Keep Your Eyes on Jesus

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55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:55-60 NIV)

Dear Friend, I thank you for your prayers and for sharing your thoughts on my question about the name change of this ministry. I shared with some of you that I will keep the name ConCafé for this devotional and I may start Heavenly Hope as a website or some other sort of publication. "The joy of the Lord is my strength" is a verse that describes my joy in sharing these devotionals with you and some of you share the same verse in your responses to me. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Quick update: Rev, Whyte, the pastor from Canada, is now in Canada thanks to an air ambulance that flew him and his wife home this Tuesday morning; thanks be to God!

This passage introduces us to two important men in God's plan for the salvation; one was the first person to die for his faith. The second was there because he approved of this death. The first's death would later impact the second's future. The martyr was Stephen, a man chosen to be a Deacon, a servant to people on the Lord's behalf, who paid the ultimate price for his faith. Like Jesus, he was hated for his relatioship with God and falsely accused of wrong things.

We are in the great fifty days of Easter — the season when the Church lives in the light of the empty tomb, singing alleluias and feasting on the reality of resurrection. It may seem surprising, then, to pause at the stoning of Stephen. Death feels out of place in a season of life.

But look more carefully. Stephen's death is not a contradiction of Easter. It is Easter applied — the resurrection power of Jesus made visible in a human life surrendered completely to God. This is what Eastertide is for: not merely to celebrate that Jesus rose, but to ask what his rising changes about how we live, how we suffer, and yes, how we love our enemies.

Luke tells us Stephen was "full of the Holy Spirit." That phrase is doing enormous work. Stephen was not a bishop or an apostle — he was a deacon, appointed to serve tables. Yet in his moment of greatest crisis, he was not empty, not grasping, not afraid. He was full.

And what did that fullness produce? He looked up. In the middle of a crowd that had turned to a mob, in the moment his life was about to be taken, Stephen's gaze went upward. He saw the glory of God. He saw Jesus — not seated, as Psalm 110 describes him in rest, but standing. Standing, as if to receive his servant home. Standing, as if to bear witness on Stephen's behalf before the courts of heaven.

Stephen's declaration — "I see heaven open" — was not a private vision he kept to himself. He spoke it aloud, to people who were already furious with him. This was not recklessness. This was witness. The Greek root of our word martyr simply means witness. Stephen bore witness with his words and, moments later, with his blood.

Notice what his testimony provoked. The crowd covered their ears. They could not bear to hear it. This is a telling detail: the truth of the risen Christ is not always received; sometimes it is violently refused. The resurrection does not guarantee our comfort or our safety. It guarantees that what we speak and suffer for is real, is permanent, and is watched over by One who stands on our behalf.

Luke, the careful historian, makes one other detail explicit: a young man named Saul was there, watching the coats of the executioners. That detail will matter enormously later. God was writing a story that no one in the crowd could yet read.

When the stones begin to fly, Stephen prays two prayers. The first: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." The second: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

You have heard these words before. From the cross, Jesus said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." From the cross, Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Stephen is not imitating a dead hero. He is being conformed, by the Holy Spirit, to a living Lord. The resurrection meant that Jesus' pattern of dying — trusting, forgiving — could now be reproduced in others. Easter is the engine of that reproduction.

This is perhaps the most radical claim of the Christian gospel: that the grace shown on Good Friday was not a one-time event, but the opening of a new way of being human. Stephen inhabits that new humanity fully, completely, even to his last breath. The resurrection did not make Stephen immune to suffering. It made him capable of forgiving in the midst of it. That is the Eastertide transformation: not escape from the hard things, but grace sufficient to meet them with open hands and an upward gaze.

PRAYER: Risen Lord, fix our eyes on you when the world presses in. Make us full of your Spirit — full enough to look up, full enough to speak the truth, full enough to forgive. Let the resurrection that raised you raise the quality of our love. In the name of our Lord Jesus we pray, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: This week, choose one person who has wronged you — and pray for them by name, daily, asking God to bless them. Let Stephen's last words become the practice of your ordinary days.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Keep your eyes on Jesus, for He is life and that in abundance.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

You Might Just Be a Living Stone!

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2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.”They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:2-10 NIV)

Leave it to American marketing to have convinced millions to buy a non-breathing pet. I'm referring to the phenomenal craze which was The Pet Rock. It was 1975 and an advertising manager by the name of Gary Dahl who was in a casual conversation about how real pets require care and that a rock, if it were to become a pet, would require no care at all. Mr. Dahl took the idea and ran with it, selling 1 million rocks in four months. The timing was right, the rocks were cheap and from Mexico, they shipped in a cardboard carrying box that looked like a pet carrier with air holes, and it came with a humorous instruction manual entitled, "The Care and Training of Your Pet Rock." Selling for around $4 it was very affordable and made for a great gift.

Leave it to the Bible to come up with some solid (yes pun intended) plays on words like saying a stone could be living, and The Living Stone was the Lord Jesus Himself; and those who came to Him would become, like Him, living stones as well. Once and now. Before and after. The way things were, and the way things are. Peter is writing to scattered, displaced believers who have every reason to feel small, forgotten, and inconsequential. And he reaches for the most radical reorientation available to him: he tells them who they are. Not who the world says they are. Not who they feel like on their worst days. Who God has declared them to be. And the distance between “once” and “now” in this passage is nothing less than the distance between the cross and the empty tomb.

Eastertide is the season of “now.” The resurrection has happened. The stone has been rolled away. The old things have passed. And Peter’s invitation in this passage is to live from that “now” — fully, joyfully, and with the kind of settled confidence that comes from knowing exactly who you are and whose you are.

