http://www.1baptist-bridgeport.org/

First Baptist Church Bridgeport, 805 Broadway Avenue, Bridgeport, AL (2026)

05/11/2026

GOD SAID NO—05/11/26…

I asked God to take away my habit.

God said, No.

It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.

God said, No.

His spirit is whole; his body is only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience.

God said, No.

Patience is a byproduct of tribulations; it isn't granted, it is learned.

I asked God to give me happiness.

God said, No.
I give you blessings; happiness is up to you. Holiness is the chief thing.

I asked God to spare me pain.

God said, No.

Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me.

I asked God to make my spirit grow.

God said, No.

You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.

God said, No.

I will give you life, so that you may enjoy all things.

I asked God to help me LOVE others, as much as He loves me.
God said…

Ahhhh, finally you have the idea.

God’s “No” is never the slam of a door—it is the opening of a better one. His refusals are not rejections but redirections, shaping us into people who can bear His likeness. Every “No” in this poem is actually a deeper “Yes”: Yes to growth, yes to holiness, yes to a life that is more than comfort and far more than ease.

We often want God to remove the struggle, but He wants to remake the struggler. We want shortcuts; He wants strength. We want relief; He wants resemblance—Christ formed in us.

When God says “No,” He is not withholding good. He is withholding “lesser” good so He can give the greater. His “No” is the chisel that shapes the soul, the pruning that prepares the branch, the discipline that proves His love.

The wise heart learns to hear His “No” as heaven’s most loving invitation: “Come higher. Grow deeper. Become Mine.”

Faithful steps, deeper trust.

05/09/2026

WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR MY SOUL—05/09/26…

There are moments when my heart feels compelled to speak—not about what I have done for God, but about what He has done for me.

Psalm 66 invites me into that sacred honesty: “Come and hear… and I will declare what He has done for my soul.” Those words remind me that my testimony is not a monument to my strength, but a witness to His mercy.

As I reflect, I remember seasons when my prayers felt thin, when my voice trembled with need. I cried out—not with polished phrases, but with desperation.

And even then, I lifted His name with my tongue, because somewhere beneath the ache was a confidence that He hears. Yet this psalm confronts me with a sobering truth:

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” It is not that God becomes deaf; it is that cherished sin hardens me, dulls my spiritual senses, and distances my affections.

When I cling to what He calls me to release, I cannot expect intimacy in prayer.
But the psalm does not leave me in that heaviness. It turns a corner with breathtaking assurance: “But certainly God has heard me.”

Not possibly. Not hopefully. CERTAINLY. The God who knows every hidden corner of my heart still bends His ear toward me when I come in humility. He attends to my voice—not because my prayer is strong, but because His mercy is.

As I look back, I see His fingerprints on moments I once thought were barren. I see answers that came slowly, shaping me more than solving the problem. I see deliverance that arrived in ways I never expected. And I see mercy—unceasing, undeserved, unturned away.

So I echo the psalmist: “Blessed be God.” Blessed be the One who refuses to abandon me to my own wandering. Blessed be the One who receives my cry, purifies my heart, and surrounds my weakness with steadfast love.

Today, I declare what He has done for my soul: He has heard me. He has helped me. He has held me. And His mercy has never failed.

Faithful steps, deeper trust.

05/08/2026

WAITING UNTIL MERCIES ARE RIPE—05/08/26…

Years ago, I began to experience the effects of cataracts invading my eyesight. When I complained to my ophthalmologist about the grey cloudiness impeding my vision he took a close look and announced to me, “Yes, Mr. Tennant you do indeed have cataracts forming. But they are not ripe yet. It is too soon to remove them.”

At different intervals over the years, while undergoing constant care for my diabetic retinopathy, I would ask him if they were “ripe” yet. His reply was always, “Just wait.”

About two years after moving to Alabama, I saw a new Dr., and she commented on my cataracts. I ask her if they were ready to be removed explaining the wait I had been enduring. She replied in the affirmative and the scheduling began.

And then she informed me about the medication I had to take for a whole month before a surgical consult could take place. More waiting. (I’m drumming my fingers.)

Then came the consult and the calendar was consulted. More waiting. Then the day came for the first eye to be done. And more waiting before the second one could be removed. TWO WHOLE WEEKS!

Praise God that finally the waiting is over, and I am back to 20/20 vision through very clear eyes. It’s amazing and well worth the wait. (On this side of it.)

Which brings me to the spiritual take-away from all this.

“Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” (James 5:7–8)

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

There is a holy wisdom in the way God times His mercies. James calls us to “be patient… until the coming of the Lord,” and Peter reminds us that the seeming delay of God is never neglect but purposeful kindness.

