Fully Known, Fully Loved

Hear and View Devo: https://bit.ly/455rEm9

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. 7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and night wraps itself around me,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24 NRSV)

Just this morning my bride and I were talking about the difficulty of ministry especially on the pastor. She asked, "How did you endure so many years with all that you experienced?" I smiled and said, "Had God not sent you to me, I wouldn't have made it. I trusted God and prayed to God, but I was blessed to come home to you at night. You knew me and yet you still loved me." Have you ever wondered if anyone truly knows you—the real you, not just the version you show the world? The good news tucked inside this psalm is that YOU already are known. Completely. And not just known, but loved anyway.

The psalm opens with a bold declaration: "O LORD, YOU have searched me and known me". HE knows when we sit down and when we rise up. HE perceives our thoughts from far away. HE is acquainted with all our ways (vv. 2-3).

Let that settle for a moment. Before we even speak a word, HE knows what we're going to say (v. 4). There's nowhere to hide, nothing to perform, no version of ourselves we need to manage. Isn't that both a little unsettling and deeply comforting at the same time?

We spend so much energy trying to be known and understood by others, and so much more energy hiding the parts we're afraid won't be accepted. But here, the psalmist reminds us: HE already sees it all—and HE hems us in, behind and before, laying HIS hand upon us (v. 5). Not to trap us. To hold us.

Then the psalmist asks a question worth sitting with: "Where can I go from YOUR spirit? Or where can I flee from YOUR presence?" (v. 7).

Consider the places we sometimes try to run—into busyness, into isolation, into shame, into the "far side of the sea." And yet the psalmist declares that even there, HIS hand will lead us; HIS right hand will hold us fast (v. 10). There is no distance great enough, no darkness deep enough, to put us outside HIS reach.

Even the darkness is not dark to HIM; the night is as bright as the day (v. 12). Whatever season of darkness you might be walking through right now—grief, doubt, exhaustion, fear—HE sees it clearly. You are not lost to HIM, even when you feel lost to yourself.

This is the same GOD who, in JESUS, stepped into our darkness personally. JESUS didn't just observe our struggles from a distance—HE entered them, so that we would never wonder whether we walk alone (Matthew 1:23).

The psalm doesn't end with comfort alone—it ends with an invitation. In verses 23-24, the psalmist prays, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

This is a brave prayer. It's an invitation for GOD to search not just what we already know about ourselves, but what we might be hiding even from ourselves. Would you be willing to pray that today? Not out of fear, but out of trust—because the ONE who searches you is the same ONE who already loves what HE finds.

Wherever you are today, whatever you've been trying to hide or outrun, consider this an invitation to rest in being fully known. You don't have to explain yourself to HIM. You don't have to earn HIS attention. HE has already searched you out, and HE is already holding you.

PRAYER: Loving Lord Jesus, search us and know us, and lead us gently in YOUR everlasting way; in Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Spend five quiet minutes today praying verses 23-24 as your own, asking GOD to search your heart and lead you in HIS way.

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

Win the world with love for Jesus,

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The God Who Meets Us Everywhere

Hear and View Devo: https://bit.ly/4hdCDRM

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” 18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. (Genesis 28:10-19 NIV)

Have you ever felt like you were in the middle of nowhere—physically, emotionally, or spiritually? Maybe you're there right now. If so, this passage is for you.

Jacob is fleeing. He's man on the run. He's just deceived his father and stolen his brother's blessing, and now Esau wants him dead. So Jacob runs—alone, exhausted, with nothing but a rock for a pillow. He stops in a place the text simply calls "a certain place". It's nowhere special. No temple. No altar. Just open ground under an open sky.

Isn't it interesting that this is exactly where GOD chooses to show up?

We often think we have to get our lives in order before HE will meet us. We think HE waits for us in the good places—the church pew, the mountaintop, the moment we finally have it together. But Jacob's story invites us to consider something different: maybe HIS presence isn't limited to the places we expect.

As Jacob sleeps, he dreams of a stairway reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. And there, standing above it, is the LORD HIMSELF.

Take a moment and picture that image with me—heaven touching earth, right in the middle of Jacob's mess. This is no coincidence. It's a promise: GOD is not distant. HE is not far removed from our failures, our fears, or our flight. HE bridges the gap.