Peter opens with one of the loveliest images in his letter: “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation — now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” The image of a newborn is not a picture of weakness. It is a picture of appetite. A newborn knows exactly what it needs and makes no apology for wanting it urgently, persistently, and at inconvenient hours.

But notice the sequence Peter gives us. The craving doesn’t come first. The tasting does. “Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good” — the craving is the result of having already tasted. You don’t crave something you’ve never experienced. You crave something you’ve had a first taste of and can’t quite get enough of. Peter is assuming that the people he’s writing to have already had that moment. The moment when grace became real, when prayer felt like an actual conversation, when the Word opened and something in you said: yes, that is true, I have always known that was true.

You have tasted. The question the Eastertide season puts to us is: are you still craving? Or have we grown so accustomed to the grace of God that it no longer stirs the appetite it once did? One of the subtle dangers of a long faith is that we can gradually move from hunger to habit. We go through the motions of devotion without the desire. We arrive at the Word without anticipation. We come to prayer as an obligation rather than a meal.

Easter is a recalibration of appetite. The risen Christ is not stale. The gospel is not old news. The same grace that first broke through to you is available right now, in the same freshness, with the same power. The Lord is still good. The milk is still pure. And the invitation to come and taste again is extended to every one of us, no matter how long we have been walking this road.

Peter pivots from the image of a newborn to the image of a building, and he places one stone at the center of it all: the living Stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him. The reference is unmistakably to Jesus — and the word “living” is everything. This is not a metaphor for a dead teacher whose memory endures. This is the risen Christ, alive and active, the cornerstone of a structure that cannot fall because He Himself cannot be held by death.

Peter is drawing from Psalm 118, the same psalm quoted when the crowds welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem — “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The builders of the world assessed this stone and found it unsuitable. Too rough, perhaps. Too inconvenient. Too costly. And they set it aside. But God chose it. God declared it precious. And on the morning of Easter, God demonstrated precisely how wrong the builders’ assessment was.

Here is the extraordinary thing Peter does next: he tells his readers that they, too, are living stones. “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.” Not just building blocks — living ones. Not static, inert material, but people who share in the resurrection life of the cornerstone. You are not merely positioned near the living Stone. Something of His life has gotten into you. The same resurrection energy that raised Christ from the dead is at work in those who are built on Him.

And notice the tense: “are being built.” Present continuous. The construction is not finished. God is still placing stones, still shaping and fitting the community together, still doing the work of making something beautiful out of the very people the world has overlooked, dismissed, or declared unsuitable. If you have ever felt like you were the wrong shape for the life you were supposed to have — too broken, too ordinary, too far past your best years to be useful — this image is a word directly to you. The divine Builder is still working. You are not a reject. You are a living stone in the hands of the one who specializes in using what the world casts aside.

And now Peter arrives at the passage’s great crescendo — four declarations of identity stacked one on top of another like the richest gift you have ever been handed. Read them slowly, because each one is meant to land.

A chosen people. Not chosen because of merit or achievement. Not selected because you got your life together or finally became the person you always meant to be. Chosen — which means the choosing happened before you did anything to earn it. You were wanted before you knew to want back. That is the only kind of choosing that is truly grace.

A royal priesthood. In the Old Testament, the priesthood was a narrow, hereditary office — a small group of people with the specific vocation of bringing humanity before God and bringing God’s presence to humanity. Peter says that in Christ, that vocation has been democratized. Every one of you is a priest. Every one of you has direct access to the Father. Every one of you carries the vocation of making God’s presence known in the ordinary spaces of your life. And you carry it royally — not as a burden but as a dignity.

A holy nation. Holy does not primarily mean morally superior. It means set apart for a purpose. You belong to a community that crosses every border of ethnicity, nationality, culture, and class — a nation shaped not by geography or bloodline but by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You are citizens of something that will outlast every earthly empire. That citizenship is your deepest identity.

God’s special possession. The Greek word here — peripoiesis — was used in the ancient world for a treasure kept safely by its owner, something valued above ordinary goods. You are not incidental to God’s story. You are not a bystander or an afterthought. You are the treasure He purchased at the cost of His Son’s life, and He intends to keep you.

Peter gives these four declarations not so we can feel good about ourselves, but so we can do something with them: “that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” The purpose of knowing who you are is to point to the One who made you that way. The identity is not the destination — it is the launching pad. We are chosen, royal, holy, and treasured so that we might tell the world something true about the God who calls the rejected, the forgotten, and the once-nobody into the glorious light of belonging.

And then Peter closes with those two quiet, devastating words: once and now. “Once you were not a people — now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy — now you have received mercy.”

The “once” is real. Peter does not pretend it wasn’t. There was a time before. A time of wandering, of being no one in particular, of looking for belonging in places that could not hold you. A time of living outside the mercy that was always, already, waiting to be given. The “once” is not something to be ashamed of — it is part of your story. Without the “once,” you cannot fully appreciate the “now.”

But the “now” is the point. And the “now” is held open by the resurrection. Easter is what keeps the “now” from collapsing back into the “once.” Because Christ is risen, the mercy is not withdrawn. Because the cornerstone is living, the building stands. Because you are built on the one who came back from the dead, nothing — not failure, not weakness, not the accumulated weight of your worst days — can reduce you back to nothing. You are the people of God. You have received mercy. That is not temporary. That is permanent.

So let that be the word you carry out of this room today. Not a to-do list. Not a new spiritual program. Just this: you are not who you used to be. The “once” is behind you. The “now” is the ground beneath your feet. And the risen Christ, the living Stone, is holding the whole thing together.

