Posts from September 2024
Daily Devotions
Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” vss. 40-41 Mark 9:38-41 Jesus wasn’t nearly so fussy about boundaries as his disciples seem to have been. John had gotten all bent out of shape because he had seen an outsider casting out demons in Jesus’ name. It was as though this interloper was…
Daily Devotions
Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” vs. 16 James 5:16-20 Because the world is good, and broken, the healing that comes with forgiveness will always be a central part of our life together. That’s why so many of our congregations will take time for confession of sins in each weekly worship service. It’s a moment, scarcely long enough, for…
Daily Devotions
Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” vs. 14 James 5:13-15 When we feel sick we will likely go to an Urgent Care Center or to an emergency room for treatment, and usually some sort of healing will follow, sometimes quickly, but often after a period of time. James presented his readers with another option. Since medical…
Daily Devotions
He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’” vs. 35 Mark 9:33-37 We can only imagine how disheartening it must have been for Jesus to pour out his heart to his disciples about the cost of discipleship, and then have them engage in a great debate about which of them was the greatest. They had completely missed the point of his teaching! The only…
Daily Devotions
But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” vs. 32 Mark 9:30-32 Mark indicates that after the disciples had acknowledged that Jesus was the messiah, it became more difficult for them to understand his teachings. Evidently he was teaching them that the path of discipleship led through suffering and death, and did not provide them a direct route to triumph and glory. We can understand their difficulty. Even though we know the gospel…
Daily Devotions
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” vs. 34 Mark 8:34-38 Jesus certainly didn’t try to lure people into becoming his disciples by offering them promises of financial gain or material success. Instead he tells them that the way to new life was through self-denial. In order to save their lives, they would have to lose them.…
Daily Devotions
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days’ rise again.” vs. 31 Mark 8:27-33 Mark reports in his gospel that when the disciples tell Jesus that they believed he was the messiah; he gave them a glimpse of what was to come. There would be a period of great suffering and rejection and finally…
Daily Devotions
With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” vss. 9-10 James 3:6-12 As James continues his discussion of the tongue, he indicates that our use of it for both blessing God and cursing our neighbor is a travesty. And he’s right! And we would be hard-pressed to find…
Daily Devotions
For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.” vs. 2 James 3:1-6 In a moment of candid reflection our old friend James hints that perhaps even he makes mistakes in the course of living a Christ-centered life. His problem, as with so many of us, seems to have been his mouth, but his own struggle with his tongue doesn’t keep him…
Daily Devotions
The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffereddistress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: ‘O Lord, I pray, save my life!’” vss. 3-4 Psalm 116:1-9 It’s hard to believe that 23 years have passed since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. It’s a date that hangs on in our memories as a moment in which our realities were shattered.…
Daily Devotions
The Lord God helps me; therefore, I have not been disgraced; therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame…” vs. 7 Isaiah 50:6-9a The prophet had likely been exposed to a shame-based culture, a society that seeks to regulate behavior by heaping shame and disgrace on any person who doesn’t live up to the cultural norms. Some of us know what that’s like too. For some perverted reason some…
Daily Devotions
The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.” vs. 5 Isaiah 50:4-5 Not only had Isaiah listened to the call of his Lord to teach the exiled people of Judah, he now continued to listen to the daily word that came to him in the stillness of his meditation. That’s what happens when we take some of the precious time allotted to us in the course of every day to be…
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