The heart, however, often struggles with this. We feel the ache of prayers not yet answered, needs not yet met, longings not yet fulfilled. We assume delay means distance. Scripture insists it means mercy.

The old illustration speaks plainly: the foolish child plucks the apple while it is still green. It is firm, sour, and hard to digest. But when the fruit is ripe, it drops of its own accord—sweet, nourishing, and ready.

God’s mercies behave the same way. When they are green, we grasp at them in impatience, trying to force outcomes, manipulate circumstances, or soothe ourselves with substitutes. But when God ripens a mercy, it comes with a sweetness that could never have been tasted earlier.

Much of the Christian life is learning to trust the ripening process. The Lord is not slow; He is deliberate. He is not withholding; He is preparing. He is not ignoring your cry; He is aligning the mercy with the moment when it will do you the most good and bring Him the most glory.

A premature blessing can weaken faith, inflate pride, or anchor the heart to earthly comforts. A ripe mercy strengthens, humbles, and deepens gratitude.

So, the call is simple: wait with expectancy, not despair. Wait with obedience, not passivity. Wait with the confidence that the God who numbers your hairs also numbers your mercies—and releases them at the perfect hour.

When the blessing drops into your hands, you will understand why it could not have come sooner.

Faithful Steps, deeper trust.

PS… This is why I did not post the last two days. I have been trying to adjust to seeing my computer screen while my eyes settled down.

05/05/2026

FORGIVENESS IN ADVANCE—05/05/36…

Shortly after World War II, Donald Grey Barnhouse, who was then pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, was counseling a certain young man.

He was a professor in a major university and had a sad story to recount. He had been a second lieutenant in the American army and had been sent overseas to France where he had fallen in with bad companions.

He was not a Christian at the time, and while stationed there he had lived a life of gross sin. Now, however, he had returned home, become a Christian, met a fine Christian girl, and wished to marry her.

But he had a problem. He remembered his past sin and feared that he might again fall into it. If so, he would wound the girl he loved. What should he do? Because of his uncertainty he had hesitated to speak of his love for her.

The pastor advised him to speak frankly with the young woman and to tell her briefly of his past life. “She must sense that you love her and that something is holding you back,” he said. “So you must clear the air. If you are going to spend your lives together, there must be no barriers between you.” Still the young man hesitated.

At this point Barnhouse told him a story that is retold here in order to introduce the comment that was wrung from the young professor when he had finished.

“Some time ago,” he said, “I dealt with a man whose story was not much different from your own. He too had lived a life of sin and had been converted under conditions similar to those existing in a rescue mission. He had then married a fine Christian woman to whom he had briefly told his sordid story.

He said that, after he had told his wife this, she kissed him and replied, ‘John, I want you to understand something very plainly. I know my Bible well, and I know something of the workings of Satan. I know that you are a thoroughly converted man, John, but I also know that you have an old nature to which Satan will certainly appeal. He will do all that he can to put temptations in your way.

The day may come—I pray that it never shall—when you shall succumb to temptation and fall into sin. Immediately the devil will tell you that you have ruined everything, that you might as well continue in sin, and that above all you should not tell me because it will hurt me.

But, John, I want you to know that this is your home. This is where you belong. I want you to know that there is full pardon and forgiveness in advance for any evil that may come into your life.’ ”

As Dr. Barnhouse told this story, the professor lowered his head into his hands. But when Barnhouse reached the end, the young man lifted his head and said reverently, “My God, if anything could ever keep a man straight, that would be it.”

This is the principle of 1 John 2:1–2: forgiveness in advance for any sin that might come into our lives. “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

This is God’s promise, and it is given to us precisely that we might not sin.

God is not shocked by human behavior, as we often are, for he sees it in advance, including the sins of Christians. Moreover, and in spite of this, he sent his Son to die for the sins of his people so that there might be full forgiveness.

Such love is unmeasurable. Such grace is beyond human comprehension. But God tells us of that love and grace in order that we might be won by it and determine, God giving us strength, that we will not fail him.

Faithful steps, deeper trust.

05/04/2026

THE god OF THIS AGE AND THE GOD WHO SAVES—05/04/26…

“…whose minds THE god OF THIS AGE has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Paul’s description of Satan as “the god of this age” is not a throwaway phrase. It is a window into the spiritual reality behind the world we live in.

When Paul says that “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers,” he is not elevating Satan; he is exposing the nature of the age itself.

This present world system — its values, its priorities, its loves, its illusions — lies under the influence of a spiritual ruler who is not God, but who pretends to be.

