Over the next week, I will be sharing a daily devotional that I originally wrote for Lifeway’s “Open Windows” devotional guide. I hope you are encouraged in your faith by these short meditations!
Matthew 28:10, “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.'”
“Do not be afraid.” These are words that we see often in the Gospels. Jesus said this phrase to His disciples so many times that they must have grown to expect to hear it whenever something terrifying happened or whenever they saw His glory.
But the most enduring time that Jesus said, “Do not be afraid,” was when He said it as the resurrected Lord. The resurrection had truly changed everything, including fear. His “do not be afraid” refrain spoken to the women at the tomb that first Easter morning echoes down to us today.
No matter what it is that is causing fear in your life, the resurrection speaks hope into that situation. It reminds us that we have a risen King reigning in heaven today who cares for us in our trials. It reminds us that our final enemy, death, has become our servant that will take us into the presence of our King and into eternal joyful fellowship with the saints who have gone before us.
Truly the resurrection decimates fear. Be encouraged by the words of Jesus: “Do not be afraid.” Trust in God’s plan.
Father, thank You for these fear-destroying words from Jesus that change everything.
Over the next week, I will be sharing a daily devotional that I originally wrote for Lifeway’s “Open Windows” devotional guide. I hope you are encouraged in your faith by these short meditations!
Acts 2:32, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.”
For some, the Monday morning after Easter can bring mixed emotions. Some may wake up with resurrection songs in their hearts. But others wake up with a bit of a low after the high of Easter morning. Back to work. Back to the doctor. Back to the same relationship problems.
However, Jesus is not only risen on Easter. He is still risen today. And that makes all of the difference in the world.
In Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Acts 2, he pointed to the confirming miracles and signs his hearers knew about. He also quoted King David’s prophecies about the Christ in Psalm 16 that Jesus fulfilled.
But the greatest proof of Jesus as Savior was that those Peter preached to had either seen Jesus raised to life or knew people who had seen Jesus alive after the resurrection. Peter didn’t hesitate to proclaim to thousands, “we all are witnesses” of Jesus’ resurrection.
The grave could not hold the Savior. Jesus had died, but as the prophecies and many eyes confirmed, He was alive again. Keep that in mind on this Monday morning.
Christ is still risen. He is still risen indeed!
Father, help me to rejoice in and believe in the resurrection of Your Son, today and every day.
Father, as we sail out upon the unknown waters of 2025, we are reminded of past years that held joys and trials and we are a bit weary. It could be a year of smooth sailing and joy that easily points us to you, the giver of all good things (James 1:17). But life in this fallen world is so uncertain. What life-changing squalls could hit with hardly a moment’s notice?
Jesus, we know that you are our captain and that you are Lord over the storms. So, with you in our boat, we cry out to you, asking you to work in our lives, our church and our family in 2025.
We ask these things with boldness, knowing that the same Jesus who heard the cries of the disciples and asked where their faith is hears us today (Romans 8:34). Jesus, we believe—help our unbelief (Mark 9:24)! We serve you in faith, believing that you not only exist, but that you reward those who earnestly seek you (Hebrews 11:6). Lord, may you be our reward as we seek you today and look ahead to 2025.
We ask for four blessings from your hand in 2025—hope, peace, joy, and to see Jesus’s glory.
Give Us Hope
Give us hope that you are working all things for our good (Romans 8:28). Give us hope that you are forming us to look more like Jesus even though we get so impatient with our progress in sanctification sometimes (Romans 8:29).
Give us hope that the Word is doing its work in other church member’s lives and that you are at work in our community even when we can’t see it (Mark 4:26-29). Give us hope that you will never abandon your church (Matthew 16:18) and that you will use us, but that gospel ministry is not reliant upon us (1 Corinthians 15:58).
