The Pastor's Pocket

Hello everyone, Pastor Bruce here with an important announcement regarding our daily devotionals known as “The Pastor’s Pocket.” After today, these will be discontinued.   I am so thankful to each of you who have enjoyed reading these devotionals and I trust the Lord has encouraged you through each one. I challenge you, as Peter does, to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).   It is my desire that you will continue in your own personal study of the word of God. Learn the Word, Love the Word, Live the Word!   There may come a time when I can write these again, but for now, I will devote my time to other areas of ministry and ways to serve Him! “To HIM be all the glory both now and forever. AMEN!”   The Pastor’s Pocket Pastor Bruce Freeman

Matthew 16:21, “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.”   From His birth to His death, Jesus suffered. In the scripture verse for today, Christ is preparing His disciples for the suffering. He was about to endure the final stages of His ministry on earth. He describes how He will suffer, how He will die, and then be raised on the third day. All of this was the Father’s plan for our redemption, our salvation. For that plan to be carried out, Jesus had to enter the world. His entrance came through a lowly manger in Bethlehem.   The sufferings of Christ begin with His birth. Jesus left the glories of heaven and subjected Himself to the limitations of time and space. He confined Himself to a body for the first time. If baby Jesus bit His tongue, He experienced pain. He got thirsty for the first time. He expe...

“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;” Ephesians 5:20.   “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” I Thessalonians 5:18.   Give thanks always? For all things? Really? Yes.   The Bible teaches us to give thanks, to praise the Lord, to be grateful – always. This sounds impossible, but it isn’t. God never requires something of us that is impossible to do. Giving thanks always, requires trusting God, knowing that God is sovereign. He is always in control, and He never makes mistakes. He either causes all things in our lives or He allows them. We can be thankful for each event in our lives, knowing that God is in the middle of it.   Everyone can give thanks after a blessing comes their way. That’s not hard, and it doesn’t require much faith. Have you learned to thank God before a blessing comes? That is evidence you are trusting God and by faith, you are beli...

Our daughter was shopping at a wholesale store recently and sent my wife this text, “Insane how packed it is on Wednesday afternoon!” My wife’s reply to her was, “Tis the season”. The busy shopping season has begun. It’s a great time of the year for retailers.  During this season as Christians, we mustn’t venture out without asking the Holy Spirit to fill us with patience and give us the strength to maintain a Christ-like spirit.   This is a shopping season when many people are searching for, hoping for, something that will satisfy a craving, fulfill a longing, or give them a thrill. For some it will be a party, alcohol, a new car, new clothes, a new boyfriend/girlfriend perhaps. For some, their happiness comes from a sale at the mall, and their many purchases. It’s a season when many are looking for a “high” which turns out to be only temporary.   Friend, there is a “high” you cannot buy. It’s righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). It’s not some...

When I think of a military veteran, the word “service” comes to mind.  Those in the military serve their country to keep us safe.  We all owe a great debt of gratitude to military veterans who loved their country enough to fight for it, and even to die for it.   Despite the way military personnel are portrayed in the liberal media, those who serve and have served are among our nation’s finest.   Several years ago, Tom Brokaw wrote a book titled, “The Greatest Generation”, in which he sought to provide evidence that it was the World War II generation of men and women who sacrificed all for America’s Freedoms. Those who made it back home, went to work, married, and had families. They went on with their lives without complaining. They understood and believed the concept of sacrifice. Whether you agree with Brokaw’s assessment, you must admit that service and sacrifice go hand in hand.     May we all salute our veterans. Thank them for their service. That’s the...

In Major League Baseball, each team has a Bat Boy. They are most often young kids who retrieve bats after a player has hit the ball and taken it to the dugout.  They also retrieve other items, shin guards, elbow pads, etc. These young boys have no name on their jersey and the cameras almost never show them while they work during the game. They go unnoticed, but their tasks are important. They are there to serve the players.   This past summer as I was watching a game and as I really took notice of what the Bat Boy does, some scriptures came to mind. Romans 12:10b, “in honour preferring one another;” Philippians 2:3b says, “in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Other scriptures I encourage you to read: I Peter 5:5 and Proverbs 3:34.   Someday in heaven I think we will meet a lot of Christian people who, in a sense, were “Bat Boys” for Jesus. They served others. We never knew their names. They were never in the limelight. People who were the un...

It’s that time of the year when the animals are getting ready for winter. They make sure their nesting place is ready for hibernation. They are gathering food or eating a lot of food now to sustain them during the winter months.   In the mornings when we wake up, we get ready for the day. When we are expecting visitors, we get ready for their arrival. The airline industry works hard to make sure their planes are ready to fly. Athletes warm up to get ready for competition.   Jesus tells us to get ready because He is coming.  Are you ready for His return? We must be prepared, for one day the Lord will surely come. How can you be sure you are ready for that moment? (1) Make sure you are saved, born again. (2) Be serving Christ in some capacity. (3) Make sure you are doing the will of God. (4) Be a worshipper. Practice now praising the Lord because that is what you will do in heaven (Revelation 4-5).   Are you prepared for an encounter with the Lord today? Have you posit...

