Category: Devotions

Dear PBC Family,

“for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”” (Isaiah 56:7) 

In Isaiah 56, beginning in verse 6, the Lord is describing who the true people of God are. They are not just ethnic Jews. Rather they are people wholly devoted to the Lord. Part of that devotion involves a robust personal and corporate prayer life. 

There is an emphasis on corporate intercession that the Lord desires for His people that we see carried into the new covenant, for in Acts we read of the gatherings for prayer that the very first Christians held. Of course, the earliest believers did not have dedicated sanctuaries for praise and prayer, often meeting in homes for teaching and worship. Still, the corporate emphasis on prayer indicates that it is appropriate to have sanctuaries that are houses of prayer for God’s people.

It is surely a mark of spiritual poverty that we devote little attention to corporate prayer when we gather for worship. In many of our modern churches, there is much focus on the music, the sermon, or both, but corporate prayer often seems like an afterthought. Prayer keeps us humble before our Maker and reminds us of our need for His mercy, which is key as only those who rely on God’s mercy alone are declared righteous in His sight

We must not only be a “people of the book” but we must be “a people of prayer.”

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth he removed. (Psalm 46:1–2a)

God’s providence is a great comfort. God’s providence includes His fatherly care for His children. Very few believers would say that their life has unfolded according to (their) plan. The hard relationships, bouts with illness, and periodic trials in the church are always unwelcome guests when they appear. But the doctrine of providence assures us that such difficulties don’t fall outside divine design. Providence doesn’t remove our pain, but it can nurture our hope and encourage us to walk in dependence upon Christ. We know that God is working all things for our good and His glory.

Obedience can be challenged in the best seasons of life, but in hardship the flesh can rise up with renewed vigor. Real choices challenge faith: “If I am obedient in this matter, will I lose my job?” “If I remain pure in this relationship, will I lose them and be lonely forever?” When we face questions like these, we can be sure that our Father in heaven is superintending all things for our good. Short-term hardship may come with our obedience to Christ, but long-term blessing will be sure to follow us into eternity.

Generosity is the way of the Christian life. We know that what we have is not our own but belongs to God. He has given it that we might support ministry and bless others. But trials often have financial implications. We may wonder if we should seek to be generous toward God and others in lean seasons. The doctrine of providence reminds us that God our Father is sovereign over our future. He has appointed not only the works to be done, but the means by which to do them. We live by faith and not by sight. If we need to make financial adjustments, they should be made from a spirit of confidence, not fear. Such confidence will often lead us to give in faith and trust that God will provide in unseen ways.

Regardless of what you are facing today, remember that your holy, wise, and powerful Father in heaven cares for you. Let your faith be nurtured by the knowledge of His providence.

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.” (Isaiah 43:4) 

As the song goes, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And while the love of God is woven throughout the Bible, those “three little words” appear only once on God’s lips.

God in Isaiah 43 assured the Israelites in exile that He would provide a ransom to buy them back. He did so in punishing Babylon at the hands of the Persians and bringing the Israelites back to the Promised Land.

Hundreds of years later, God again provided an exchange to deliver His people. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, provided the ransom Himself at the cross. He did so in order to buy us back from the bondage of sin and death. He did so in order that we also might rise to new life. He did so because He loves us.

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

What do you do in response to the soul-crushing darkness that enemies bring? Many have experienced this, and it often comes from those closest to us — sometimes even from a spouse.

David in Psalm 143 experienced this. For he said, “For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground;  he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.” We can take comfort that the writers of scripture experienced the same types of attacks and hurts that we often experience, with the same intensity or worse that we experience.

So what does David do? He puts his mind on God, specifically, on God’s work. David says that he remembered, meditated, and mused on this work of God in 143:5. “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands.” (Psalm 143:5)

These verbs describe a deep, slow, pondering that contemplates the contours of what God has done, explores its implications for what he can do, and reorders the soul in light of these things, forming a heart that knows the living God. When David describes “the days from of old,” God’s “work,” and the work of God’s hands in 143:5, he uses expressions that connote God’s activity from before the foundation of the world.

God planned the world. God built the world. God delivered his people in the world. The world cannot but become what God intends it to be.

This results in Davids praise at the end: “in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.” (Psalm 143:12)

God is reliable and full of steadfast love, and He will make all things right.

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

I am preaching the last sermon in the “I AM” series from John, and I am speaking from John 10: “I am the good shepherd” and “I am the Door to the sheep.” In my studying I needed to look at Ezekiel 34. 

In Ezekiel 34, the Lord is condemning the false/corrupt shepherds for their actions. Instead of teaching the pure Word of God, these shepherds were enriching themselves at the expense of the sheep (34:3–4), probably by giving comfort to people in their sin instead of charging them to repent. It is often easier to get a hearing by telling people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear, and many old covenant authorities committed that error. False prophets taught according to what would help them succeed, not according to the Lord’s truth (Jer. 28).

But the situation would not stay that way forever. Because the Lord makes the following promise,  “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.” (Ezekiel 34:15–16) 

So when Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.” He was stating that he was the fulfillment of that promise. Anyone who follows Jesus follows someone who is not corrupt, and not fleecing the sheep, and not in it for themselves. Rather the Good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep.

