Bible Connection Center

09/09/2026

Daily Devotional
Wednesday,
September 9, 2026
God’s Open Invitation
Read: Luke 14:15-24

Compel them to come in, �so that my house will be full. Luke 14:23

Before my close friend’s wedding, we meticulously set the table for two hundred guests at the reception. With joyful anticipation we spent hours folding napkins, aligning cutlery, straightening tablecloths, and arranging flowers. After putting in all that work, we couldn’t wait for guests to arrive and enjoy it! But when many seats remained empty, we were sorely disappointed.

Jesus shared a similar story with some Pharisees as they ate together (Luke 14:15-20). He described a man who lovingly planned a great banquet for many people, but few attended and gave flimsy excuses. The man was angry at their rejection. He extended his invitation to society’s outcasts, “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” (v. 21). When there was still room, his servants went even further abroad to “compel [others] to come in” (v. 23).

This parable reminds us that many of God’s chosen people refused Jesus as their Messiah and rebuffed His invitation into His kingdom (John 1:11). To continue God’s plan to save the world despite their rejection, He opened His invitation to the gentiles, people not of Jewish heritage. All who receive Jesus by faith are welcome to God’s kingdom banquet, regardless of whether the world thinks they’re worthy. The invitation is still open today.

By: Karen Pimpo

Bible in a Year: Proverbs 6-7 - 2 Corinthians 2

09/08/2026

Daily Devotional
Tuesday,
September 8, 2026
What a Fellowship
Read: Philippians 1:27; 2:1-4

Stand firm in the one Spirit. Philippians 1:27

Rachel “church hopped” for three years before finding a Bible study group that provided what she couldn’t find in a traditional church—community. Rachel is Deaf. Around the world, many Deaf people face similar worship challenges. Her house church nurtures community by watching a Deaf church service on YouTube, discussing the teaching with each other, and then sharing a meal. The small group provides the Spirit-led church family Rachel craves.

The apostle Paul explains what makes a church a community: the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Writing from prison, he urged this connection to the church at Philippi. His hope, in part, was to encourage spiritual unity in a congregation he’d formed and loved.

“Stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one,” Paul urged (Philippians 1:27). He added, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, . . . then make my joy complete by being like-minded” (2:1-2).

So don’t be selfish, he said, “not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (vv. 3-4). Those wise words can guide all church families. By the power of God’s Holy Spirit, our communities can serve Him in harmonious fellowship with each other.

By: Patricia Raybon

Bible in a Year: Proverbs 3-5 - 2 Corinthians 1

09/07/2026

Daily Devotional
Monday,
September 7, 2026
God’s Loving Eye
Read: Psalm 32:6-8

I will instruct you and teach you in the �way you should go; I will counsel you �with my loving eye on you. Psalm 32:8

My wife, Sue, and I had just finished walking five miles across the Mackinac Bridge, which links Michigan’s two peninsulas. This annual Labor Day event in the United States is a tradition in our state dating back to 1958. We grabbed a seat on a park bench to rest. A man sat down next to us to catch his breath as well. Soon his wife and adult daughter joined him, and we learned that their family—also believers in Jesus—had suffered through the death of a teenage girl just as we did many years ago.

Together we were able to share how God has sustained us and given us strength and faith through the years. It was amazing to think that among the 33,000 walkers that day, we found a family that understood our hearts.

Two families with similar stories ending up together in a sea of people. It sounds a little like something that can happen only because of what God told King David in Psalm 32. After David expressed his appreciation to God for protection and deliverance, he got this encouraging word from Him: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye” (v. 8 nkjv).

God watches over His children, and He brings them together because they need each other. It’s another indication that “the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him” (v. 10).

By: Dave Branon

Bible in a Year: Proverbs 1-2 - 1 Corinthians 16

09/06/2026

For your convenience you can now give online via Tithe.ly and Zelle. To participate, kindly click on the attached image. Thank you for giving, and God bless you!

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Malachi 3:9-10 (ESV) ...Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

09/06/2026

Good morning and thank you for joining us. We pray you’ll be blessed as you worship with us today.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Who is Jesus Christ to you? If you’re not serving Him, what’s holding you back? Our prayer is that you come to know Him today as your personal Lord and Savior, and that the Holy Spirit will help you live as His disciple.

Now, let’s give God our full attention and worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Be blessed.

09/06/2026

Welcome to Bible Connection Center, a Place of Hope where a warm welcome awaits you!

https://www.bibleconnectioncenter.com/sermons

09/04/2026

Daily Devotional
Friday,
September 4, 2026
Junk Files
Read: Hebrews 12:1-7, 10, 14

Let us throw off everything that hinders �and the sin that so easily entangles. Hebrews 12:1

My smartphone occasionally reminds me I’m not good at digital housekeeping. “Junk files are taking up space,” the message reads. “Delete 675MB of junk files.” Now, I dislike being nagged by my phone. But if I clean out those files, I’ve got more space for things that really matter. Then, when I’m at my daughter’s swim meet, for instance, I’ll have enough digital storage to actually shoot a video of her winning a race instead of unexpectedly realizing that those pesky “junk files” have sabotaged my ability to capture the moment.

