heart with this thought.  “Life goes on, same old same old, but who’s listening for the trumpet?” It’s true. Year after year we carry out the same routines of life, adding pleasure upon pleasure and treasure upon treasure, but who is listening for the trumpet? Year after year we attend the religious activities we’ve chosen for our spiritual nourishment, but even they have become routine and maybe even mundane. Why? It’s probably because we’re not listening for the trumpet. We are so focused on the here and now that we are not looking and listening for the return of the King.

So we get discouraged. Our hearts are troubled. We have lost some hope. We go through the routine of life living one step at a time and questioning every step. But Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled, His tender word I hear, and resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears; though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”

Friends, Jesus is coming back. It may or may not be in our lifetime. But if we are not looking for it, and are simply living for today, what hope do our children and grandchildren have of hearing the trumpet when it sounds? We must live every day with our eyes looking up and our ears anticipating the greatest sound of music we will ever hear – the trumpet call of Jesus.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, July 25, 2025

Recently we said “so long for now” to a dear and faithful servant of God. We are all very inquisitive about what lies beyond death. It is our nature. God says in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.” People have written numerous books about their near-death experiences, and they quickly become best sellers because we want to know what’s out there. Stories are told about people who have made statements on their deathbeds that seem to indicate that they see a vision of what’s ahead. We want to know.

The Scriptures are clear on what happens after death. There are two possibilities – an eternal separation from the God who created us, or an eternal fellowship with that same God. Every person who has ever lived knows this deep in their heart. They may be covering the truth up with false teaching and self-centered pursuits but given the right moment of meditation and honesty they will discover that God has placed the truth of eternity in their heart.

The Bible also makes it clear that it all of us were destined for eternal separation from God from the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We are by nature the enemies of God (see Romans 5:6-21). But in His eternal and inconceivable love He sought us. He sent His Son Jesus to be our sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). God has granted us sufficient faith to believe that Jesus is Lord, that He died on the cross to save us from our sins, and that He rose from the dead to conquer eternal death (see Romans 10:9-10). It is only through faith in Jesus that we are saved, and can enter into eternal fellowship with the Father (Ephesians 2:8-9). There is NO OTHER WAY! (John 14:6)

When that eternal transaction takes place, and by the grace of God we are translated from the realm of sin and death into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, our eternal fellowship with God begins (Colossians 1:12-14). That fellowship produces incredible peace and joy. Indescribable peace and joy. No longer do we fear death and judgment like those who continue to live in their sin.

We who are in Christ are not like them. When we experience the death of someone we love who was in fellowship with God, we do not grieve like the rest of the general population (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). We know that based on their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin that they are moving into the presence of the Lord. Scripture says that to be absent from this body means that we are present with Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). In this we express joy rather than sorrow, peace rather than pain, and rest rather than resistance.

It will be the same for us personally when we reach that moment of death. The words of the Lord through Isaiah will be the description of our last days on earth.

Isaiah 57:1-2  “The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.”

We who have walked uprightly will enter into peace. We will find rest as we lie in death. There is nothing to fear. Our eternal spiritual fellowship that began on earth is about to culminate in eternal physical fellowship in person. We are about to see Jesus face to face (see Titus 2:11-14). Let us live like it might be today!

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, July 24, 2025

I am fascinated by this twenty-eighth chapter of Isaiah. What fascinates me is the modern day application of these historical events and how we as Christians need to wake up to what God is doing around and in us. A good friend yesterday helped me to put the whole chapter in perspective and brought out the truths that we need to understand. Here’s what he wrote:

“God, through Isaiah, is taking the leaders of Judah (called Ephraim here) to task for their alliance with Egypt in order to escape from the Assyrians.  This is the “covenant with death” mentioned in v. 15 and 18.  Judah should be looking to the precious cornerstone (v. 16) for its sure foundation, and not to human strength.  

“So, the short bed and the narrow blanket of v. 20 is a metaphor for Judah’s misplaced trust.  The alliance with Egypt will offer no rest, no comfort, for Ephraim (ESV Study Bible).  The strange work and alien task of the Lord, v. 21, is having to fight against his own people because of their disobedience.  The mention of Mount Perazim and the Valley of Gibeon is ironic, because in those two battles God fought for Israel against their enemies.  Now he must resist his people because they are rebelling against him. 