Some of life’s greatest disappointments stem from someone we know and trust leaving a wound in our soul.  All of us, at some time or another, have been seriously disappointed in other people by their behavior, their attitude, their words, or they responded to us in a way that we felt was inappropriate.   Knowing ahead of time that offences will come is a hard lesson, but it must be learned.   Someone said, “the best of men is a man at best”.   We must accept the reality that every person is a human being, subject to multiple failures and mistakes in their relationship with others.   If we are prepared for disappointment, it will lessen the level of pain we feel, or at least lessen the frustration and help us heal and overcome our attitude toward them.   Here are some things to consider: (1) Your immediate family is a “classroom”. They are often the last to understand what you’re all about. Don’t be surprised if they misinterpret your passion for God. (2) Di...

We learn two ways, by mentors or mistakes.  Think about that.  We can be instructed, coached, motivated, helped, or guided by someone with more wisdom, more knowledge, more skill, more talent or more strength than we have ourselves. Or we can do things our own way, in our own limited understanding, with our own limited skills or resources.  When we allow ourselves to be mentored, we can avoid many mistakes.   Over many years of pastoring, I’ve watched people make a lot of mistakes in their marriage, parenting, finances, and their health. They made poor decisions because they refused to learn from someone who could help them.  Did they learn from their mistakes? Probably so, but those are hard lessons that led to a lot of frustration and heartache.   I have preached a lot of sermons through the years that would have helped some people with problems they are facing, but they never attended church to hear those sermons.  I’m amazed at people who say they ...

Have you ever been to the ocean and taken the time to watch the waves crashing in on the shoreline? They just keep coming wave after wave. The process never ceases. That to me is a picture of God’s grace. His undeserved favor poured out upon our lives. Wave after wave, day by day, minute by minute.   In 2 Corinthians 12:9, God spoke to the Apostle Paul with these words, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Sufficient means, always enough. Just like the waves of the ocean, God’s grace keeps coming. It never runs out. It never ceases to flow into our lives, in our crisis moments, and the dark seasons of our lives.   Thank God for the waves of His sufficient grace in your life.   The Pastor’s Pocket Pastor Bruce Freeman  

You’ve never really given a problem over to God until you completely trust Him with the outcome. Too much of our faith in prayer is tied to getting God to do what we think is best. We rejoice if God does what we ask or if He responds as we think He should. What if God has other plans? Is He any less faithful?   The truth is, God sometimes does have plans that differ from our own agenda.   As we pray, we must be willing to accept whatever God determines best.   That’s never easy, but it’s a place we must come to in our understanding of the Holy One.   We all know the story of the three Hebrew young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and the fiery furnace.   The story is found in Daniel chapter 3.   An order had gone out from the Babylonian king that everyone in the province was to bow down to the golden idol, and anyone who refused would be thrown into a fiery furnace. I love the approach of these three men in Daniel 3:17, “If it be so, our God whom we...

On our way to and from church, we drive through a construction zone where they are building a new highway. It’s a major project and at this point you can’t tell how and where it will one day reach completion. There are a lot of earth-moving bulldozers, dump trucks, and a lot of other machinery moving all over the place. At this point, only the architects and engineers really know how it will eventually come together to become a major highway.   It’s like that with our lives. Sometimes we go through trials, pass through the fires of hardship, and we wonder how it all fits together in God’s ultimate plan for us.   The Apostle John wrote in I John 3:2, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be”. In other words, right now, only the Divine Architect knows how it all fits together. But this much we do know, He does have a purpose and plan. John goes on to say in that same verse, “when He shall appear, we shall be like Him”. One day, we will come to the completion phase of His plan, a...

A lack of genuine holiness is the predominate reason God withholds His awesome power in our lives. When we pray and God does not respond, we need to consider the reason why. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:” Isaiah 59:1-2 says, Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” God has not gone deaf, but there may be an underlying problem and it’s not with Him, it is with you and me.   God is serious about how we deal with sin. If we fail to confess sin our prayer life will be hindered. I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” The word confess means that we agree with God about our sin and admit we have sinned. When we say to Him, we failed to obey and we are sorry, ...

“Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for Thee”. Psalm 25:21   Waiting seems difficult, useless, and even impossible to do, but it does have a significant role to play in our development and growth process.   This generation is one of rush, rush, hurry, hurry.  I believe one of Satan’s tactics is to speed us up, bypassing the blessing that comes with lingering in the presence of God.  We must learn to enjoy the now, to savor the present moment.  After all, it has taken us a lifetime to get here.   Yesterday is in the tomb, tomorrow is in the womb. Today, this moment, is all we have.  So why do we find it so hard to wait on the Lord if that’s what He instructs us to do?  I have made many a blunder by failing to wait on God.  Pushing through my agenda seldom works out.    Here are some tips to help you and I wait on the Lord: (1) Waiting is hurry’s enemy.  Patience brings power, vision, motivation, and perseveran...

