Office Devotions: Return to Love

Hosea 14:4      I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.

The prophet Hosea lived a tragic life. He fell in love and married a woman called Gomer. She was a prostitute and throughout his married life, Hosea had to buy back Gomer from her life on the streets and in the slave market. She broke his heart again and again, but because Hosea was a faithful servant of God, he forgave her time after time, lover after lover, and sin after sin.

Hosea must have questioned his own loyalty to Gomer and to God. He must have been deeply saddened and shamed by her actions. His soul would have been in anguish and his mind must have been constantly unsettled, but he still plodded on faithfully, serving God by looking after his uncontrollable wife. Hosea had the grounds for a religious divorce, but he didn’t want to leave Gomer destitute and cast aside.

The prophet knew that the day would come when Gomer’s reckless living would destroy her beauty, her strength, and her attractiveness. One by one, her lovers abandoned her and she was left lonely and bitter, isolated and vulnerable. When all seemed lost and hopeless to the wretched woman, Hosea found Gomer and brought her back into his home. He forgave all of the hurts, insults, wounds, and shame that she had caused him. He looked after her for the rest of her life. Hosea remained faithful because he knew that God did the same for His people.

Over the years, I have seen some marriages wrecked because of the selfishness of a wayward partner. His or her self-centered ways have permanently ruined what was once a loving relationship. But I have also seen the forgiveness of faithful partners save a marriage and even strengthen the covenant between them. It reminds me that hopelessness can be overcome by faithfulness and that even the most serious covenantal breach can be healed.

This is how God’s works amongst us. He remains faithful to the last and will not leave us without an opportunity to be reconciled to Him through Jesus. We may wander and drift far away from God, but Christ’s Cross can lead us back again to God’s grace and love. We only have to turn, reach out, and take His nail pierced hand.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, sometimes we let ourselves grow distant from You. We serve our own needs and fulfill our own desires. We wander from the truth and even wonder if You are real. Help us today to turn back to You and let us re-experience Your love and grace. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Office Devotions: The Lost Ring

Psalm 36: 7     How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

My wife Evelyn lost her engagement ring the other day. She had put some hand cream on her fingers and the ring must have slipped off. She left a message on my cell phone to let me know. It saddened both of us to think that something so significant could be lost.

We bought the engagement ring with my last tax rebate before I went to college to study to become a minister. That was thirty years ago. I can remember shopping for it in Glasgow’s Argyle Arcade where most couples in the city bought their rings. It was an exciting time for us and eventually we found the one clustered diamond ring that Evelyn liked after wandering from store to store. It cost us every penny that we owned at the time, and through the years it has become priceless.

Thankfully, Evelyn found the ring on the carpet next to her exercise bike. That was both a moment of relief and jubilation. This weekend, we’ll be taking it to a jeweler to have a clip put on it. We both don’t want the ring to be lost ever again.

When the writer of Psalm 36 talks about God’s unfailing love, he calls it ‘priceless.’ He cannot buy God’s love nor can he compare it to anything else in the whole universe. Believers in Christ know and understand this to be true, for how can we put a price on complete and everlasting salvation? How can we estimate the cost of Christ’s atonement for our sins?

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, You are priceless to each and every one of Your followers. We can never repay the debt that we owe to You for redeeming our souls and restoring us to God. Thank You for such wonderful, amazing, and priceless love. In Your Holy Name, we cheerfully pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Office Devotions: Battling Bitterness

Malachi 3: 15             “But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.”

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The greatest foe against faith is not unbelief; it is actually bitterness. Bitter people find it hard to truly believe in God because it seems as though He has not lived up to His side of the bargain we call life. Resentment and bitterness fragment faith and can eventually destroy it altogether. It is the fiercest foe that the Church has to face. It is the most damaging opponent that Christians have to conquer.