Give us hope that you are cheering my spouse and I on each time that we move towards each other (Song of Solomon 5:1b). Give us hope that you are working in my spouse’s heart and life and that you are forming his or her character into a beautiful work of art that belongs to you (Ephesians 2:10). Give us hope that you hold each of my children in your hands and that no one can snatch them out of your hands (John 10:28-29).
Give us hope that you can do more than we can ask for or imagine in our walk with you, in our church, and in our family in 2025 (Ephesians 3:20-21)!
Give Us Peace
Give us peace, knowing that we can sleep because you never sleep, always watching your own (Psalm 121:3-4). Give us peace as we navigate our own doubts and fears (Matthew 10:31). Give us peace that can only be found in knowing you personally, as we pursue you even more than we have in past years (Psalm 119:10).
Give our church peace in conflict that may arise in 2025, and give us a heart to seek the unity of the Spirit (Ephesians 4:3). Give us peace as we navigate the complexity of being believers in today’s world (2 Corinthians 11:28). Give our church a greater measure of the peace that comes from resting in Jesus (John 14:27).
Give my spouse and I peace if financial or health or extended family situations arise this year that add stress to our marriage (Isaiah 26:3). Give our home peace and may our children and grandchildren grow in enjoying their relationships with each other (Psalm 133:1). Give our children your spiritual protection from the evil one, so that they can experience the peace that comes from walking with you in a tumultuous world (John 17:15).
Give Us Joy
Give us joy, knowing that joy is always available in Jesus regardless of what circumstances may come in 2025 (John 15:11, 16:20). Give us your joy in the happy days, and the eyes to see the world as a place where your beauty and power are constantly on display (Psalm 24:1). Give us joy in trials, knowing that you have not abandoned us and are producing Christ-like character in us (James 1:2-3, Romans 5:3-5).
Give our church joy so that when unbelievers visit, they will want this joy that the world cannot offer (Luke 2:10). Give our church joy that is not surface-deep but rather that is deep like a glacier, because it is joy in God (2 Corinthians 1:24). Give our church joy that is Spirit-produced as we worship the living God on Sunday mornings together (Psalms 4:7).
Give us joy in our marriages, as we seek to enjoy life with the spouse you have given us (Ecclesiastes 9:9). Give our spouses joy in their day-to-day responsibilities and in their ministry opportunities (Romans 15:13). Give our children joy through spiritual tastebuds that savor Jesus rather than sin (Psalm 16:11).
Give Us Jesus’s Glory
In the same way that Moses did not want to move into the Promised Land without viewing your glory (Exodus 33:14-18), we don’t want to move into 2025 without a fresh view of Jesus’s glory!
Give us Jesus’s glory in our times of Bible reading and prayer in 2025, so that we can take a spiritual drink and be satisfied (John 7:37-39). Give us Jesus’s glory through seeing your salvation in our personal witnessing with friends and community members (Luke 5:25).
Give our church a view of Jesus’s glory that is so breathtaking that they will want to run from sin (1 Peter 1:13-16). Give our church the focus that church is about Jesus’s glory, not their preferences or ease (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Give our church such a sense of Jesus’s glory on Sunday mornings that they will long for the next time of worship together (2 John 1:12).
Give our families a view of Jesus’s glory that comes from having a privileged front-row seat to your work in so many lives (Acts 2:43). Give our children Jesus’s glory so that they have mountain-top spiritual experiences, but also we ask that when they come down from them that they will have eyes for Jesus only (Matthew 17:8).
Father, we recognize that we don’t deserve any blessing from you. But we also know that you love to give good gifts to your children (Matthew 7:11). So, we are asking you today to give us, our family, and our church four things in 2025: give us hope, give us peace, give us joy, and give us Jesus’s glory!
Note from Tim: This article originally appeared at Focus on the Family’s The Focused Pastor. You will regularly see articles I have written for The Focused Pastor here. However, I will continue to write articles for both pastors and all Christians. If you are not a pastor but you find this helpful, please pass it on to your pastor! Also, the biblical marriage principles about joy in marriage apply to all marriages.