Scripture speaks with one voice on this. Jesus calls Satan “the ruler of this world.” John says “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Paul calls him “the prince of the power of the air.” These are not different beings or different realms. They are different angles on the same truth: the world as it now operates is shaped by a spiritual power that opposes God, blinds the lost, and resists the gospel.

But notice something crucial. Paul does not call Satan “the god of the universe,” or “the god of creation,” or even “the god of eternity.” He is the god of this age — the present fallen order, the temporary system of rebellion that will soon pass away.

His rule is not absolute; it is permitted. His authority is not sovereign; it is borrowed. His dominion is not eternal; it is expiring. He is the god of a doomed age, not the God of all ages.

This is why the gospel shines so brightly in Paul’s argument.
The god of this age blinds, but the God of heaven reveals.
The god of this age darkens minds, but the God who said “Let light shine out of darkness” shines into hearts.
The god of this age enslaves through deception, but the God of glory liberates through truth.

The contrast is total. One god blinds; the other God saves.

And this is where the devotional weight presses in on us. Every believer lives in the tension between these two realities.

We walk through a world shaped by the god of this age, yet we belong to the God who is eternal.

We breathe the air of a culture that is passing away, yet we are citizens of a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

We are surrounded by blindness, yet we carry the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So the question becomes deeply personal: WHICH GOD SHAPES MY THINKING?

Not in theory, but in practice.
Not in confession, but in affection.
Not in doctrine, but in desire.

The god of this age blinds through distraction, pride, self‑trust, and the glitter of temporary things.

The God of Scripture opens eyes through humility, surrender, and the beauty of Christ. One god darkens; the other God illumines. One god deceives; the other God delivers.

And the miracle of the gospel is this: the God who created light still speaks light into darkened hearts. He still breaks the blindness. He still overthrows the false god of this age. He still shines. Light wins.

Happy pondering.

05/03/2026

SHARED AFFLICTION—05/03/26…

I once watched a young woman—both legs amputated—get into her car. First, she transferred herself from her wheelchair to the driver’s seat. Then she folded the chair, wrestled it behind her, and removed each prosthetic leg. None of it was easy. Finally, she shifted her weight into position. If you’ve ever tried to adjust yourself without using your legs, you know how difficult that is. Then she set her hand controls and drove away.

I thought about offering help, but three things stopped me.
1. I had no idea how to help without making things harder.
2. She clearly knew exactly what she was doing.
3. Any attempt to assist might have embarrassed us both.

Watching her stirred something deeper. It’s one thing for someone who has known nothing but blessing to try to comfort a sufferer. How can the wealthy truly understand poverty? How can the deeply loved understand abuse? How can the woman surrounded by family understand the widow’s ache? How can someone whole and strong understand life without legs?

Comfort means more when it comes from someone who has walked the same valley.

This is why the voice in Lamentations 3 carries such weight. The author introduces himself as “the man who has seen affliction.”

He doesn’t speak from theory. He speaks from the trenches. He describes his suffering in vivid detail, so we know he understands ours. And then—only then—does he say, “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.”

If the author of Lamentations sat with us today, he would listen to our pain without minimizing it. Then he would speak plainly: God’s compassions never fail. He would remind us that His mercies are “new every morning,” and he would urge us to join him in saying, “Great is Your faithfulness.”

As a fellow sufferer, he would offer one more anchor for the soul: “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.”

And as we wait—sometimes quietly, sometimes desperately—we stand on the same conviction that sustained Jeremiah: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

Faithful steps, deeper trust.

05/02/2026

AWE—05/02/26…

God created us with a capacity for awe so that we could receive and savor the wonder our hearts long for.

Our senses testify to this design. We can distinguish beautiful music from noise, the gentle chirp of a finch from the harsh cry of a crow. Our eyes take in the intricate armor of a beetle, the colors and textures of creation, the near and the far with clarity. We feel softness and sharpness, heat and cold, smoothness and grit. Our tongues discern sweet, salty, sour, creamy, and briny.

We were made not only to desire awe but to delight in it.

Yet so many of our struggles come from misplaced awe—wonder gone wrong.

One of Scripture’s clearest pictures of this is the Valley of Elah in 1 Samuel 17. For forty days the army of the living God refused to face Goliath. They heard his taunts, but their paralysis was not tactical. It was spiritual. They suffered from AWE AMNESIA.

Because they failed to carry into that valley a life shaping awe of God, they made a false calculation. They compared themselves to Goliath and concluded defeat was inevitable. Their awe was fixed on the giant, not on the God who ruled the battlefield.

David arrived with lunch and was bewildered by their fear. When he volunteered to fight, it wasn’t arrogance or delusion. It was right awe.