PRAYER: Living Stone, risen Lord — thank You that the “once” is behind us and the “now” is held open by Your resurrection. Build us into what You have declared us to be: chosen, royal, holy, and Yours. May we live from that identity today. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Write down one of the four identity declarations from this passage — chosen people, royal priesthood, holy nation, or God’s special possession — whichever one your soul most needs to hear right now. Put it somewhere you will see it every day this week. Read it aloud each morning as a statement of who you are, not a wish for who you might become. Let the “now” be louder than the “once.”

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Once you were not a people. Now you are the people of God. Live like it.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

He Who Defeated Death Says...

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1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God ; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. (John 14:1-14 NIV)

I have lost tract of how often I have used this passage at funerals. It serves to comfort me as much as those grieving, for it is Jesus, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior, Who said these words after He shared with His disciples that He was on His own way to die. The disciples, especially Peter, did not take it well. It was not the end they anticipated. Some thought Jesus was truly the one who would overthrow the Roman presence in Israel; others thought He would establish a permanent kingdom of His own, with two disciples believing they would help reign with Jesus and so had asked for seats; one to HIs right, and the other to His left.

Jesus spoke these words on the night before He died. The disciples did not know what the next eighteen hours would hold — the garden, the arrest, the trials, the cross, the silence of a sealed tomb. But Jesus knew. And knowing all of it, He looked at the faces around that table and said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

We read those words now from the other side of Easter. We know what happened next. We know the tomb is empty. And that changes everything about how these words land. What Jesus spoke that night as promise, the resurrection morning confirmed as fact. Every claim He made in this passage — about a place prepared, about a way to the Father, about works continuing through His people — the empty tomb has put its seal on every one.

This is an Eastertide word. Not just a word of comfort for troubled hearts, but a word of orientation for people learning, day by day, what it means to live in the light of resurrection. So let’s sit with three moments in this text, and let each one do its work.

Jesus opens with a word about a place. “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places… I go to prepare a place for you.” The word the NRSV translates as “dwelling places” is mone in the Greek — a word of settled permanence. Not a waiting room. Not temporary lodging. A home. And there is room. Many dwelling places. The Father’s house has not run short of space.

What gives us the right to believe this promise is real? The resurrection. Jesus said He was going to prepare a place, and then He would come again. He went — to the cross, into death, into three days of silence. And then He came back. If He could do that, we have every reason to trust that He can do what He said about the room.

The instruction “do not let your hearts be troubled” is not a call to manage our emotions or put on a brave face. The Greek word for troubled is tarasso — it means churning, agitation, like water being stirred up. Jesus knows the disciples’ inner lives are turbulent. He doesn’t minimize that. He addresses it with something solid: believe. Believe in God. Believe also in me. The antidote to a troubled heart is not a technique. It is a person — a risen, trustworthy, promise-keeping person.

The antidote to a troubled heart is not a technique. It is a person.

Whatever is churning in you today — whatever uncertainty or grief or unanswered question is making the ground feel unsteady beneath you — Jesus speaks this same word into it. Not “everything is fine.” Not “your feelings are wrong.” But this: I have been to death and back. The place is real. Trust me with this.

Thomas asks the question everyone else is probably thinking but won’t say out loud: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” I have always admired Thomas for this. He refuses to pretend. He will not nod along in false comprehension. He asks the honest thing, and in return he receives one of the greatest sentences in all of Scripture.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Three enormous nouns, stacked in a sentence of breathtaking simplicity. And notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say: I will show you the way. I will teach you the truth. I will explain how to find life. He says: I am these things. The way is not a road or a method or a set of instructions. It is a person. The truth is not a doctrine or a proposition. It is a person. The life is not a condition to achieve or a reward to earn. It is a person. It is Him.

When Thomas met the risen Christ eight days after Easter and fell to his knees saying “My Lord and my God” — he was not discovering something he hadn’t known before. He was recognizing at last what had been true all along. The one he had walked with, questioned, followed, and watched die — that one was the way, the truth, and the life. The resurrection simply made it impossible to doubt anymore.

Philip follows with his own request, and it echoes across every generation: “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” He is looking past Jesus toward some other, bigger, more impressive revelation. And Jesus turns his face gently but directly back: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

Philip wanted to see God. So do we — especially in hard seasons, especially when faith feels thin. And the Eastertide answer is the same as it was in that upper room: open your eyes. The risen Christ standing before you is the face of God made visible. If you want to know what God is like — what He thinks of suffering, what He does with death, how He feels about the lost and the broken and the searching — look at Jesus. Risen, present, and fully recognizable as the one who bore our sin and walked out of the grave.

If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. The risen Christ is the face of God made visible.

The third moment in this text is the one most likely to catch us off guard. “Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” Greater works than Jesus. The claim seems impossible until you understand what He means.

The key is “because I am going to the Father.” Jesus’ going — through death, resurrection, and ascension — makes possible the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit distributes the ministry of the risen Christ across not one body but millions. Jesus, in His earthly life, was geographically limited. He healed in Galilee. He taught in Jerusalem. But through His people, alive with His Spirit, the work of the kingdom has spread to every continent, every culture, every century. That is the greater works. Not a single person doing something more impressive than Jesus — but the risen Christ, multiplied through His church, doing what He did everywhere, across all of time.

This is the vocation we carry out of Easter and into the ordinary week. We are the people through whom the risen Christ continues His work in the world. Not in our own strength, not by our own cleverness, but in His name — which is to say, in alignment with His character and His kingdom purposes. When He says “I will do whatever you ask in my name,” He is not offering a blank check. He is offering something far better: the assurance that when we pray and work and serve in step with who He is, He acts. He is present. He is moving. The greater works are not behind us. They are still unfolding.

Here is what holds all three of these moments together: the resurrection. Without Easter, John 14 is a beautiful but ultimately heartbreaking set of promises made by a man who died two days after he made them. With Easter, it is the verified testimony of the living Lord — every word underwritten by the most astonishing event in human history.