Like cupcakes missing sugar, too many Christian marriages are missing a key ingredient. Just because a marriage is missing this ingredient doesn’t mean it’s not a marriage, just as a cupcake missing sugar doesn’t mean it’s not a cupcake. But neither “tastes” good.
When we realize that what is at stake is not a bad batch of baked goods but potentially a poor reflection of the gospel through our marriage relationship, we will do all we can to put the ingredient of joy back into our marriages. Many Christian marriages, including ministry marriages, would be sweet again if husbands took the lead in loving their wives joyfully.
My wife is usually pretty positive with me, but one evening, she looked at me and said, “Did you know you’re pretty grumpy most of the time right now?” That knocked me a little off-kilter. She knew things had been stressful at church. She had been supportive and prayerful with me. But after I stopped defending myself in my mind and started to think about what she had the courage to point out, I asked her more about it and realized that she was right. I was getting so consumed with trying to stay on top of pastoral ministry while dealing with multiple fronts during a difficult season in our church that it was negatively affecting my parenting—and our marriage.
I had to ask for forgiveness and start to make changes. Nothing was immediate, but choice by choice, joy began to seep back into our marriage and family.
As I evaluated what happened, I realized that in trying to be Jesus for my church, I had not loved my wife like Jesus loves the church. Ephesians 5:25 is loud and clear on our calling: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…”
Love to Love Your Wife
One specific way that Christ loved the church, a way that God calls us to echo his love in our marriages, is that Jesus loved the church joyfully. He loves to love us. Do we love to love our wives?
Jesus doesn’t just put up with the church. He receives joy by giving us joy (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus doesn’t love the church grudgingly but persistently. He joyfully and persistently loves us. Jesus’ love doesn’t change based on our relationship with him on any given day.
When wives know that their husbands love to love them, there is a security in marriage that develops and strengthens over years. This security frees a wife to be an even greater blessing to others. Also, when we love our wives so joyfully that it’s obvious to her and others, a sweetness develops. When a pastor and wife exude this sweetness to their church and others through the genuine joy in their marriage, their marriage “smells” like the gospel. A joyful marriage covenant points to the New Covenant.
Cultivating Joy
Here are four ways to cultivate more consistent joy in your marriage as you strive to reflect Christ in the love you have for your wife.
1. Spend intentional time together.
Jesus delights to be with his bride. Yet, I am shocked at how quickly I can coast in marriage. The demands of ministry, bills, raising children, home repair, and just making it through each day can mean that I look up and we haven’t had enough intentional time together. We have found that a weekly date night is unrealistic in this season of five kids, including toddlers and teenagers. But we can still purposefully set aside one night or more a week to cuddle on the couch together while we watch a movie or talk. And we can still intentionally carve out times that we go out together without kids, both for a few hours and occasionally for a few days.
Are you as intentional to spend time with your wife as you are to follow up on shepherding issues at church?
2. Talk about what God is teaching you.
Joy ultimately comes from Jesus (Luke 2:10, Matthew 28:8, 1 Peter 1:8, 1 John 1:4). When you invest personally in your relationship with Jesus, true joy will seep into your marriage. I have found that when we talk about what God is teaching us, whether spontaneously or as an intentional question, it encourages each other’s walks with the Lord and begins to spill over into our marriage relationship. Pastors, God is teaching you in the Word every week. Share some of that with your wife, not as an additional sermon but out of the joy of knowing Jesus.
3. Act like Jesus is King.
One of the greatest pieces of advice I have ever heard from another pastor is to talk about church matters as appropriate or needed with your wife for just a little bit when you get home. Then pray together about it before moving on with the evening if there’s a pressing issue, but act like Jesus is king. It is easy to bring things up again and just go around and around about ministry. That is okay to a degree if it helps you serve others together, but at some point, you need to have discussions that are not ministry-related, especially if the issues are stressful. Give it to Jesus, and let it go for the evening (Matthew 6:34).