“The final section of the chapter uses another metaphor—the farmer.  The breaking up and turning over of the soil, although costly, has a purpose: to produce grain to make bread, v. 28.  “All this comes from the Lord Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom,” v. 29. 

“My conclusion for this passage would be that God loves us so much that he is willing to take extreme measures to get our attention and win us back to his family.  His wisdom is completely trustworthy, even when we turn our backs on him and suffer the tragic consequences of our sin.”

We are not all that different from the people of Isaiah’s day. We are at times more intimately connected to the world than we are to Jesus Christ our Savior. We are at times more interested in finding satisfaction and fulfillment from the world than we are from God. We even at times scoff and mock at the things God calls us to do and the people He asks us to become, justifying our worldly connections to one another with humanistic rationalizations. We even at times incorporate spiritual ideas into our arguments to satisfy the fleshly desire we have to be accepted by God in what we are doing.

Then on top of all of that  verse twenty-one says God’s work has become strange and  alien to us. We have become engrossed in the lifestyle of the world. We are convinced that we can love both the world and God and use both for our own fulfillment and satisfaction. So much so that when we look to see what God is doing around us we don’t recognize Him. How sad it is when God initiates a work in our lives and we mock it or scoff at it because it doesn’t fit into our personal life plan or our daily schedule of approved activities. We have become so in touch with what we want from the world that we are out of touch with the touch of God on our lives. We have chosen to believe that the social and financial benefits of living in our modern civilization are our rights, and we choose to pursue them rather than pursue what God wants for us.

I know this is heavy and sounds ominous. It is. That’s the point. We have so bought into the world’s system that the things of God seem burdensome to us. But you must know this – God will not stop loving us or pursuing us. We may not like what happens to finally get our attention, but He will win us back to Himself. Every event of our lives today will be an opportunity for us to turn from the pursuit of pleasure and prosperity in the world to a personal and productive relationship with Almighty God.

The chapter concludes with good news for us all. God is working to bring us to fullness in Christ. We may not like what He has to do to bring us back, but it is a work of love. His plan is timed perfectly to bring in the greatest harvest of righteous souls possible. He is breaking up the soil of our hardened hearts.  He is planting seeds of righteousness. He will harvest those seeds by beating away all the chaff. Then we will stand before the people of this world as reflections of His glory. Look at your life today – God is working on you because He loves you and wants all of you. Embrace what happens as His expression of love to you.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, July 23, 2025

In Isaiah 28 the people of Israel are being addressed by the Lord about their pursuit of worldly living at the expense of spiritual things. They have become so intent on living according to the desires of the flesh that they even believe they are able to hold their fate in their own hands by making a deal with death. In response, God tells them that their covenant with death is based on a lie, and that there is only one source of truth. God tells them about the Precious Cornerstone who we know to be Jesus.

Isaiah 28:16  “So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.”

I want to give you two stories today and let them illustrate the lessons we can learn from this historical example. May the Holy Spirit make His unique application to your understanding.

In the book Lessons from a Father to His Son (Nelson, 1998), Missouri senator John Ashcroft writes: [My father told me], “John, I’d like you to fly this plane for a while.” I was eight years old at the time, blue-jeaned and T-shirted and wide-eyed at the world. My father was an amateur pilot. I looked around me at the spartan interior, which was nothing at all like the multitudinous controls, gauges, and computerized equipment in planes today. The control stick looked like a broom handle and came up between my legs.

“What should I do?” I shouted back to my father, who was seated behind me.

“Just grab the stick and push it straight forward.”

“Okay.” I took hold of that stick and did as I was told. Immediately the plane went into a straight bombing-raid dive toward a farm on the outskirts of Springfield! My stomach came up to my throat and I lost all sense of time or place as fear gripped my insides. I let go of that control stick in a millisecond, and Dad pulled the plane back up.

He had a good chuckle, and I had a good lesson: actions have consequences. I learned in a particularly vivid—in fact, terrifying—way that my decisions and actions could imperil my future.

There are no deals to be made with death. Every action has a consequence.

Then there is this story from Chuck Swindoll:

On Sunday, believers arrived at a house church in the Soviet Union in small groups throughout the day so not to arouse the suspicion of KGB informers. They began by singing a hymn quietly. Suddenly, in walked two soldiers with loaded weapons at the ready. One shouted, “If you wish to renounce your commitment to Jesus Christ, leave now!”