He said He was going to prepare a place. He went through death and came back. The place is real. He said He was the way, the truth, and the life. Thomas’s knees hit the floor. Philip could see the Father’s face in His. The claims hold. He said His people would do greater works because He was going to the Father. The Spirit came. The church was born. The works continue, to this day, in this room, in this community, in your ordinary life this coming week.

Do not let your heart be troubled. This is not wishful thinking or pious sentiment. It is an instruction with the empty tomb behind it. The risen Christ has earned the right to say it. And we, who have heard the Easter story, have every reason to let it be true in us.

PRAYER: Risen Lord, You are the Way when we are lost, the Truth when the ground feels uncertain, the Life when we are running empty. Still our troubled hearts with the solid weight of Your resurrection, and send us into this week as people who carry Your presence and Your works into the world. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: This week, name your troubled place. Write it down or speak it aloud in prayer, and then deliberately lay it before the risen Christ — the one who went through death and came back and can be trusted with whatever is churning in you. Let the resurrection be bigger than your worry, just for today. Then do it again tomorrow.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me. The tomb is empty. The promise is kept. Do not let your heart be troubled.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Lord is My Shepherd, Even Now

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1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. (Psalm 23:1-6 NRSV)

I had to memorize this psalm when I was a boy. En español. My mother enjoyed my four years as an only child and I was blessed by her company during those years and she delighted that I could recite it from memory whenever she asked. Since those days I have read it thousands of times in different settings; hospital visits, funerals, memorial services, counseling sessions, devotional times, and many other times I can't recall all. It was the favorite of presidents and generals and was used before battles, after battles, and so many other different occasions that we can't begin to ilst them all.

My favorite memory of this is that I might have carried a modern Bible to many a bedside and as I read the first words I revert back to the King James, for it connects with people in a special way; it's muscle memory and it does bring and add strength in situations that need it. But on Easter morning, these ancient words take on new depth. Because the Shepherd David sang about is the same Shepherd who, on Good Friday, became the Lamb. And on Easter Sunday, the Lamb who was slain rose as the conquering Shepherd who can never die again. Let's walk through this psalm with Easter eyes and see what we've been missing.

The shepherd's first job is provision and rest. Notice the psalm doesn't say, "I find green pastures" or "I discover still waters." The Shepherd makes it happen. He leads. He provides.

But here's what's remarkable about sheep: they won't lie down unless four conditions are met. They must be free from fear. Free from friction with other sheep. Free from pests and parasites. And free from hunger.

A fearful sheep cannot rest. An anxious sheep stays standing, alert, ready to run.

And isn't that so often our story? We're tired, exhausted even, but we can't rest. We're too afraid—afraid of what might happen, what we might lose, what others might think. We stay standing, vigilant, unable to lie down even in green pastures.

But Easter changes everything. The resurrection declares that our deepest fear—death itself—has been defeated. The tomb is empty. The grave has no power. And if death itself is conquered, what else do we have to fear?

He restores our soul. The Hebrew word means "to bring back, to return." It's the language of rescue and recovery. When we wander, when we're depleted, when we've lost our way—the Shepherd brings us back. He restores what's been damaged. He renews what's been drained.

And how does he do it? By leading us beside still waters. Not raging rivers where we might drown, but quiet streams where we can drink deeply and be refreshed.

On Easter morning, we're invited to drink from the living water Jesus promised. The water that satisfies so completely we'll never thirst again.

The Shepherd doesn't just provide rest—he provides direction. He leads us in paths of righteousness.

Notice the motivation: "for his name's sake." Not primarily for our sake, though we benefit. For his reputation. A good shepherd's reputation depends on the health of his flock. If the sheep are lost, sick, or scattered, people question the shepherd's competence.

God's glory is tied to our flourishing. When we walk in right paths, when our lives reflect his character, his name is honored.

But here's the Easter connection: Jesus is the Way. He doesn't just show us the path—he IS the path. And the path he walked led straight through death to resurrection. The right path for the Shepherd meant the cross. The way of righteousness led to the tomb.

And he invites us to follow that same pattern. Death to self. Surrender. Letting go of control. And then—resurrection. New life. Transformation.

The Christian life isn't about avoiding the valley. It's about following the Shepherd through it to the other side.

Here it is. The verse we cling to in crisis. "The valley of the shadow of death."

Every shepherd in ancient Israel knew these valleys—narrow ravines between steep cliffs where predators hid in the shadows. The sheep had to walk through single file, vulnerable, unable to see what lurked ahead.

And every one of us will walk through valleys. Grief. Loss. Diagnosis. Betrayal. Depression. Seasons so dark we wonder if the sun will ever rise again.

But notice what the psalmist doesn't say. He doesn't say, "I will camp in the valley." He says, "I walk through." Valleys are passages, not permanent residences. You're not meant to stay there forever.

And in the valley, the Shepherd doesn't abandon us. "You are with me."

Not "you were with me before the valley." Not "you'll be with me after the valley." You are—present tense—with me. In the darkest place, the Shepherd is closest.

The rod and staff—tools of protection and guidance—bring comfort. The rod wards off predators. The staff pulls straying sheep back from danger. In the valley, we need both. Protection from threats and correction when we wander toward harm.

On Good Friday, Jesus walked through the ultimate valley. He descended into death itself. He experienced the darkness we fear most. And on the third day, he walked out the other side, victorious, alive, carrying the keys to death and hell.

We fear no evil—not because evil doesn't exist, but because the Shepherd is stronger. The resurrection proves it. Death threw its worst at Jesus, and he walked out of the tomb smiling.

What valley are you in right now? What darkness feels overwhelming? Remember this: the Shepherd has been there first. He knows the way through. And he will not leave you.