4. Serve together in some way.
Serving as a pastor does not mean I am automatically serving Jesus with my wife. It can be okay to serve in different areas of the church or family life, depending on the season of life and giftedness. After all, she is not a pastor because she is married to you. But I have found that doing some ministry purposefully together has been helpful. For us, that has been as varied as visitation, foster care, planning an outreach together, or being on the worship team together. Serving together purposefully can bring joy to your marriage, reminding you that God brought you together to glorify him.
Brothers, does your wife not only know that you love her but know that you love to love her, as your Savior does? The marriage of A.W. Tozer leaves us with a somber warning. In his book I Still Do, Dave Harvey recounts: “Tozer was a spiritual giant—a man of spectacular faith, incredible insight, and compelling godliness. But Tozer neglected his wife, Ada, and their family in some pretty stunning ways…After Tozer’s death, Ada remarried a man named Leonard Odam. Dorsett [Tozer’s biographer] writes of a poignant moment when Ada was asked to describe her life with her new husband. ‘I have never been happier in my life,’ Ada observed. ‘Aiden [Tozer] loved Jesus Christ, but Leonard Odam loves me.’”[1]
Brothers, we can love both Jesus and our wives well. We are called to love both. A marriage that “smells” like the gospel will have one often-overlooked ingredient: joy.
[1] Dave Harvey, I Still Do (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2020), p. 193.
I didn’t plan to write a sermon on the power of Christ in weakness with a fever. Yet that is where I found myself this spring, preparing a sermon on 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. Day in and day out that week, I would try to write that sermon and do other ministry I had planned. Day after day, my physical and mental weakness frustrated my plans. Many more than three times, I pleaded with the Lord to deliver me and take the sickness away. Here’s what I kept hearing as I opened God’s Word to prepare to preach: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
I have had a fairly healthy last several months, but a fever this morning has peaked as I write this. God wants me to learn again that the power of Christ will rest on me in my weakness. Sometimes God says no to our prayers to work out his purpose, which is greater than we could ever see on this side of Heaven.
For you, it may be much more serious than a fever. It has been a challenging year for me with various trials, but nothing as serious or life-threatening as cancer as some of my church members and a pastor friend are dealing with. Whatever weakness you are struggling with personally or in pastoral ministry, 2 Corinthians 12 teaches us that the power of Christ rests upon us in our suffering.
A personal pastoral weakness
Second Corinthians is a highly personal letter. Paul is writing to a church he had spent at least 18 months planting and establishing. He knew these people. He loved these people. He had shared God’s Word and the gospel with them. Yet false teachers, whom Paul sometimes called “super-apostles” in a tongue-in-cheek way in this letter (2 Corinthians 11:5-6), had come in and brought false teaching. They received an audience from the Corinthian church by discrediting Paul as an apostle, but not in the way we might expect. It was through personal attacks like making fun of his appearance or saying, “He’s so tough in his letters, but wait until you meet him in person.” (See this idea in 2 Corinthians 10:10)
We need to put ourselves in Paul’s shoes to realize how personally difficult it would be not only to have someone in our church giving us a hard time, as we’ve all experienced, but even making fun of us. Yet to make matters worse, it seems that part of what the “super-apostles” were using to discredit Paul is that he had so many weaknesses. As you read 2 Corinthians, you can almost hear them taunting, “If Paul is a true Apostle, then why does he have so many difficulties?”
The power of Christ tabernacles with us in our weakness
Yet Paul found that his “thorn in the flesh,” as difficult as it was and as much as it was a messenger of Satan (2 Corinthians 12:7), was being used by God to keep him from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the spiritual revelations he had received. The word “thorn” in 2 Corinthians 12:7 is strong—it can mean a stake. His revelations and visions threatened to puff him up, so God sent a thorn to burst his bubble and make him humble.
