PACE Ministries, Inc.

09/06/2026

🌱 How can two people stay together though they change?

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

Have you ever noticed that a home is more than the things we build around us? It is also what we build within us.

Marriage changes us.

We develop different interests. We meet different people. We grow in different areas. Sometimes we disappoint each other. Sometimes we become people neither of us expected to become.

So what keeps us together?

Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless Yahweh builds the house, they who build it labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)

Maybe the answer is not trying to prevent change. Maybe it is agreeing about where we return when change creates distance.

Paul says, “but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15)

We can grow differently and still grow toward Christ.

When God is at the center, we have somewhere to return when we drift.

His righteousness remains. His holiness remains. His love remains. And so does our reason to keep walking together.

Today is a great day to return to God, listen with humility, and grow toward Christ.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
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09/06/2026

https://www.youtube.com/live/0dUyPMFqGls?is=PAXQQPedrEkpy6TH

We invite you to worship with us at Pace Ministries Inc. as Pastor ...

09/04/2026

🌱 Love pays attention

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

Sometimes we do not stop loving someone. We simply stop paying attention.
We know the stories. We know the habits. We know what they usually say. And because we think we already know them, we stop asking.

Then a marriage can become strangely quiet while everything looks perfectly normal.

Something in Malachi makes me pause:
“Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.” (Malachi 2:15 WEB).

Take heed to our spirit.

God does not first direct our attention toward our spouse's faults. He brings us back to ourselves.
That is uncomfortable because it is easier to remember what someone did to us than to notice how we have been treating them.

Maybe faithfulness sometimes begins in very ordinary places. We listen again. We ask another question. We notice the tiredness behind a voice. We encourage instead of criticize. We reach for a hand. We sit close.

Malachi calls the wife a companion and a covenant partner. God sees the person beside us as more than someone sharing our routine.

Perhaps we have not lost love at all. Perhaps we have simply stopped looking closely enough to see it.

Today is a great day to notice again, listen patiently, and reach closer.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
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09/04/2026

🔥 JOIN US THIS SABBATH — SEPTEMBER 5! 🔥

We invite you to worship with us at Pace Ministries Inc. as Pastor Mark Stewart brings a powerful message:

“The First Love and The Final Fire: Christ’s Evaluation of His Church”
📖 Revelation 2:1–11
Revelation — Theme 2, Part 5

“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” — Revelation 2:4

Christ evaluates His Church throughout history, calling us to examine our faith, our commitment, and most importantly, our love for Him.

❤️ Have we left our first love?
🔥 What does Christ see when He evaluates His Church?
📖 What is His call to us today?

Come worship with us, hear the Word, and be challenged to return to your first love in Christ.

📅 Saturday, September 5, 2026
📍 Pace Ministries Inc.
2605 Memorial Ave.
Lynchburg, VA 24501
🎙️ Pastor Mark Stewart

Come expecting a blessing! We look forward to worshiping with you!

09/03/2026

🔐 Do we really understand the concept of "one flesh"?

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

When my brothers and I were growing up, our parents used to say, “The same dog that brings a bone will carry a bone.” It was a simple lesson about information sharing.

I think about that saying and how something small can unsettle the closeness inside a marriage. A private thought repeated. A confidence shared. Suddenly, something feels different.

Then Genesis gives us words worth slowing down over: “Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

One flesh. God created marriage with a closeness so deep that trust matters profoundly.

Jesus says, “What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.” (Matthew 19:6)

God joins. God cares about the union He creates.

That makes confidentiality and integrity within a marriage more than good manners. They become part of how we honor something God Himself created.

Yet protecting marriage never means hiding abuse. Love does not require silence when someone is being harmed. The God who creates closeness also cares about truth and safety.

That is why Christlike love matters. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25)

When we see His love more clearly, we begin to understand what marriage was meant to hold.

Today is a great day to guard trust, speak truth, and love courageously.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
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09/02/2026

🎁 Let's not pay more attention to the package than the gift

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

We have probably all seen a child become more interested in the box than the gift inside it. It makes us laugh because children can find wonder in almost anything.

