Rebirth
Read: Ephesians 2:1-10 [God] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions . . . (v. 5 NIV) My home state of Michigan is known for its great variety of trees. Each spring the maple and birch trees on my favorite running path bud with new life, the leaves eventually providing […]
Finding Rest
Read: Genesis 1:31-2:3 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. (2:2 NIV) I love the fall season in the Midwest. When my family and I lived in rural Iowa, the fall meant combines in the fields, soybean dust […]
Letting Go
Read: Luke 1:5-23 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard . . .” (v. 13) As I write this devotional series themed “Letting Go, and Letting God,” the world continues to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. How fitting this call to action […]
Pray to the Lord of the Harvest
Read: Matthew 9:35-38 The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray . . . (v. 37) The 20th-century evangelical leader John Stott said that the world’s great tragedy was that so many people who were made by God and like God were nevertheless living apart from God. When Jesus spoke of the […]
Two Last Miracles
Read: Matthew 9:27-34 Never was anything like this seen in Israel. (v. 33) Opening the eyes of the two blind men and loosening the tongue of the deaf-mute are the ninth and tenth healing miracles that Matthew records in chapters 8 and 9. Jesus cleansed the lepers, healed the sick, delivered the storm-tossed and the […]
A Dead Girl and a Sick Woman
Read: Matt. 9:18-26; Mark 5:21-43 Little girl . . . arise. (Mark 5:41) This section of Matthew recounts two intertwined miracles. In both cases Jesus is not contaminated by contact with the unclean (a bleeding woman and a corpse), but instead is the source of healing and life. Mark describes the scene at Jairus’s home […]
Follow Me
Read: Matthew 9:9-13 As Jesus passed on from there . . . he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. (v. 9) The only thing Matthew tells us about himself is his occupation, but that says it all. Matthew was a tax collector. The Romans farmed out the tax collection to locals […]
The Forgiveness of Sins
Read: Matthew 9:1-8 Take heart . . . your sins are forgiven. (v. 2) Every time we recite the Apostles’ Creed we say, “I believe in . . . the forgiveness of sins.” But do we? Really? Most everyone thinks there are some sins that couldn’t and shouldn’t be forgiven (Human trafficking? Sexual abuse of […]
The In-breaking Kingdom
Read: Matthew 8:28-34 What have you to do with us, O Son of God? (v. 29) C. S. Lewis described our world as enemy-occupied territory. This story in Matthew 8 offers a clear sign of what happens when the kingdom of God invades it. In the person of Jesus, God’s rule has arrived in the […]