Brothers, here is the hard but important truth we will sometimes experience in ministry: God is more concerned with our character and spiritual growth than our comfort. The discomfort is often how he meets us. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 12:8-9a, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…”
Sometimes God chooses not to deliver us from the trial but through the trial. And here’s the beautiful thing that can’t be missed—in our weakness, the power of Christ rests upon us in a way that we would not experience if we were not in that trial.
When Paul writes at the end of 2 Corinthians 12:9, “…Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” there is an important phrase used. “Rest upon me” at the end of verse 9 is the vocabulary of the Tabernacle, from the time when God pitched his tent with his people (Exodus 40:34). It is also the language used of Jesus when “the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) Jesus tabernacled among us when he came to earth, just as the glory of the LORD tabernacled with his people through the Tabernacle and later the Temple.
The breathtaking truth of 2 Corinthians 12:9 is that the all-powerful Christ “pitches his tent” with his people in their weakness. He rests upon you in his strength when you are weak. Your pastoral weakness is where Jesus pitches his tent with you.
Do you not know what to say to that difficult theological question? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.
Do you not know what to do or say when a family in your church goes through tragedy? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.
Do you feel weary in ministry, wondering if you can continue to handle the pressure? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.
Are you or someone in your family battling an illness? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.
Whatever you may be facing today that shows your weakness in pastoral ministry, it is an opportunity to experience Christ resting upon you. The only requirement is that you are weak because Jesus is strong!
On Saturday, December 18th, as my wife and I tidied up a few things for the next day’s worship, my kids came running into the church sanctuary: “Baby Jesus was stolen!”
“Really? One week before Christmas?” Sure enough, it was even worse than we thought. We know it was not bad wind or a curious dog because not only is the baby Jesus missing out of the large Nativity scene on our church’s front lawn, but also the manger, a lamb, and one of the two signs advertising our Christmas Eve Service.
“We believe that the Bible’s message about Jesus is true, so he is alive in heaven today and will return again. He is our king and we bow our hearts before the real Jesus just as the wise men and shepherds bowed down to him when he first came. So you can steal a figure, but you can’t steal the real Jesus.“
As we shared about the loss on our church’s Facebook page, hoping somebody might find the figures thrown somewhere in town, it became obvious that this was a discouragement to more than our church family. The Nativity scene was a labor of love from a team of people from our church, attempting to share with our community the humble story of God coming down to live with us and redeem us.
So I want to say a few things to the person who tried to steal Jesus from us:
You can’t steal Jesus. We know that the figure was only a representation of what happened that first Christmas night. The Bible tells us that the real Jesus was not only born, God become flesh, but that he grew up and became a man who lived a perfect life, then died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins and later rose from the dead. We believe that the Bible’s message about Jesus is true, so he is alive in heaven today and will return again. He is our king and we bow our hearts before the real Jesus just as the wise men and shepherds bowed down to him when he first came. So you can steal a figure, but you can’t steal the real Jesus.
You can’t steal our joy. It made my children and others sad to think of the figure of Jesus being the one stolen. But sadness can mingle with true joy, and this doesn’t take away our joy. Our joy is not dependent on traditions or circumstances. The manger scene can sit empty or we can look around at the difficulty in our country right now or even grieve losses like death or divorce and still have joy because our joy is dependent on knowing God through his son, Jesus Christ. The night before Jesus went to the cross he taught his scared disciples a truth we continue to hold onto: “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:22) The sorrow of the crucifixion was eclipsed by the joy of the resurrection. The sorrow of disease and sin in our world will one day be eclipsed by the joy of heaven. Giving invincible joy is one reason Jesus came.