Then GOD speaks. HE identifies HIMSELF as the GOD of Abraham and Isaac, and HE makes Jacob an astonishing promise—land, descendants, blessing, and this: "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go... I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you" .

Let that sink in. Jacob hasn't earned this. He hasn't proven himself faithful. And yet HE promises HIS presence anyway. This is grace before performance—a theme that runs all the way through Scripture and finds its fullest expression centuries later, when JESUS HIMSELF becomes the ladder, the one who bridges heaven and earth once and for all (John 1:51).

When Jacob wakes, he says something remarkable: "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it".

How often is that true for us? GOD is present, working, watching—and we simply aren't aware. Jacob's response isn't guilt or fear; it's awe. He calls the place Bethel, meaning "house of God," and sets up a marker to remember what happened there.

What would it look like for you to pause today and ask, "Where has GOD been present in my life that I haven't noticed?" Maybe it's in a hard conversation. Maybe it's in a quiet morning. Maybe it's in this very moment, as you read these words.

Wherever you are today—running from something, unsure of your next step, or simply going through the motions—consider this an invitation to pause and look around. HE may be closer than you think. You don't need the perfect setting or the polished life to encounter HIM. You just need to be willing to notice.

PRAYER: Lord, open our eyes to see YOU in the places we least expect, and give us hearts that are aware of YOUR presence and grateful for YOUR promises; in Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Take five quiet minutes today to ask GOD to open your eyes to HIS presence in whatever "ordinary place" you find yourself.

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

Winning the world for Jesus,

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Abba, Father

Hear and View devo: https://bit.ly/3SOMrI1

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba![a] Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness[b] with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in[c] hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:12-25 NRSV)

If you ever travel to the Holy Land, be prepared to cry. A lot. And to be amazed, marveled, and blessed. It truly is the Bible come to life. Nellie and I were so blessed to have made this journey some years ago with a group of young and seasoned pastors. On the flight over at a certain early hour a group of Jewish men moved to the front part of the aircraft and set up all they needed to to spend time in prayer. It was an animated time of verbal prayer to God. The most pleasant surprise was while in Jerusalem a group of kids with their fathers were on the street near us and at one point a little guy got separated from his dad and he cried out, "Abba!" Wow. There it was, still being spoken as Jesus had shared and as is being shared in this passage by Paul.

Paul opens this passage with a word that sounds like someone finally setting down a heavy load: "So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh" We owe the flesh nothing. After everything the flesh has cost us — the failed promises, the cycles of sin, the mornings after the nights we wish we could take back — we owe it nothing. The debt has been cancelled, not because we cancelled it, but because the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead has taken up residence in us, and you cannot be fully inhabited by that kind of life and remain fully in the grip of the old death.

And then Paul says something that should make every tired, struggling, self-condemning believer sit up a little straighter: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God". Not the perfect. Not the ones who have conquered every weakness. All who are led. The leading itself is the evidence of belonging. If the Spirit is moving in you, prompting you, convicting you, drawing you back when you wander, making the things of God matter to you in ways they didn't before — that movement is the proof. You don't need to have arrived. You need to be following, and the following itself is the Spirit's gift.

The Spirit you have received, Paul says, is not a spirit of slavery leading back into fear — it is a Spirit of adoption, by which we cry out "Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15). Abba is the intimate Aramaic word for father, the word a child uses when they run in from the yard and reach up for their parent without any hesitation or formality. It is not the language of a servant making a careful request to a master. It is the language of a child who already knows they are wanted, who has no doubt about whether they will be received, who calls out with full confidence that the arms will open. The Spirit teaches us to pray like that. He takes the stiff, formal, distance-keeping prayer of someone who isn't sure they're welcome and transforms it, over time, into the Abba prayer — the prayer that springs from the assurance of belonging rather than the anxiety of trying to earn it.