All doctors agree that stress levels in today’s society are extremely high. Pressure, if not processed correctly can affect us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The Lord never designed us to bear all burdens, that’s why He tells us in I Peter 5:7, “Cast all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” If we commit our ways to Him, He will sustain us.   There are many pressures we face in life. The pressure to conform, to attain, to meet schedules, to measure up, to finish, to perform, to be something or do something. These can all lead to stress. So how do we overcome the temptation to give in to the pressures we face. Here are some stress busters that will help us: (1) Depend on the Lord for the strength and grace you need. (2) Pray in times of distress, anytime, anywhere. (3) Accept the things you cannot change. (4) Work at changing the things within your control to change. (5) Learn to release your anxiety to the Lord. (6) Simply refuse to let the pressures cont...

Matthew 5:13, “Ye are the salt of the earth”. Put salt on any kind of food and it will change how that food tastes. Salt has an influence. Notice that Jesus said, “salt of the earth.” That goes way beyond our own church family. Jesus would have us influence those beyond the walls of our church.   It’s time we all reevaluate our level of saltiness. How much influence do we have on those who desperately need to be touched by the love of Jesus? Many in this world need salvation. We can’t reach them all, but we can reach some, with our influence, sharing our testimony, giving them the gospel – good news.   Here is a test of your level of influence: Do you believe in the potential of others? Do you serve those who can’t serve you? Do you love those who don’t love you back? Do you give to others expecting nothing in return? Do you reach out to anyone outside of your own church family?   Might our influence in this world be that of loving, giving, praying, and...

The ministry of intercessory prayer is a powerful thing.  When we pray for someone, in essence, we are touching God with one hand while reaching out to the one we are praying for with the other.   Think about that when you pray for someone who is not saved. They are lost in their sin and far from God. When you pray for them, you intercede on their behalf. You are going before God in faith, praying for their salvation. The Bible tells us that the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving sinner so that they are unable to see the glorious light of the gospel message (2 Corinthians 4:4).   We must always be active in the ministry of intercessory prayer.   Paul was a great intercessor. In most every letter he writes, he tells the believer he is praying for them.  Although he was separated from them at the time, he knew he could minister to them through intercessory prayer.  What joy and encouragement it must have been to those believers to kno...

Do we really need the Church? Many people ask that question today. People who claim to be Christians conclude the Church is irrelevant to their faith. They say they can worship God anywhere. Although that reasoning may seem sound, it isn’t.   Here are some solid reasons why every Christian needs the church: (1) The local church holds us accountable. (2) We need other Christians to keep us on track. (3) We need encouragement from our church family when disaster or crisis strikes in our lives. (4) We must be challenged by other believers to keep the faith. (5) We need to be fed spiritual food by pastors and teachers.   Keep in mind these comparisons: Like sheep who tend to get caught in thickets, we sometimes find ourselves in trouble. Like a puzzle, we need all of the pieces to complement each other and complete the puzzle. Like babies who cannot raise themselves, we need to be nurtured through the growing process. Like one log, who by itself, can on...

I Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks.”  At first glance this seems impossible.  How can we possibly give thanks to God in everything and in every situation? The truth is there is a huge benefit for any of us who learn, by faith, to be grateful.  It’s an attitude that we must develop if we are ever to become grounded believers.  Being thankful helps us focus on God rather than our circumstances.   It is no test of faith to rejoice and shout when the sun is shining and when all is well.  We must learn to be thankful when all is not so well.  That’s faith.  It’s the example of Paul and Silas in Acts 16 who were in prison.  They were uncertain of what the next day might bring, and yet the scriptures tell us that at midnight, they were praying and singing praises to God.  They were giving thanks to the Lord who held them in His care.    Here is my challenge for you today: when your world turns upside down, thank God...

Just before Jesus was arrested and crucified, He gave His disciples some of the most powerful promises about intercessory prayer ever given. John 15:7 says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Found in that verse is a big “IF” to the promise of answered prayer.    In John 15, the Lord Jesus is stressing the value of relationship. Abide in Him and His words abide in you. What does it mean to abide? It has to do with connection. Jesus tells us in verse 5 that He is the vine, and we are the branches. Just as a vine is connected to a branch, we must be connected to the Lord. If you do not truly know the Lord, you cannot claim the promise in the last part of verse 7. “ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”   Relationship with Jesus implies that you get power, comfort, wisdom; everything you need from Him.  If you are not “in Him” you are ineligible for the answer to your prayer.   When J...