You can’t take away the meaning of the Christmas story. The sign taken had the word “HOPE” in large letters above a representation of a nativity scene. The reason we believe that the coming of Christ brings us hope today is because of what the angel told Joseph, the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:23) Many today wonder where God is as they look at the sin in the world around them and the effects of sin on a world God had originally made perfect. But God isn’t aloof. He actually entered our world and wasn’t born in a palace, but found his first cradle in a feeding trough, a manger. This brings us hope today–that God cares, that God has come, that he is active today, that he loves us today, and that his promises in the Bible are true. The meaning of the original Christmas story is that God came to earth as a human. He didn’t come as we would have expected. His first worshipers were a poor young couple, foreign kings, and stinky shepherds. But he came in a way that shows his care for those who are discouraged and marginalized and down-and-out. This gives us a hope that can’t be stolen.
You are loved. Whether or not you return the figures or even can at this point, I want to tell you that you are loved. We have been praying for you, and not with hatred. We have been praying that a heart that would hate Jesus this much or not be aware of what the Christmas story represents would be a heart that would be broken in order to be healed with the unconditional love of the Jesus you tried to steal. Jesus interacted with thieves. There was one on either side of him on the cross. One mocked him, but the other believed in him. And Jesus told him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) He has that kind of power, to forgive sins and give eternal life. Jesus didn’t come for people who had it all put together, but for people who realize they are sinners and need God himself to enter our world to rescue us. That is how deep his love is, a love we can receive if we will come to him.
You can’t steal the real Jesus. But through this, we are praying that he might steal your heart.
This article appeared in the December 20, 2019 edition of our local paper, The Manchester Journal.
“It is winter in Narnia, and has been for ever so long…always winter and never Christmas; think of that!” With these words, Mr. Tumnus the faun from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe captured the imagination of my children—and me. This winter, my wife and I have been reading them “The Chronicles of Narnia” for their bedtime stories. I had read the beloved classics, as perhaps you have, as a boy, but it had been decades since I last read them. This time, reading them as an adult and as a pastor, I have been amazed at the beautiful parallels with life and even the Christian life as Lewis’ allegory points to Jesus through Aslan, the lion.
But I have not been able to let that phrase go: “always winter and never Christmas.” We know that in one sense so many of us love winter or we would not live in Vermont. We love the skiing, we love the crunchy snow under our feet, we love sipping hot cocoa while watching the snowflakes gently fall. There’s nothing quite like celebrating Christmas in Vermont with snow on the ground. But if it was always winter and never Christmas, if there was no joy in the midst of the long winter, if six months of no leaves stretched into twelve months with no foliage, we would tire of the winter weather.
Lewis described our hearts without joy so well with his phrase, “always winter and never Christmas.” As we approach Christmas, I have been thinking about what we try to draw joy from around Christmastime. We see the word “joy” all over the place: in decorations for the season, in songs on the radio and in the stores. But joy can be elusive. The grandkids don’t visit. The cancer has returned. The toys were exciting for the kids for a couple of hours, but now they’ve moved on to playing with the boxes. Maybe for you the season brings back difficult childhood memories. In your soul, you feel like it is always winter, but never Christmas, even on Christmas Day.
Lift up your head. Aslan breaks the curse, and even heals our hearts. There is joy available that is outside of our circumstances, joy that can coexist with tears. It is a joy that is elastic enough that it can bring the joy of Christmas to both the young parent with the overwhelming list of things to do for the kids, and the elderly person in his or her empty home. It is a joy that stretches to magnify the best times of life and that quietly comes alongside of us to meet us during our darkest moments. This joy is a person who is so much more than a person. His name is Jesus. This is why Christians get so excited about Christmas.
The Gospel of John explains about Jesus, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.” (John 1:5, 12, 14) You see, Christians get excited about Christmas because we truly believe that we can’t work our way to God. The darkness is not only outside of us, it is even in us. But the message of Christmas is that God didn’t expect us to work our way up to him, but he came down to us to offer us free joy now and for eternity.
Before the spring thaw comes, my kids and I will be reading the seventh book in the Narnia series. We will read these words in The Last Battle that I hope will ring true to your heart this Christmas season so that for your soul it will not be always winter and never Christmas: “‘Yes,’ said Queen Lucy. ‘In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.’”
He Must Become Greater 