Now the imagery shifts dramatically. We're no longer in the valley. We're at a banquet table.

This is what shepherds actually did. After leading sheep through dangerous valleys to higher pastures, they would prepare the grazing land—clearing it of poisonous plants, filling in holes where sheep might break a leg. They made the high country safe. And then they would rest while the sheep grazed.

But David uses banquet language. A table. Anointing. An overflowing cup. This is the language of celebration, of victory, of abundant blessing.

And here's the shocking detail: the table is prepared "in the presence of my enemies."

The enemies haven't disappeared. They're still there, watching. But they're powerless to stop the feast. They can see you blessed, protected, celebrated—and they can do nothing about it.

This is the Easter reality. The forces that opposed Jesus—religious authorities, political powers, Satan himself—thought they'd won on Friday. They watched him die. They sealed the tomb. They posted guards.

And then Sunday morning, God prepared a table. The stone was rolled away. The grave clothes were folded. Jesus appeared to his disciples and ate with them—a resurrection feast in the presence of his enemies.

And we're invited to the table. Not because we're worthy, but because the Shepherd is generous. He anoints our head with oil—a sign of honor, of being chosen, of belonging. He fills our cup until it overflows—more than we need, more than we can contain, blessing that spills out onto others.

Your enemies may still be present. Your problems haven't all vanished. But the Shepherd has prepared a table anyway. He's saying, "Sit down. Eat. Drink. Be filled. They can't touch you here."

The psalm ends with confidence. Not hope. Not wishful thinking. Certainty.

"Surely." Without doubt. Absolutely.

And what follows the sheep? Not predators. Not fear. Goodness and mercy.

The Hebrew word for "follow" is actually quite aggressive. It's pursuit language. Goodness and mercy are chasing you down. They're hunting you. You can't outrun God's kindness.

Even when you wander. Even when you fail. Even when you turn your back. Goodness and mercy are in pursuit.

Why can David be so certain? Because he knows the Shepherd's character. He's experienced the green pastures and still waters. He's walked through valleys with the Shepherd beside him. He's sat at the table in the presence of enemies.

And knowing all that, he concludes: this Shepherd will not abandon me. His goodness is relentless. His mercy never quits.

And where does this journey end? "I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever."

Not just visit occasionally. Not just attend services. Dwell. Live. Abide permanently.

This is our eternal destiny. To be home with the Shepherd forever. To live in his house, at his table, in his presence without interruption, without end.

Every Easter is a preview. A foretaste. A reminder that the tomb couldn't hold him, and it won't hold us either.

The Shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures will one day lead us home to the Father's house, where we'll dwell with him forever.

PRAYER: Good Shepherd, thank you for walking through death's valley so I never have to walk it alone. Thank you for the empty tomb that proves your love is stronger than my worst fear. Lead me today. Restore my soul. Prepare your table before me. And remind me that goodness and mercy are chasing me down all my days. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, identify which part of Psalm 23 speaks most to where you are right now. Write that verse on a card and place it where you'll see it daily. Let it be the Shepherd's Easter word to you this season.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! The LORD is your Shepherd. And because he rose from the dead, you shall not want. Ever.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Four Pillars of The Church

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42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47 NRSV)

Happy Wednesday, dear Friend! May it truly be a wonderful one for you and for your work in God's kingdom. We are reminded by this passage that there's still much to do! And, we can only do it with God's help and leading. Let us continue to pray for one another and for needs as they present themselves. We celebrate and thank God for Mr. Kevin Pirkle being home after his surgery. May home be the key to a speedy and complete recovery. Pray during this season for pastors who are moving from their current assignment to new ones. Pray for their move, for the churches who welcome them and those who say goodbye. Pray for those pastors who are retiring and are anxious about such a move. Pray for retired pastors and their families, and pray for churches that invite retired pastors to preach in them! Pray for me as this coming Sunday I preach here in Seguin at La Trinidad UMC in a bilingual setting! ¡Gracias a Dios! Later in May I preach in Poteet Methodist, Poteet, Texas.

This passage shares First Church Jerusalem as it started. It also shares what the four pillars of a powerful church includes; Teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. Luke makes sure to use the word devoted, meaning they went beyond just attending. Some churches major in one and forget about the other; those churches who stress all four remain strong and effective in growing the kingdom; but we'll get into that a bit later.

Easter Sunday is glorious. The music swells, the sanctuary fills, the declaration rings out: He is risen! And then Monday comes. The lilies begin to wilt. The crowds thin. The ordinary week reasserts itself, and the question that every serious follower of Jesus must eventually face arrives quietly at the door: what does the resurrection actually look like when lived out in the texture of real, daily life?

Acts 2:42–47 is Luke’s answer to that question. These six verses are a portrait of the very first community shaped by resurrection faith — people who had heard Peter’s Pentecost sermon, been cut to the heart, repented and been baptized, and now found themselves in something entirely new: a community of the raised. What they built together in those early days was not a program or an institution. It was a way of life. And it is one of the most beautiful, challenging, and hopeful pictures in all of Scripture.

The first word Luke uses to describe this community is “devoted.” They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Four things. Notice the verb: not “attended” or “enjoyed” or even “participated in.” Devoted. The Greek word carries the sense of steadfast, persistent, continual attention — the kind of commitment that does not depend on how you feel on a given morning or whether the gathering is particularly inspiring that week.

This devotion had four pillars, and they are worth naming one by one. The apostles’ teaching — the careful, sustained formation of minds and hearts in the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done. Fellowship — not mere socializing, but the deep, binding solidarity of people who know they belong to one another. The breaking of bread — the shared meal and the Lord’s Table, the regular reminder that they had been bought at a price and that the risen Christ was present among them. And the prayers — not private devotion alone, but the corporate, persistent practice of bringing their whole common life before God.