Then Paul draws out the full inheritance: "And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him". Joint heirs with Christ. Whatever belongs to the Son belongs also to those who are in the Son — not as a secondary share, not as a smaller portion given to lesser recipients, but as co-inheritors of the same glory that waits for the King of kings. This is almost too large to hold in a single thought. But Paul immediately places it alongside the suffering that is part of the present age, not to diminish the glory but to put the suffering in proper perspective: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18). The word consider is the same accounting word we encountered in Romans 6 — it's a deliberate, settled reckoning. Paul has done the math. The present suffering doesn't cancel the future glory. It doesn't even come close.

And then the passage opens into one of the most breathtaking visions in all of Paul's letters — the whole of creation, groaning. Not just believers, not just the church, but the mountains and the seas and the soil and the stars, all of it leaning forward with an almost unbearable longing for the day when the children of God are fully revealed and the whole created order is set free from its bondage to decay. Creation has been caught up in the consequences of what happened to humanity, and it will be caught up in the liberation that comes to humanity through Christ. The groaning of creation is not despair — it is the groan of labor, of something being born, of a world in the agonizing and hopeful middle of becoming what it was always meant to be.

We groan too, Paul says, and we should not be embarrassed by that. We have the firstfruits of the Spirit — we have already tasted enough of the coming glory to know what we are waiting for — and that taste makes the waiting harder, not easier, because now we know what we're missing. But the Spirit groans alongside us, interceding for us in ways that go beyond what language can carry, and the God who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit is saying even when we don't have words for what we need.

The whole passage ends with the most quietly confident word in Romans: hope. "For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:24–25). We are a people of the not-yet-seen. We carry, by the Spirit, the firstfruits of something so large that creation itself cannot contain it. And we wait — not in resignation, not in passive endurance, but in the active, forward-leaning, Spirit-sustained patience of people who know that the one who promised is faithful, and that the glory coming toward us is worth every groan between here and there.

PRAYER: Lord, let Your Spirit cry Abba in us today, reminding us that we are Your children, joint heirs with Christ, waiting in hope for a glory that will make every present suffering look small. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, speak the word "Abba" aloud in your prayer, and let that single word be the declaration that you belong to God not as a servant uncertain of welcome but as a child who already knows the arms will open.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Onward and upward in our mission to win the world for Jesus Christ!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Let Both Grow

Hear and View devo: https://bit.ly/4aQCoIr

24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ 28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” 36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 37 He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. 40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 NIV)

A wonderful Monday to you, dear Friend! May the joy of the Lord be your strength today and all days. May this time spent in prayer, thought, reflection and planning serve to make us stronger in our walk with Jesus.

Many of us have lived near ranches and farms, or driven by them. This has always fascinated me as a regular commute by a field always shows the hard work a farmer puts in to the awesome transformation that occurs in that field. And this parable of Jesus shows how too Jesus was aware and blessed by the work of farmers, actually sowers that did the planting.

Jesus tells this parable with an economy of detail that makes it land harder, not softer. A man sows good seed in his field. While everyone sleeps, an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat, then disappears into the night. When the grain comes up and begins to head out, the weeds appear alongside it, and the workers come to the farmer with the obvious question: didn't you sow good seed? Where did all this come from? "An enemy did this," the farmer says. Simple. Direct. No hand-wringing, no theological crisis. The enemy is real, the damage is real, and the farmer knows exactly what he's looking at.

What's striking is what he doesn't do. The workers are ready to pull the weeds out immediately — which is the instinctive human response to anything that looks wrong and out of place. Root it out. Deal with it now. Clean the field up and get back to the business of growing wheat. But the farmer says no. Not yet. "Let both grow together until the harvest". His reason is practical and profound: the roots of the wheat and the weeds are so entangled at this stage that pulling the weeds would damage the wheat. The removal will come, but it will happen at the right time, by the right hands, with the right tools. Not before.

When the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable privately, He draws back the curtain further than any of them probably expected. The field is the world. The good seed are the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil himself. And the harvest is the end of the age, when the angels will be the reapers. Jesus is not describing a tidily sorted world in which the righteous and the wicked occupy separate fields with a clear fence between them. He is describing the world as it actually is — mixed, entangled, not yet separated, not yet fully revealed for what it is — and He is telling His disciples that this is the condition they will be living and working in for the entirety of the present age.