A tragedy, such as the loss of a loved one, can overshadow someone so much that, in the midst of their grief, they bitterly cry out against God’s goodness and grace. A major disappointment, from a Christian leader, family member, or friend, can also lead to an unresolved bitterness against God’s people. And even unfulfilled dreams can be a bitter experience to faithful people, especially when they see evildoers prosper. It’s like a spiritual slap in the face, which leaves the believer unappreciated, unnoticed, and unhappy.

Faith is not enough to face down bitterness. Hope and love are also required to reclaim bitter hearts and diminish resentment. The hope that we have in God’s everlasting justice and mercy reminds us that evil will not triumph eternally. The love that we experience from God through Jesus and His followers comforts and reassures us during the toughest and bleakest of times.

I think that St. Francis of Assisi best described this process of beating bitterness through his own wonderful prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Office Devotions: Face to Face

3 John 1:14     I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.

I enjoy using Facebook each day on the computer because it let’s me see what other people are thinking and doing. I can keep in contact with my family in Scotland and share their celebrations. I can see how my daughters are doing at college and empathize with them. I can also keep up with church families and friends and share prayer requests, thoughts, and jokes with them. It’s a wonderful invention and I think that the Apostle Paul would have put it to good use in reaching out to churches across the Mediterranean had Facebook been available to him.

Now it’s not all that good at times. There are too many silly quizzes and games – some with computer viruses attached – that fragment our leisure time. When I first start using Facebook this year, I did a lot of quizzes, but these days I’m beyond that. I’m more interested in the lives of the many people who use it to upload photos, comment on current issues, and share some good ideas about faith, family, and fun.

When I first started these devotions, it was to build up spiritual connections with our church staff and elders. Over the years, this has become a multi-national ministry with hundreds of thousands of readers in any given year. It’s amazing what God can do with so little to turn it into so much. I hope that one day, when we all get to heaven, I’ll get the opportunity to meet those people from other places in the world who read one of these devotions, which helped them to draw closer to God. Now that’s a face to face meeting that I will really look forward to!

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, help us to develop news ways of using the new media to share our faith. Give us opportunities to send words of comfort, sympathy, and prayer via email, Facebook, blogs, and texts. Thank You for this wonderful way of reaching out to the world from our churches and homes. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Office Devotions: This is Church

Luke 14:11     “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I am constantly amazed at the faith that is practiced by our young family members and especially the moms at our church. Their calls to compassion and effective ways of ministering to each other is wonderful to watch and humbling to experience.

Take yesterday, for instance. A young mom was involved in a serious car accident. Within hours, our church young moms were mobilized. One of them, who was also preaching at another church, organized the prayer chain in the congregation. A couple of others got on Facebook and soon had people all over the country (and beyond) praying for the young mom who was in critical care. Another young mom, who has just successfully completed surgery and treatment for breast cancer, headed over to the hospital to sit with family. An army of volunteers is rallying together to support, comfort, and care for the entire family.

When I visited the young mom in hospital this morning, she was looking and feeling a lot better than I had expected. The power of prayer, the presence of support, and the love of her friends has helped her immensely. Her road to recovery may be slow, but with the outpouring of Christian love that she has received thus far, it will be a successful one. Faith is not just a bunch of beliefs and religious ideas for our young families, it is an active part of who they are and what they do. I am so proud of what they have accomplished and so grateful of what they can still achieve.

The gift of humility is seen through these acts of loving-kindness. The families are not doing this for themselves or to score religious brownie points with God. They have undertaken this special ministry because they have responded to God’s call for help. It’s wonderful to see such Christian love in action. It’s amazing to watch so many volunteers step up to the plate. This is Church.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, thank You for the many people who will do their utmost today to help those in distress, in trouble, or in need of care. Thank You for the healing strength of our churches and for the gifts of kindness that will be freely, lovingly, and humbly bestowed upon those who are injured, ill, or insecure by people of faith. Thank You for these strengths and blessings. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Office Devotions: Believing God

Prosperity Gospel and spiritual self-esteem books are currently very popular in Christian circles and small study groups, but are these really Gospel and actually Christian?