But sometimes we do something similar with marriage.

We can get so caught up in what society says marriage should look like that we forget where it began. Genesis takes us back to something simple: “Yahweh God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.’” (Genesis 2:18)

Marriage begins with God seeing a human need and responding with care.

That tells us something about Him. He cares about companionship. He cares about covenant. He cares about the way we love one another.

Paul gives us another glimpse when he says, “For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly.” (Ephesians 5:29)

Maybe that is where we need to look again. Marriage is more than the box society puts around it. When lived according to God’s design, it can become one ordinary place where we learn what His care looks like.

Today is a great day to honor God’s design, cherish covenant love, and notice His care.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
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08/31/2026

🌱 What happens when we stop trying to live tomorrow today?

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

We can spend an entire morning dealing with problems that have not happened yet. Our minds run ahead, trying to prepare for every possibility.

Then Jesus says something surprisingly practical.

“Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient” (Matthew 6:34).

Why would Jesus tell us this?

Because He knows we are tempted to carry tomorrow before tomorrow ever arrives.

Earlier, when Jesus taught us how to pray, He said, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).

Today.

That little word may be easier to read than to live.

The Father invites us to depend on Him today instead of demanding that we know how everything will work out tomorrow. He gives us what we need for the day we are actually living.

And when tomorrow comes, God will still be there.

We do not have to solve tomorrow today. We can receive today from the Father and trust tomorrow to Him.

Today is a great day to receive today’s grace, trust God’s care, and release tomorrow.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
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08/30/2026

⏳ Why does waiting become so difficult when someone we love is involved?

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

Have you ever rushed to answer your phone, only to be put on hold? Or arrived early for an appointment and then sat waiting for the doctor?

Hurrying just to wait bothers us.

It can be even harder when we are waiting for God to help someone we love get their life together.

Abraham knew something about waiting. Hebrews says, “For he was looking for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Hebrews 11:10.

He was looking toward something God had promised, even though he could not see it yet.

Then we read, “Let’s hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering; for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23.

There is something steady about that. Our hope does not depend on seeing the answer. It depends on knowing God.

And then we see Jesus, who “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” Hebrews 12:2.

We may not know when change will come for someone we love. We cannot make their choices for them. But we can keep praying and keep trusting the One who promised.

Today is a great day to trust God's faithfulness, pray without giving up, and keep looking to Jesus.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
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08/28/2026

🏠 Is fellowship optional?

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

We got pretty good at doing church from home. During the lockdowns, we had to. But some of us never really went back.

We can watch worship online, listen to sermons, study Scripture, and pray without ever having to deal with people. And if we're honest, people can be difficult.

Hebrews says, “not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another” (Hebrews 10:25).

There it is. "One another."

The early believers “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer” (Acts 2:42).

God never intended faith to be a completely private matter. Sometimes we need encouragement. Sometimes somebody else needs our encouragement. Paul even spoke of being “encouraged in you, each of us by the other’s faith” (Romans 1:12).

Maybe gathering is not just about what we receive. Maybe somebody is waiting for the encouragement God intends to give them through you.

Today is a great day to show up, reach out, and make room for somebody else.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
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08/27/2026

👐 Why has helping others with what we have become so uncomfortable?

✝️ Keeping PACE Today
Inspiring Daily Devotional

Somehow, the idea of using our resources to help other people has become so foreign that people who suggest policies intended to help others can be branded communists.

Whatever we think about those ideas, helping people who are struggling is not foreign to the Bible.

The tithe is one tenth off the top of our increase, which God claims as His own. Offerings are gifts we give in addition to the tithe. They are voluntary gifts that can say, “Thank You, God.”

Paul says, “Let each man give according as he has determined in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Then Jesus says, “For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do them good” (Mark 14:7).

That is hard to miss. Jesus expected His followers to notice people who needed help and to do something when they could.

Maybe we have closed our hands so tightly that helping others now feels unusual.

Today is a great day to open our hands, notice someone's need, and respond with generosity.

© 2026 Mark T. Stewart.
Please share this devotional with others, but keep the copyright intact. Distribution without this notice is not permitted.