This should do something to the way we hold our frustration with the state of the world. We live in a time when the question the workers ask seems to rise from every direction: didn't God sow good seed here? Where did all this evil come from? Why does it seem to grow so abundantly alongside everything that is good and true? The parable doesn't tell us to stop asking the question. It tells us that the farmer already knows the answer, has already identified the enemy, and is already working toward a harvest that will settle everything with a precision and a thoroughness that no human hands could achieve in the meantime. The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father, Jesus says — not a dim glow, not a moderate improvement over their present condition, but like the sun. The harvest will be worth the waiting.

The Pentecost connection runs quietly through the whole of this parable. The disciples who first heard it were living in exactly the entangled, not-yet-separated world Jesus described, and they would spend their lives as wheat growing alongside weeds, sometimes indistinguishable from the outside, sometimes under pressure that made it hard to hold their form. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost did not separate the field prematurely. He didn't pull the weeds for the disciples. What He did was equip the wheat to be unmistakably wheat — to grow with a vitality and a fruitfulness that the weeds could never produce, to hold their shape under pressure, to bear fruit in the kind of soil that the enemy had done his best to compromise. The Spirit is still doing that work. In a world that looks exactly as complicated and entangled as the field Jesus describes, the Spirit's work in the believer is to make them so thoroughly themselves — so shaped by the life of Christ — that the harvest, when it comes, will find something worth gathering.

There is also a mercy in the farmer's restraint that we should not miss. The waiting is not indifference. It is the patience of a God who, as Peter would later write, does not want anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance. The harvest is certain. The angels are ready. The separation will be total and final and irreversible. But in the meantime, the field remains open, which means the call of the gospel is still going out, which means there are people who are right now weeds who will become wheat before the harvest if the patience of the farmer holds — and it will hold, because this is a farmer who sent His own Son to make that transformation possible.

PRAYER: Lord, grow us into unmistakable wheat by Your Spirit, make us fruitful in the field where You have placed us, and give us the patience to trust Your timing for the harvest. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Ask the Holy Spirit today to show you one way He wants to make you more unmistakably wheat in the particular field — neighborhood, workplace, family — where He has planted you.

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Don't Trade Your Birthright

View and Hear devo: https://bit.ly/3T9tO1k

19 This is the account of the family line of Abraham’s son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram[a] and sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” 24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau.[b] 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob.[c] Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them. 27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.[d]) 31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” 32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me? 33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25:19-34 NIV)

What dish are you known for? I've been cooking since I was about 9 years old when a cousin showed me how to make arroz con pollo (Chicken with rice). I'm not known for that, I'd have to say barbecued ribs, but as I age, I realize that my family has been kind and loving to me. I would say I make a mean sopa de conchas (seashell pasta a la Mexicana). This passage is about birthrights and bean. And bread. And how two of those were traded for the first.

There is something honest and almost startling about the way this passage begins. Isaac prays for his wife because she is barren, and the Lord answers — and then the pregnancy that follows is so turbulent, so marked by internal struggle, that Rebekah goes to God with a question that sounds like it's at the end of its rope: "Why is this happening to me?". She doesn't soften it. She doesn't dress it in theological language. She asks the raw question that every person who has prayed for something and then found the answer complicated has asked. And God answers her, not with a rebuke for the directness of the question but with a word that reframes everything she is experiencing: two nations are in your womb, and the older will serve the younger.

The story that unfolds from that oracle is one of the most layered and morally complex in all of Genesis. Jacob and Esau arrive in the world already in conflict — Jacob grasping his brother's heel as they are born, as though the struggle that began in the womb simply continued without pause on the other side of it. They grow into men as different as two brothers can be. Esau is the outdoorsman, the hunter, the man of the field who comes home one evening smelling of open country and completely emptied by hunger. Jacob is the quieter man, the one who stays near the tents, the one who has been thinking ahead while his brother has been running through the wilderness. And the scene that follows — Jacob with his pot of beans, Esau with his desperate hunger, the birthright exchanged for a bowl of something red — is one of the most uncomfortable transactions in Scripture. I've known some red beans and rice to be something worhty of adoration; but that's a story for another time!