“The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from this Philistine” (v. 37).

David saw the true equation: it was not small David versus a massive giant, but a small giant versus the God who defines all that is awesome.

With the courage only the awe of God can produce, David stepped into a valley of fear and turned it into a valley of victory.

Misplaced awe still wreaks havoc in our lives. It makes us feel alone, unprepared, and afraid. It causes us to fear what we should confront, deny truths we should face, fret over people and situations, and try to control what we cannot control. Misplaced awe never leads anywhere good.

But awe of God produces courage, hope, and steady action. This is the war beneath all other wars.

Too many of us live with deficient awe—timid, anxious, and barely holding onto hope. Our problem is not the size of our giants but the direction of our awe.

So we pray with the Gettys: Don’t let me lose my wonder.

Faithful steps, deeper trust, right awe.

05/01/2026

THE PEACE THAT WILL NOT BREAK—05/01/26…

There is a blessing tucked inside Paul’s benediction in 2 Thessalonians 3:16 that feels almost too large for human hands to hold:

“Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way.”

It is not a wish. It is not a polite spiritual sentiment. It is a declaration that the God who IS peace delights to place His own peace within His people.

But Scripture is honest—there is a kind of peace that is not peace at all. Thomas Watson reminds us that the unregenerate may enjoy a truce, but never true peace.

God may silence the cannon for a moment, but the war still rages. The wicked may feel calm, but it is the calm of a conscience drugged, not healed. It is the devil’s lullaby, rocking souls toward ruin with the soothing lie of “Peace, peace,” when destruction stands at the door. Their serenity is not born from knowing they are safe, but from being blind to the danger they are in.

And if we are honest, the world’s definition of peace is not much better. We often imagine peace as the soft glow of calm circumstances—quiet mornings, smooth relationships, full bank accounts, bodies that behave, and days that unfold exactly as we prefer.

But that kind of peace can be manufactured by a pill, a drink, a nap, a distraction, or a flattering voice whispering what we want to hear. It is peace that depends entirely on the weather of our lives.

And because it is human, it is fragile.
It shatters under failure.
It trembles under doubt.
It evaporates under fear.
It collapses under difficulty.
It recoils under guilt and shame.
It buckles under distress and regret.
It withers under sorrow.
It panics under the pressure of decisions.
It shrinks under the threat of mistreatment.
It quakes before the uncertainty of tomorrow.
It disappears the moment our position or possessions are challenged.
And we face these things every single day.

But the peace God gives is made of different material. It is not the product of circumstances but the presence of Christ. It is spiritual, not situational. It is the settled assurance that all is well between our souls and God—that the blood of Jesus has spoken a better word over us, that our sins are forgiven, that our Father is attentive to our well-being, and that heaven is our certain home.

This peace does not rise and fall with the tides of life. It is anchored in the character of God Himself.

Paul’s blessing unfolds like a quiet hymn:
“The Lord of peace Himself” — it is divine in origin.
“Give you peace” — it is a gift, not a human achievement.
“Always” — it is continually available.
“In every way” — it is untouched by circumstances.
This is the peace that will not break.

This is the peace that belongs to the children of God.

Faithful steps, deeper trust.

04/29/2026

A GRACIOUS PARDON—04/29/26…

Isaiah 43:26—“I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.”

God speaks with a double emphasis—“I, yes, I alone.” The Great, the Pure, the Holy, the Righteous God declares Himself the One who erases sin. If ever there were a place where His thoughts rise infinitely above ours, it is here: pardoning rebels, welcoming the undeserving, forgiving and forgetting. We struggle to release the memory of wrongs done to us. We say, “I forgive, but I cannot forget.” God does both. Forgiveness is no reluctant concession with Him; it is His delight. “The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake.”

The very God whose Book of Remembrance holds the full record of our guilt is the One who takes the pen and wipes the page clean. How can He do this? How can the God who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity cancel the vast ledger of our offenses so completely that He remembers them no more?

It is through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. “The Son of Man has power to forgive sins.” He shed His precious blood so He might rightly say, “Your sins, which are many, are forgiven.” What a total erasure—crimson sins, repeated sins, sins against grace, warning, and privilege—cast into the depths of the sea, never to wash ashore again.

Rutherford wrote that our guilt, when dropped into the ocean of God’s mercy, is like a drop of blood lost in the vast deep. Snow may be pure, but there is something purer still: a soul washed in the blood of Christ.

What moves God to forgive so wondrously? Nothing in us. Not repentance, however sincere; not works, however impressive. The motive is His own sovereign grace—“For My own sake.”