Two or three quickly left, then another. After a few more seconds, two more.

“This is your last chance. Either turn against your faith in Christ,” he ordered, “or stay and suffer the consequences.”

Two more slipped out into the night. No one else moved. Parents with children trembling beside them looked down reassuringly, fully expecting to be gunned down or imprisoned.

The other soldier closed the door, looked back at those who stood against the wall and said, “Keep your hands up—but this time in praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. We, too, are Christians. We were sent to another house church several weeks ago to arrest a group of believers.”

The other soldier interrupted, “But, instead, we were converted! We have learned by experience, however, that unless people are willing to die for their faith, they cannot be fully trusted.”

How you respond in the face of persecution reveals whether or not you are standing on the Rock, for the one who is will NEVER be dismayed. Jesus is the only source of true security.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Robert Kupferschmid, age 81, had no flying experience. In an emergency, however, he learned quickly how to land a plane.

Kupferschmid and his 52-year-old pilot friend, Wesley Sickle, were flying from Indianapolis to Muncie, Indiana, in June 1998. During the flight, the pilot slumped over the controls. He was dead. The Cessna 172 single-engine plane began to nosedive and Kupferschmid grabbed the controls. He got on the radio and pleaded for help.

Nearby were two pilots who heard the call. Mount Comfort was the closest airport, and the two pilots gave Kupferschmid a steady stream of instructions, climbing, steering, and the scariest part, landing. The two experienced pilots circled the runway three times before this somewhat frantic and totally inexperienced pilot was ready to attempt the landing.

Emergency vehicles were called out for what seemed like an approaching disaster. Witnesses said the plane’s nose nudged the center line and bounced a few times before the tail hit the ground. The Cessna ended up in a patch of soggy grass next to the runway. Amazingly, Kupferschmid was not injured.

This pilot listened and followed those instructions as if his life depended on it—because it did. In contrast, the people of Israel in Isaiah’s day didn’t listen to God’s instructions delivered by the prophet. Instead they mocked him. They were headed for a crash.

Isaiah 28:9-10  “Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there.”

Isaiah has been warning his people about the consequences of their sinful choices. He has been reminding them of God’s standards of holiness and righteousness. He has delivered to them exactly what God wanted said so they would have a chance to repent and recover. But instead of listening, they make fun of him, and of course by doing so they are making fun of God as well. They wanted to hear nothing except words that affirmed their current choices. They were so blinded by their sin that they had lost sight of its consequences.

If I had been Isaiah, I would have lost it about now. There is not much in life more annoying, frustrating, or disrespectful than a person who not only ignores but then mocks good advice. Yet every day we are confronted with people in trouble seeking advice, but they have predetermined what advice they want to hear. If the advice doesn’t allow them to continue living according to their current choices, then they reject it.

The Bible told us it would be this way.  It warns us that in the last days before the return of Jesus, people would flock by the thousands into churches where they hear soft and sensitive messages that please their itching ears. They would rave about the type of relationship they can have with Jesus that allows them to continue in a sensual and gratifying relationship with the world. People are rejecting the truth of the Gospel and obedience to God’s holy standards. They just want to be stroked and made to feel good about where they are and what they are doing.

Then, to make themselves feel even better they make fun of those of us who continue to stand on the truth of Scripture. They believe that their way is the mature way. They think that our pursuit of holiness is nothing more than a list of rules rather than a response of love for the One who died for us. They mock the truth and all who stand for it.

Let us not become like them. Let us be very careful to listen when God speaks. When someone who loves you offers helpful and sometimes life-saving advice to you, listen to them. Otherwise your life might just end in a plane wreck.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, July 21, 2025

I do not believe that I love God enough. Maybe I never can, but there is one thing that I must use as the litmus test of love – do I love God more than I love myself?

I want to tell you a story of a young woman from Germany. Her name is Rica. She came to America in 2010 as a one-semester exchange student at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. Sometime during her first two months here, she was befriended by a student leader from a campus ministry called Navigators. They became friends, and he invited her to church. She accepted the invitation, came, and came again the next week.

The sermon in church the second Sunday she attended was called “You Can Start Over.” During the final song of worship, she turned to her friend and said that she was ready to accept Jesus as her Savior. That afternoon, after lunch, she prayed to receive God’s gift of grace, the forgiveness of sins, made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The following two weeks were very hard for her. Her live-in boyfriend back in Germany became very angry at her decision. He began rejecting her. We met to talk about it and I shared with her the truth that living for Jesus will bring alienation from the world, and cause division between us and the people we once lived to please. She cried. I cried. But she understood and gave her heart more deeply to the one who had died for her.