It's uncomfortable because both brothers are implicated. Esau's failure is obvious: "He despised his birthright". That's not our characterization — that's the narrator's verdict, and it's a hard one. The birthright represented the covenant blessing, the connection to Abraham's promise, the line through which God's purposes would flow. To trade it for a meal, however hungry you are, is to reveal what you actually value when it's just you and your hunger and no one is watching. It's the Rocky ground of Genesis — receiving something precious and then, when the heat comes, discovering it didn't go deep enough to hold.

But Jacob is not let off easily either. He sees his brother's weakness and uses it. He doesn't simply offer the stew as a gift; he sets a price. "First sell me your birthright," he says, when his brother is at his most vulnerable. The covenant purposes of God will indeed flow through Jacob — the oracle said as much before either of them was born — but the way Jacob pursues what God has already promised him tells us something about the long work God still has to do in him. Grace does not choose us because we are already the people we need to be. It chooses us in order to make us those people, through a process that in Jacob's case will involve decades of being worked on by a God who never abandons what He has started.

This is the thread that connects this ancient account to everything Jesus would later say about the kingdom. The birthright Esau despised is not unlike the pearl of great price that the merchant in Matthew 13 sells everything to obtain, or the treasure hidden in the field that a man gives all he has to buy. The birthright was worth everything. Esau did not lose it because God stopped caring about him — God's love for Esau endured. He lost it because in the moment of decision, when the heat was on and the stomach was speaking louder than the spirit, he could not find in himself the capacity to value it rightly. And that incapacity, Paul will later argue in Romans, is precisely the thing that Christ came to address — not by making us try harder in the moment of temptation, but by sending His Spirit to dwell in us so that the birthright we have been given in Him becomes not a distant inheritance we might trade away when hungry, but a living, breathing, daily reality we cannot imagine surrendering.

The birthright of the believer — sonship, the Spirit, eternal life, access to the Father, the full inheritance of the kingdom — came at a price that was not ours to pay. He paid it. And the Spirit He sent at Pentecost is the seal and the guarantee of that inheritance, the down payment that means it cannot simply be exchanged for whatever our hunger is loudest about on a given afternoon.

PRAYER: Lord, keep us from trading for a bowl of beans what You purchased for us at infinite cost, and let Your Spirit make the birthright we have in You more real to us than any hunger that tempts us to let it go. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one thing your hunger has been valuing more than your birthright in Christ this week, and consciously surrender it today in exchange for the inheritance that cannot be taken from you.

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

Let's win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

No Condemnation

Hear and View: https://bit.ly/3QYIpw0

8 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus[j] from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (Romans 8:1-11 NRS)

There is a word at the very beginning of Romans 8 that carries more weight than it appears to: "therefore." Paul doesn't just launch into this magnificent chapter cold — he connects it to everything that came before, including the exhausting admission of chapter 7, where he confessed that he kept doing what he hated and couldn't do what he loved. The "therefore" is the hinge. After all of that — after the honest reckoning with the war inside him, after the cry of "who will rescue me from this body of death?" — here is the answer landing with full force: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1, NRSV). Not less condemnation. Not reduced condemnation. None.

I know what condemnation felt like from an early age, and not always for the right reasons. Growing up the eldest of five children, having been an only child for four years before my brothers and sisters arrived, I was not always a model of saintly behavior. I knew the consequences. I knew what a spanking meant and what earned it. But I discovered early that there was something far worse than a single consequence: double jeopardy. Not the television program — the real thing. It meant a spanking from Mom, and then later, when Dad's car turned onto the driveway, my younger sister — who had developed what I can only describe as an Academy Award-winning ability to produce real tears entirely on demand — would hear those tires on the gravel and transform instantly from my perfectly happy playmate into a wailing, devastated victim, running toward Dad screaming "Junior hit me!" No trial. No presentation of facts. No character witnesses. Guilty before the car door closed, and drawn and quartered all over again.

The remarkable thing, looking back, is that by the time Dad came home my sister and I had already made our peace. We'd played together the rest of the afternoon as if nothing had happened. But the accusation was renewed even though the matter had already been settled. I was being condemned a second time for something that was, in every practical sense, already resolved.