If He dealt with us according to our deserts, His thoughts toward us would be of judgment, not peace. But He is God, not man. “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.”

What a chapter in the volume of God’s thoughts—His full, free, unconditional, everlasting pardon of the guilty. All the grandest thoughts of humanity shrink beside this: God, the just God, yet the Savior; just, in justifying the ungodly.

By faith we receive this gracious pardon. The debt is not merely reduced—it is gone. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions… return unto Me; for I have redeemed you” (Isaiah 44:22).

What can we say to such mercy? If God is for us, who can stand against us.

Happy pondering.

04/27/2026

SPIRIT FIRE—04/27/26…

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:13)

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” (Galatians 5:16–17)
“Do not quench the Spirit.” (1 Thessalonians 5:19)

There is a violence in the image: water poured on a blaze, steam rising, the hungry tongues of flame collapsing into smoke.

The Spirit of God is a living fire in us—warmth, light, power, and motion. Yet sin is like a pail of cold water thrown on that flame; neglect and compromise are like removing the wood that feeds it.

Paul warns us plainly: to live after the flesh is to choose death over life (Romans 8:13). To walk in the Spirit is to keep the flame alive (Galatians 5:16–17). And the command is urgent and simple: "Quench not the Spirit."

This is a call to holy vigilance. Sin does not always roar; often it seeps. A small compromise, an unconfessed habit, a dulled gift—each is a drop that cools the fire. When we excuse bitterness, indulge secret lusts, or let apathy rule our worship, we are not merely failing morally; we are smothering the very presence that empowers us to live as Christ. The Spirit does not thrive in the same atmosphere as sin. He convicts, corrects, and calls us into holiness; when we resist, the friction dims the flame.

But there is hope and a way forward. Mortifying the deeds of the body is not a grim duty but a life-giving discipline: repentance, prayer, Scripture, and obedience are the bellows that fan the flame.
Walk deliberately in the Spirit—choose daily dependence, yield your impulses, cultivate the fruit He produces. When Galatians says the flesh and Spirit are contrary, it is not a stalemate but an invitation to choose the Spirit’s motion over the flesh’s pull.

Hear the urgency in 1 Thessalonians: do not quench what God has given. Refuse the slow extinguishing of your passion for God. Refuse the small compromises that become a flood.

Stoke the fire with worship, service, and the use of your gifts. Let confession be the tinder that clears away the damp, and obedience the fuel that keeps the blaze alive.

Today, decide to protect the flame. Let the Spirit breathe through you; let Him burn away what would dim your witness. Live by the Spirit, mortify the flesh, and never—never—quench the Spirit.

Faithful steps, deeper trust.

04/26/2026

ENDLESS GLADNESS—04/26/26…

Joy on earth comes in flashes — a moment of clarity in prayer, a burst of worship that lifts the heart, a sudden awareness that God is near.

But Scripture insists these are only trailers of the full movie. Heaven is the feature film. Eternity is the unending sunrise. And the joy waiting for us is not fragile, fleeting, or faint — it is OVERFLOWING.
Paul tells us that even now, “with unveiled face,” we behold the Lord’s glory and are being changed (2 Corinthians 3:18). But that transformation is only the warmup.

John says that when Christ appears, “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

Imagine that — not glimpses, not hints, not shadows, but the full, radiant, unhindered sight of the King.

Hebrews says we are coming to the “joyful assembly” of heaven (Hebrews 12:22–23). Revelation promises a world where night is banished forever because God Himself is our light (Revelation 22:5).
Here’s a fresh, joyful, everyday‑language version that keeps the thrill and wonder:

How overflowing our joy will be when we finally step into heaven — when the full, unveiled glory of God shines straight onto us, and we get to bask forever in the warmth of His smile.

This is not poetic exaggeration. This is your future if you belong to Christ.
So, why do we live as though joy is scarce? Why do we clutch anxieties like treasures, rehearse disappointments like liturgies, and treat hope as if it were naïve?

If eternity is this bright, why do we insist on walking with our heads down?

If heaven is this certain, why do we act as though the world has the final word?

Lift your eyes. Your story does not end in exhaustion, decay, or dimming light. Your story ends IN GLORY, IN GLADNESS, IN GOD.

You don’t have to wait for heaven to begin tasting heaven. The joy that will one day flood you can already warm you. The light that will one day surround you can already steady you. The God whose smile will one day overwhelm you is already bending low to bless you.

So breathe. Rejoice. Let eternity break into today.

Your future is joy — endless, overflowing, unstoppable joy.

Faithful steps, deeper trust.

First Baptist Church Bridgeport

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