These four pillars are still the architecture of resurrection community today. The church that is genuinely shaped by Easter is not built on inspiring speakers or compelling programs or comfortable facilities. It is built on people who are devoted — who keep showing up to learn, to belong, to eat together at the Lord’s Table, and to pray. Devotion is not glamorous. It is simply the daily choice to stay.

“Awe came upon everyone.” It is one of the most quietly remarkable sentences in the New Testament. Not upon the disciples only, not upon the especially spiritual or the theologically sophisticated — upon everyone. The whole community, and apparently those around them as well, found themselves living inside something they could not entirely explain, something larger than themselves, something that had the texture of the holy.

Awe is one of the most countercultural experiences available to human beings in a world that has grown aggressively ordinary. We have been trained by saturation and speed to expect everything and be surprised by nothing. But the early church lived in a state of ongoing astonishment — because they were watching, day by day, the risen Christ continue to act. Signs and wonders happened among them. People were being saved. The community itself, in its generosity and unity, was something the ancient world had never seen.

Easter recovers awe. When we truly reckon with the resurrection — not as settled religious information but as the most staggering event in human history, still reverberating into the present — we begin to see the ordinary world differently. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is alive in our gatherings, our prayers, our shared meals, our acts of generosity. We should not be surprised to find ourselves occasionally undone by wonder. That is simply what it feels like to be near the living God.

The generosity of this first community has arrested readers for two thousand years. They sold possessions and distributed the proceeds to any who had need. They held things in common. They ate together — not in rotating, carefully scheduled hospitality, but with what Luke calls “glad and generous hearts.” The Greek word translated “glad” here — agalliasis — is a word of exuberant, overflowing joy. They weren’t grinding through obligatory sharing. They were delighting in it.

This is what resurrection does to the human relationship with possessions. When you genuinely believe that death has been defeated, that the future is secure in the hands of the God who raises the dead, that your ultimate inheritance cannot be stolen or inflated away or lost in a market collapse — the grip loosens. Things stop being ultimate. People become more important than property. Generosity stops feeling like loss and starts feeling like freedom.

We should not read this passage as a blueprint for a specific economic system. Luke is not writing a policy document. He is describing the natural overflow of people who have been genuinely gripped by the resurrection. When Easter is real to us — truly, daily real — it will change what we do with what we have. It will make us more generous, more open-handed, more attentive to the need around us. Glad generosity is not a spiritual achievement. It is the simple fruit of a heart that has been set free.

Luke closes this portrait with a phrase that is easy to rush past and yet contains a world of hope: “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Not in dramatic quarterly campaigns. Not in carefully orchestrated revival events. Day by day. Quietly, steadily, organically — the risen Christ was adding people to the community of faith through the simple, sustained witness of a people living resurrection life together.

And notice who is doing the adding: the Lord. Not the apostles’ evangelism strategy, not the community’s winsome outreach program, not the quality of their public communication. The Lord added to their number. The early church did not grow itself. It devoted itself, held itself together in love and generosity and prayer and worship — and the risen Christ did what only He can do. He called people home.

This is both a relief and a summons. A relief, because the growth of the church is ultimately not our responsibility to manufacture — it is the Lord’s work to do. A summons, because the community’s job is faithfulness: to keep being devoted, to keep eating together with glad hearts, to keep praising God in the temple and breaking bread at home. The witness that attracts the world is not a polished presentation. It is a community so visibly and joyfully alive in resurrection faith that people find themselves drawn, day by day, toward the God who makes such a life possible.

PRAYER: Risen Lord, make us a devoted people — devoted to Your Word, to one another, to Your Table, and to prayer. Restore in us the awe that Easter deserves, and let it spill out in glad and generous lives that draw others, day by day, toward You. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Choose one of the four pillars — teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, or prayer — where your devotion has grown thin, and take one concrete step this week to renew it. Show up to a gathering you have been skipping. Invite someone to your table. Sit with Scripture for fifteen minutes before the day begins. Bring one honest need to God in prayer. Resurrection life is not sustained by grand gestures. It is built, day by day, by people who simply keep returning to what matters most.

I love you and I thank God for you! You truly are a unique gift from God to the world! You matter to God and you matter to me! Day by day, the Lord is still adding. Be faithful to the life He has given you.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Wounds That Heal

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19 For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. 20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” 23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2: 19-25 NIV)

I had two needed operations when I was five. One was to remove my tonsils, the other more private, think religious ritual of an ancient sect. That was until I had a torn tendon mended and that was a major surgery, the wound of which all these months later still hurts. I end my therapy in a couple of weeks but I feel miles from where I'd like to be. My therapy reminds me twice weekly of that pain. The wound on the surface has healed, but inside the surgical cut still smarts. I have faith in God that one day it will go away. My doctor will attest that I am not a fan of any sort of suffering. Not so our Lord, who prophecies of old foretold of all that He would suffer on our behalf. Let me add that I saw the movie The Passion of the Christ, with no desire to ever see it again for its reality hurt me just to see it and to feel within me of what Jesus suffered for me. And you.

Peter is writing to people who know what it is to suffer for doing nothing wrong. His original audience were servants — household workers with little legal standing, subject to the moods and cruelties of masters who were under no particular obligation to be fair. And Peter does not pretend their suffering isn’t real, or that they should simply endure it without noticing. He names it plainly: unjust suffering is painful. It stings precisely because it is undeserved.

But Peter will not let suffering have the last interpretive word. He sets it inside a larger frame: Christ suffered for you. Those three words change everything. They do not explain away the pain or make the injustice disappear. What they do is ensure that unjust suffering is never meaningless for the person who follows Jesus. It has a context. It has a companion. It has a destination.