A few weeks later she, along with 5 others, was baptized by immersion in obedience to the command of Jesus and was publicly identified as a follower of Christ. As I stood beside her preparing to immerse her under the water, she closed her eyes and tilted her head toward heaven. I have never seen such an expression of peace. The Spirit of God had captured her heart, and she is in love with Jesus. As I quoted the verse I always quote at a baptism – “You are buried with Him in the likeness of His death…” – she completely relaxed and released herself to my control. Then, as I brought her up out of the water – “You are raised to newness of life” – she opened her eyes, still looking to heaven, and broke out in the biggest smile possible as the joy of her salvation flooded her soul.

As a part of her exchange student program, she was scheduled to take an 11-day trip starting this week to visit historic sites in America. Two weeks ago, after receiving Christ into her life, she canceled that trip. Why? So she could stay in Eau Claire and be more deeply disciple by her new family of God so she is better prepared to go back to Germany and share the Gospel. She loves God more than she loves herself.

The prophet Isaiah said that the atonement for Israel’s sin would only be complete when sin was fully removed.

Isaiah 27:9-11  “By this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for, and this will be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin: When he makes all the altar stones to be like chalk stones crushed to pieces, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing.”

When Jesus atoned for our sins on the cross, He paid the full price to have them completely removed from our lives. There is only one reason that sin still pops up in our lives and is an option to be considered – we love ourselves more than we love God.

My dear friends, I cannot tell you how significant this message is for all of us today. Please do not pass it over lightly. We have become self-centered and self-dependant. We have chosen our own way instead of God’s way. We have chosen to justify all of our connections with the world and all of our pursuits of the world’s pleasures with the rationale of personal rights and benefits, when in reality we are simply loving ourselves more than God.

It is time for repentance.

It is time for revival.

It is time for sacrifice…like the one Jesus made for us, who loved us more than He loved His position and power in heaven.

It is time to love God with ALL OUR HEART, ALL OUR SOUL, ALL OUR STRENGTH, AND ALL OUR MIND!

Pastor John

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6wzIi3vGypMVsqEjMv4MM6?si=-GRLOF6ITBmZx2azhnlPCA

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, July 18, 2025

Oh how precious is God’s Word. It comes at just the right time to soothe the soul. It exhorts and encourages at the very moment of need. When a cherished friend is needed, God speaks. When doubt and fear have overwhelmed the heart, God’s words of love break through and bring comfort and peace. When commitment wavers, God never does, and He assures us He is still with us and for us. Oh how He loves us. Oh how He cares for us.

God has a word in Isaiah 27:2-5 to meet our need this morning.

“Sing about a fruitful vineyard: I, the LORD, watch over it; I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it. I am not angry. If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire. Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me.”

One of these expressions of God’s love is just what we need:

• God believes I am capable of bearing fruit in His vineyard. He planted me. He pruned me. He shines His light on me. He has connected me to Himself for the food I need to grow. I will bear fruit for the Lord.
• God constantly watches over me. Nothing can happen to me that doesn’t first pass by Him. He has stopped far more evil against me than I can ever imagine. He has permitted to come against me only those things that will strengthen me so that I can bear more fruit. He is my constant caretaker.
• God waters me continually. Nothing can happen to me that will leave me thirsty. No scorching sun can dry me out, for my roots are constantly in the Living Water. No frost can kill my leaves for they are constantly moistened by the Holy Spirit’s fresh dew.
• God guards me day and night. I cannot be harmed by what the world throws at me. I cannot be overcome by the deceptions of Satan in my mind trying to convince me that I am unacceptable and unapproved. I cannot be harmed by the words of people or by their perceptions of who I am. I have been qualified by God to be a partaker of His inheritance with all the saints in glory.
• God does all these things even when I am not faithful. God says, “I am not angry.” When I sin, He is still watching and watering. When I am prideful, He still protects me.  When I pursue personal preferences, He pleads with me to come to Him for peace. God NEVER EVER quits being God to me!

Let me repeat that – God NEVER EVER quits being God to me!

Thank you Lord for giving me exactly what I needed today.

Pastor John