Junk files on our phones are easy to delete. But what about the “junk files” in our souls? Like our phones, our souls can be clogged with stuff that keeps us from flourishing spiritually. The author of Hebrews understood this reality, encouraging us to pay close attention to anything that trips us up in our walk with God. “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,” he writes, followed by this challenge: “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).

What weighs you down? What trips you up? Hebrews encourages us to fix “our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (v. 2), who alone can help us identify and delete the “junk files” that hinder our abundant life in Him.

By: Adam R. Holz

Bible in a Year: Psalms 143-145 - 1 Corinthians 14:21-40

09/03/2026

Daily Devotional
Thursday,
September 3, 2026
Reverent Fear of God
Read: Deuteronomy 10:12-15

Fear the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 10:12

“I killed people in the past,” Tanitan said, “but ever since I chose to believe in Jesus Christ, He will not allow me to commit such practices anymore.” Tanitan, a member of the Ilongot tribe from the Sierra Madre mountains in the Philippines, came from a culture of head-hunting—the practice of hunting humans and severing their heads. In comparing his life before he knew God to his life now, Tanitan said, “Before, I was afraid to die but not afraid to kill. Now, I am afraid to kill but not afraid to die.”

As I read Tanitan’s story in the book To the Headhunters of Sierra Madre by Florentino Santos, I thought of how his newfound fear of or reverence toward God developed his desire to obey Him. I remembered Moses’ words to the Israelites before they entered the land God promised them: “What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 10:2). Reverence toward God was to be reflected in obedience to Him. God’s people were to “walk in obedience to Him, to love Him . . . and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees” (vv. 12-13).

As believers in Jesus, our deep respect for God’s holiness compels us to hate evil and do what pleases Him (Proverbs 8:13). Let’s ask Him to help us make reverence toward God a way of life.

By: Karen Huang

Bible in a Year: Psalms 140-142 - 1 Corinthians 14:1-20

09/02/2026

Daily Devotional
Wednesday,
September 2, 2026
The Ultimate Snapshot
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18

Therefore we do not lose heart. 2 Corinthians 4:16

Before our trip to Switzerland, my mental snapshot was of snowy Alps, goats grazing, and mountain farmers blowing alpine horns. However, as we drove south from Zurich, the landscape was the same drab tangle of highways we saw in any city. When we got close to our lodging, we had to drive up a precarious one-lane dirt road. At our rental place, we hauled our suitcases up steep stone stairways. Exhausted and disappointed, we finally made our way onto the patio. And there, opening up before us, stretched an extraordinary vista: the Alps rising up majestically over the blue expanse of Lake Lucerne, with small towns glittering like fireflies below us. The ordeal was worth it.

I recalled the verse, “Therefore we do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4:16). The apostle Paul writes of his own struggles: “We are hard pressed on every side, but . . . not in despair” (v. 8). He reveals his positive outlook: “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (v. 17). He advises us to “fix our eyes . . . on what is unseen” (v. 18), to hope for that eternal landscape.

Sometimes our journey is drab and difficult. But in Christ, we’re assured that we’ll witness the ultimate snapshot. The ordeal will be worth it: His eternal glory far surpasses anything we can imagine.

By: Kenneth Petersen

Bible in a Year: Psalms 137-139 - 1 Corinthians 13

09/01/2026

Daily Devotional
Tuesday,
September 1, 2026
Gathering to Grow in Christ
Read: Acts 2:1-6, 36-37

[The believers] devoted themselves to �the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, �to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:42

In Monterey Bay, California, a boat captain saw fifteen Pacific white-sided dolphins join a super pod of more than two thousand dolphins. Various types and ages of dolphins gather in pods to fend off predators, feed, and socialize. Still, the size and diversity of this super pod was a rare sight to behold.

The Bible records a rare gathering of diverse people that’s foundational in our faith history. As the disciples celebrated Pentecost in Jerusalem, “a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2). They were “filled with the Holy Spirit,” who enabled them to speak in different languages (v. 4). People God created “from every nation under heaven” had also gathered for Pentecost (v. 5). When they investigated the loud noise, each person “heard their own language being spoken” by the disciples (v. 6). Then Peter proclaimed Jesus as “both Lord and Messiah” (v. 36). About three thousand believed and were baptized (v. 41). As God’s people lived in community like never before, He “added to their number daily those who were being saved” (v. 47).

By the power of the Holy Spirit, God’s people around the world still gather to grow in community and proclaim Jesus as Lord. Through us, He will continue expanding His kingdom.

By: Xochitl Dixon

Bible in a Year: Psalms 135-136 - 1 Corinthians 12