The Easter season is the right time to sit with this. Good Friday tells us that the Son of God was subjected to the most grotesque injustice in human history — perfect innocence condemned, love itself tortured and killed. And Easter Sunday tells us that God did not let that injustice stand as the final word. The resurrection is God’s ultimate verdict: suffering borne in faithfulness is not wasted, not forgotten, and not permanent.

Peter draws a portrait of Jesus in suffering that is almost unbearably specific. He committed no sin. No deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled insults, He did not retaliate. When He suffered, He made no threats. Each detail is a quiet rebuke to every natural human instinct toward self-defense, score-keeping, and retaliation. Jesus, in His passion, was the most fully human person who ever lived — and He chose, at every possible juncture, the path of non-retaliation.

Peter calls this an “example” — a word that in the original Greek carries the image of a writing tablet used to teach children to form letters. They trace over the master’s hand until the shape becomes their own. We are invited to trace the life of Christ until His responses begin to feel more natural in us than our own defensive reflexes. This is not passive resignation. It is an active, costly, deeply counter-cultural choice made possible only by the resurrection — because only a person who believes that God will ultimately set things right can afford to release the compulsion to defend themselves at every turn.

The key phrase is this: “he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” Jesus did not relinquish justice — He relocated it. He placed it in the hands of the One whose judgments are not distorted by power or politics or fear. The risen Christ is the proof that this trust was not misplaced. God vindicated Him. God will vindicate those who follow in His steps.

Peter reaches back to Isaiah 53 with one of the most stunning sentences in the New Testament: “by his wounds you have been healed.” The grammar deserves attention. It is past tense — not “will be healed” or “might be healed,” but have been healed. The healing is accomplished. It was completed at the cross and confirmed at the empty tomb. We do not wait for healing to become available. We receive what has already been secured.

And yet the wounds remain visible. The risen Christ, appearing to His disciples after Easter, still bore the marks of the nails. Thomas was invited to touch them. The resurrection did not erase the wounds of the cross — it transformed them. What had been the marks of defeat became the seals of victory, the credentials of the one who had been to death and back, the visible proof that suffering borne in faithfulness becomes, in God’s hands, the very instrument of healing.

This is the deepest mystery and the greatest hope of the Easter faith. The wounds that the world inflicts do not have to define us or defeat us. In the hands of the God who raises the dead, they can become the very places through which His light shines most clearly. The crack in the vessel, as the old image goes, is where the light gets out. Your suffering, your scars, your unhealed places — none of them are beyond the reach of the One who heals by bearing wounds Himself.

Peter ends this passage with one of the most tender images in all of Scripture: “For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” The past tense — “you were” — is quietly triumphant. That is who you used to be. A sheep without direction, wandering toward whatever looked appealing in the moment, drifting further and further from the fold without fully realizing it.

But now you have returned. The Greek word carries the sense of turning back, of reorientation, of a journey reversed. And notice who made this return possible: not the sheep, but the Shepherd. The whole of this passage has been building to this point. Christ suffered for you. He bore your sins in His body on the cross. He died so that you might die to sins and live for righteousness. The return home was purchased at the cross and opened at the resurrection. We did not find our way back. We were found.

The word “Overseer” — the one who watches over, who superintends — is the other side of the Shepherd’s care. He does not merely rescue the lost sheep and then leave it to fend for itself. He watches over the soul. He attends to the inner life, the deep place where the real battles are fought and the real wounds are held. The risen Christ is not only the Shepherd who leads — He is the Overseer who stays. He does not leave us to manage our souls alone. Easter means that the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep is alive and watching over them still.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, We confess that we know what it is to stray — to wander from Your voice, to follow our own instincts into places that looked like pasture and turned out to be wilderness. We thank You that You did not wait for us to find our way back. You came for us. You bore in Your body what we deserved. You entrusted Yourself to the Father’s justice so that we might be covered by His mercy. Where we are suffering unjustly, give us the grace to entrust ourselves to the One who judges justly, as You did. Where we are carrying wounds we have not yet allowed You to touch, let the truth of Your own wounded and risen body speak healing into those hidden places. Teach us to follow in Your steps — not the steps of retaliation or self-protection, but the steps of One who knew that love borne faithfully through suffering is the most powerful force in the universe. Keep watching over our souls. We are glad to be home. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Is there a place in your life where you are carrying an unjust wound — something done to you that was wrong, and that you have been quietly rehearsing in the courtroom of your own heart? This week, take that specific wound to the Shepherd in prayer and practice the act of entrusting it to the One who judges justly. You are not releasing the wrongdoer from accountability. You are releasing yourself from the exhausting work of being your own judge and jury. The Overseer of your soul can be trusted with what you have been carrying alone.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! By His wounds you have been healed. You were straying. Now you are home.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Voice That Calls You By Name

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1 "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10: 1-10 NRSV)

I was blessed to grow up in a different time and place. I was born in Kingsville, Texas, during the days when most moms and dads allowed their children to roam freely outside. There was a command I yearned to hear, "¡Salganse pa' fuera!" which is "Go (play) outside!" And having a best friend named Alex, whose mom also gave that command, and Alex having a bike like me, we could ride almost anywhere in the city limits of Kingsville, and we did. My legs in those days did not yet "kill" me with every mile I tried to pedal; I could ride for hours and it would not bother me. And to this day I believe that anywhere within the city limits of some 26,000 residents of Kingsville, if Mom so yelled my name, I would know it was her and it was me that was being summoned home. Something about her voice that I knew was for me.