Philippians 3:14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with one of my pastor friends. We were talking about best selling Christian authors and speakers. At one point in the conversation I said this, “Americans are fiercely independent but sometimes so spiritually gullible.” I was commenting on the fact that a lot of what sells as Christian study material and small group books are really about prosperity gospel and self-esteem. Young Christians are being duped into believing that ‘victorious living’ in Christ is all about having a happy family, wonderful marriage, terrific career, and lots of money. Nothing could be farther from the truth of the Gospel and sadly a whole generation of men and women are getting caught up in the “what’s in it for me now” heresy without realizing it.

Sometimes what is popular in Christian circles is not faithful to Christ’s cause or God’s Word. If Christians were all meant to be successful, wealthy, and influential people, then Chinese jails would not be full of arrested Christians, Iranian courts would not be forcing Christian women to deny Christ, and Guatemalan Christian schools would not be under siege by local gangsters. There’s a false assumption by Christians in America that Christ’s mission and the American Dream go hand in hand. They do not. After all, what came first: Christ’s message to take up our crosses and deny ourselves in order to follow Him or Ben Franklin’s “God helps those who help themselves”?

The only goal and prize that we should care about as Christians is to be called heavenward. If we concentrate too much on having our happiness and success here on earth, then as Christ said about the hypocrites of His time, “they will have had their reward;’ in other words, there will be nothing for them in heaven.  And why do we think that Christ ever said these cautionary words:

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

It’s time to put our prosperity gospel and self-esteem books down; it’s time to pick up the Bible and get the message straight from our Savior and God.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, life is not about us, it’s about You. Keep us from being attracted and distracted by worldly charms and people who want to capitalize on our fears, anxieties, and inadequacies. Teach us the valuable gift of true spiritual discernment and save us from those who preach, teach, and write about prosperity gospel, which is no gospel at all. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Office Devotions: Thinking Theologically

1 Corinthians 2:6       We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

Most pastors think differently from other people. Whether it’s because of our seminary teaching or the specialty of our calling, we think about things theologically rather than socially, politically, psychologically or scientifically. Some people believe that being spiritual is all that it takes to be a pastor, but a pastor’s theological thinking goes way beyond that. Spirituality is about our personal relationship and individual journey to God. Theology is about what God thinks, what is important to Him, and how He relates to us.

Spiritual people sometimes make the mistake of trying to fit God into their lives. God becomes a convenient spiritual companion whose main task is to diminish our anxieties, see to our needs, and answer our prayers. Theological people see things differently: we are called to fit our lives in God’s Kingdom, so we seek to serve Him, doing what He wants, and answering His call. It’s a tough way to live life because it makes you think and act differently. The world patronizes and feasts upon spirituality in different forms, but it finds it difficult to swallow theological thinking and God’s wisdom.

When Paul writes about the wisdom and rulers of his age amounting to nothing, he’s expressing his opinion theologically. Worldly concerns and spiritual shallowness were just as prevalent then as they are now. Socially, politically, and economically they might have been relevant and important to the Romans of his day, but as far as eternally and theologically, they were of no consequence. Each age has its own culture, fashion, and trends but within a couple of decades, they are dead and forgotten. God’s words, works, and ways are eternally relevant, so no matter how much the world tries to diminish the divine and terminate theology, His thoughts, deeds, and acts will never disappear.

So the challenge for all of us today is this: are we going to be content with being spiritually light, or will we dare to begin thinking theologically?

Prayer:                        Lord God, Your ways are not our ways, and Your thoughts are not our thoughts, yet we dare to seek Your wisdom, read Your words, and apply Your ways. Keep us from becoming spiritually shallow and self-serving. Help us to give weight to Your thoughts by making our lives fit Your Kingdom and calling. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.