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

“It will be said on that day, ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.’” (Isaiah 25:9)

The hope of every believer is the day in which the Lord will vindicate His people in the eyes of an unbelieving world. This was the hope of the Jews and it is our hope today, both as individuals who seek deliverance from particular circumstances and as the church, which is looking forward to the day when Jesus will come again to judge the world in righteousness and to save His people from distress.

Chapter 25 is a praise to God for what He did for the Jewish people in delivering them from their enemies and for bringing down in judgment those who harassed them and mocked God’s name.

The reason for their worship is stated in the first few verses. The prophet declared before the nations the reason why God’s people should rejoice in their Savior. It was because He had brought down the pride of man and exalted His righteousness before them. It was because He had kept His promises to His people and remained faithful even when they did not deserve it.

By the power of the Lord, the city of man would become nothing, and the city of God would be established with great feasting and rejoicing in the salvation of the Lord.

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC family,

I have many conversations with people who are praying for someone close to them to get saved. And many times, it seems to be a hopeless situation. It could be a son or daughter with a hardened heart. Maybe it is a spouse who shows zero interest in spiritual things. Maybe it’s a close friend who used to follow Christ, but has turned their back on the Lord. These situations can feel hopeless, and one begins to think, “it will be a miracle if this person comes to the Lord.” 

Israel faced a similar situation. In Isaiah, Assyria and Egypt were mortal enemies of Israel. In the middle of judgment oracles against these nations. God promises a major change in Isaiah 19. He says,

“It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts… When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them. And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them.” (Isaiah 19:20–21)

He goes on to promise that he will “heal” Egypt. Then the Lord ends the chapter by saying,

“Whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.’” (Isaiah 19:25)

One day in the future, after Jesus comes, Egypt, Assyria, and Israel (which represent the whole world) will worship together.

Keep praying, because with the Lord nothing is impossible. 

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” (Psalm 32:1–2)

Those who know the grace of God’s forgiveness can understand the pure joy evident in today’s passage, which was written by David after he experienced pardon for his sin. As he pours out his soul in rejoicing over the Lord’s grace, the king of Israel provides us with key instruction regarding the relationship of confession and repentance to forgiveness.

David begins with an expression of the blessedness of forgiven people, indicating that with the Lord, forgiveness entails both a covering of sin and not counting it to our records (vv. 1–2). The term covered comes from a Hebrew word that refers to the covering of shame by love in the act of forgiveness. So, when the Lord pardons His people, He stops counting their sin against them, and He hides their shame so that they may rejoice in His presence.

To be absolved of one’s guilt is to enter the realm of the Lord’s favor, and thus we must never forget the benefits of being in right relation to the Creator. Ultimately, forgiveness rescues us from the flood of God’s wrath. We can stand in right relationship to God only if the perfect obedience of Christ is put on our record. If this has happened, the Lord no longer counts sin against us.

Blessings,

Jarred

Daer PBC Family,

While on vacation last week, a terrible storm rolled through the place where we were staying and knocked the power out. Remember that the temperatures were in the upper 90’s. It was toasty – to say the least. The next evening the power came on at 6 and the air conditioners ran for 30 minutes, then another storm rolled through and knocked the power out again. This one was accompanied by hail, and it seemed to me that there may have been a tornado because the wind changed directions. The next morning a manager told me that it looked as if a small tornado had come through.

I started thinking about how much damage can be done by the weather in just a couple minutes or even seconds. Storms and tornados (whirlwinds in the Bible) are a window into the power of God, and also into the judgment of God. The whirlwind is often used to describe the majesty of God:

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind…

Job 38:1

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power… His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Nah. 1:3 

God’s judgment is also likened to a whirlwind:

For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.

Is. 66:15

Behold, he comes up like clouds; his chariots like the whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles…

Jer. 4:13

But for the children of the Lord, he is our protection from his judgment. Jesus shows his power over nature to protect his own in the Gospels. For example, in Matthew 8, while in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, the Bible says, “he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” (Matt. 8:26) 

We never need to fear storms, whether they are natural storms or the storms of God’s judgment. He is greater than any storm that we will face.

Blessings,

Jarred

Dear PBC Family,

If you had your choice, would you prefer to drink fresh cold spring water or lukewarm water that has been sitting in a cistern for a while? Easy question, right?

When he was taking a break from a hot and dusty trip, Jesus told the woman-at-the-well, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (John 4:14). In the next verse he told her, “The water that I will give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Every human is created with a spiritual thirst. The thirst is not condemned by the Lord, but people’s methods for satiating this thirst are often found to be wanting. Thus, Jeremiah speaks of Israel’s rejecting the best water available, a fresh water spring (the Lord), in favor of the low-quality water of a broken cistern (idols): “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

Not only do people go after things that are less satisfying (money, career, fame, prestige), but when they are accumulated, they run out. That is because cisterns always run out, but a spring never runs out of water. So anything that we pursue to quench our soul-thirst, other than the Lord, quickly becomes stagnant.

The only pursuit that truly satisfies is Jesus Christ, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money… Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price… Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1–3)

Blessings,

Jarred