In a culture where shepherding was a way of life, Jesus speaks to crowds who knew exactly what He was saying. They knew that Jesus knew, that a good shepherd leads, or goes ahead of, his sheep. It is he who can open and close the sheep gate or if there is a gatekeeper, the gatekeeper opens the gate for him. The key is that the sheep know the voice of the shepherd and when they hear his voice, they know it is he whom they are following and not some other person, especially not a thief who may have come to steal some sheep. The good shepherd knows the name of each lamb and so when they hear their name and in the voice of their shepherd they know they are in good hands and in the company of he who leads them and provides all they need for their own good. Sheep are smart enough not to follow a stranger but will in fact, run from a stranger.

There is a detail in this passage that becomes electrifying when read through the lens of Easter: the shepherd goes ahead of the sheep. He does not drive them from behind. He does not manage them from a distance. He leads them out of the fold and then walks on before them, and they follow because they know the one whose footprints they are stepping into.

This is exactly what Jesus did at Easter. He went ahead. He entered death before us — not because He had to, but because He was leading. He walked into the darkest place a human being can go and He came out the other side, and He did it first, so that every one of His sheep could know: the Shepherd has already been where we are afraid to go. The path through death is not unwalked. There are footprints ahead of us, and they belong to the risen Christ.

Whatever terrain you are facing in this season — illness, grief, uncertainty, exhaustion, a future that feels more frightening than hopeful — the Easter proclamation is that your Shepherd has gone on ahead. He is not watching from safety while you struggle. He has already been there. Follow the voice. Follow the footprints. He knows the way through.

John’s Gospel is careful with its details, and this one deserves to be lingered over: the shepherd “calls his own sheep by name.” Not by category. Not by number. Not by general summons broadcast over the whole flock. By name. Your name. The name that belongs to you alone, the name that carries the whole weight of your particular history, your particular struggles, your particular hopes.

There is a moment in the Easter story that perfectly illustrates this. On the morning of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene stands outside the empty tomb weeping, and a figure she takes for the gardener asks her why she is weeping. She does not recognize Him. And then He says one word: “Mary.” Just her name. And she knows. Not because of an argument or a proof. Because He called her by name, and she recognized the voice of the one who knew her.

The risen Shepherd knows your name with the same specificity. You are not anonymous to God. You are not lost in the crowd of human history, one more anonymous soul among billions. You are known — named, called, led. In a world that so often reduces us to data points or demographic categories, the Easter gospel insists on something radical: the God of the universe knows your name and has called it.

We live in a world absolutely saturated with voices. Every hour of every day, voices compete for our attention, our allegiance, our sense of self. Some of those voices are subtle. They do not announce themselves as thieves. They speak the language of comfort, of comparison, of fear, of ambition — and they lead us, quietly and incrementally, away from the pasture and toward the kind of exhausted, depleted living that looks nothing like the abundant life Jesus describes.

The Easter season is a gift precisely here. It invites us to return — to the Word, to prayer, to worship, to the community of faith — and to re-tune our hearing to the Shepherd’s frequency. The more time we spend near Jesus, the more quickly we recognize when a voice is leading us somewhere He would not go. Discernment is not a spiritual gift reserved for a few. It is the natural result of a sheep who has spent enough time near the Shepherd to know the sound of His voice.

When Jesus shifts the metaphor and declares “I am the gate,” He is not narrowing the picture — He is clarifying the architecture of salvation. A gate is the threshold between danger and safety, between exposure and shelter, between wandering and home. And Jesus says: I am that threshold. Whoever passes through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture.

Notice the freedom embedded in that phrase: “come in and go out.” The sheep are not locked inside. They are not imprisoned in the fold. The gate opens both ways — inward to shelter and rest, outward to pasture and mission. The Christian life is not a retreat from the world into safe religious enclosure. It is a rhythmic movement between gathering and sending, between being fed and going out to serve. The risen Christ is the gate for both movements.

And then the declaration that gathers everything together: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” This is the Easter sentence. The thief — death, sin, fear, the powers of this age — came to steal and kill and destroy. And for a time, on Good Friday, it looked as though the thief had won. But Easter morning is God’s final, decisive, unanswerable word: the thief does not get the last say. The Shepherd does. And what He says is life. Abundant life. Life that overflows its banks, that cannot be contained by a sealed tomb or a rolled stone or the worst that human cruelty and cosmic darkness can devise.

This abundant life is not a promise for some distant future alone — it begins now, in the present tense, in the ordinary Tuesday of your week and the quiet morning of your prayers. Every moment lived in the knowledge that the Shepherd has gone ahead, that He knows your name, that His voice is trustworthy and His gate is open — that is abundant life taking root. Easter has already happened. The life has already been given. The only question left is whether we will receive it.

PRAYER: Good Shepherd, risen Lord, We confess how easily we are drawn away by unfamiliar voices — voices that promise much and deliver depletion, voices that speak our fears back to us and call it wisdom, voices that lead us away from pasture and toward exhaustion. Forgive us for the times we have followed the wrong sound. Remind us that You have gone ahead — through suffering, through death, through the sealed and silent tomb — and that Your resurrection is the guarantee that You know the way through every darkness we will ever face. Call us by name today, the way You called Mary in the garden. Let us recognize You and follow. Open the gate of abundant life wider in us than we have yet allowed. May we come in and go out through You — rested in Your shelter, sent out to Your pasture, always and only following the voice we have come to love. In Your risen and life-giving name. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: This week, take one deliberate step toward learning the Shepherd’s voice more deeply. Set aside fifteen minutes each morning to read slowly in John’s Gospel — not for information, but for familiarity. Listen for the voice beneath the words. Pay attention to what stirs in you, what convicts you, what comforts you. The sheep follow because they know the voice. Knowing takes time. Give it the time it deserves.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.