Paul is writing about a condemnation infinitely more serious than anything my sister's tears could produce — the condemnation that stands against every human being who has ever looked honestly at their own heart and known that they have fallen short of what God requires. But the extraordinary word he uses is not "reduced" or "managed" or "set aside for now." He says none. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Not because the sin wasn't real. Not because God lowered the standard. But because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has done what the law alone could never do — it has settled the matter, permanently, through the one who met every requirement in our place.

The voice that tries to renew the accusation after the matter has already been settled — that is not the voice of the Spirit. That is the voice Paul spent all of chapter 7 describing, the law of sin and death trying to exercise dominion it has already lost. God has done what the law could not do: "by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, He condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3). The verdict has been handed down — not against you, but against sin itself, in the flesh of Christ. The tires on the driveway will not produce a second condemnation. The Father already knows the whole story, and His verdict stands.

The conclusion Paul draws is breathtaking in its personal directness: "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwells in you" (Romans 8:11). The same power that moved in the grave on Easter morning — the power that rolled back death itself — dwells in you. The Greek word is oikei — it means to make a home, to take up residence, to inhabit. The resurrection power of God has made its home in the very body that keeps failing you, in the very flesh where the battle rages. The Spirit is not visiting. He is living there. And where He lives, there is no room left for condemnation to take up residence alongside Him.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, thank You that Your Spirit has made His home in us and that the power that raised You from the dead is the same power now at work in our mortal bodies. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Replace one thought of self-condemnation today with the deliberate declaration of Romans 8:1 — say it out loud, by name, to yourself: "There is therefore now no condemnation for me, because I am in Christ Jesus."

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

Winning the world for Jesus,

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

What Kind of Soil Are You?

Hear and view the devo: https://bit.ly/4bax02V

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.” 18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13: 1-9, 13-23 NIV)

A blessed and sacred Monday be yours, dear Friend. May this day bring your unexpected blessings of joy and peace and wonderful opportunities for service of love and compassion to all people. May all we learn and share help us grow in service to God.

There is a memory that has stayed with me across many years, and I think it belongs in this passage about soil and seed and the heart that has to decide, finally, what it is going to do with what it has received.

When I was a small boy, my grandmother — Momó, we called her, her full name Petra Martinez Valverde — lived just steps behind our home in Kingsville, Texas. My father had bought an old Missouri Pacific depot house and made it a home for her. She lived alone there, and I was completely devoted to her. She told me wonderful stories. She taught me how to pray. And she had a ritual before bed that I thought was the finest thing in the world: saltine crackers spread with butter, three or four of them, eaten slowly before the lights went out. I would share the crackers with her, listen to her stories, learn her prayers, feel completely at home.

And then, just as I lay down in the bed beside her, I would begin to cry. I wanted my mommy and daddy. I wanted to be home.

Momó, patient beyond anything I deserved, would bundle me up in my blanket, carry me the ten or so steps to our back door, and hand me over to my mother, who would receive me laughing and close the door behind me. And then — almost immediately — I would begin to cry again. I wanted to sleep with Momó.

I was the rocky soil and the thorny soil and the path and every difficult thing Jesus describes in this parable, all at once, in one small boy who could not make up his mind where he belonged.

Jesus says the seed is the word of the kingdom, and what differs is the soil. The rocky ground receives with joy and then falls away when things get hard. The thorny ground receives genuinely but lets other things crowd out what was planted. I think most of us know this pattern not just as a theological category but as an experience — we have sat at the table and eaten the crackers and heard the stories and been genuinely moved, and then the moment came to actually stay, to commit the weight of our whole lives to what we had received, and something in us reached for the blanket and cried for a different door.

But here is what my Momó's patience taught me before I ever had the words for it, and what the Spirit confirms in every honest heart: the one who planted the seed does not abandon the soil just because it is not yet ready. He carries you, patiently, and meets you at whichever door you end up at. The Spirit of Pentecost is not deterred by our inability to make up our minds in a single night. He is the patient cultivator Jesus describes — breaking up the compacted ground, pulling out the thorns, going deeper than the rock layer, waiting for the soil to become what it was always made to be.

Good soil is not soil that was always perfect. It is soil that finally stopped crying at the back door and stayed at the table where the stories were told and the prayers were learned and the crackers were shared in the lamplight. It is soil that let the word go all the way down.

PRAYER: Lord, cultivate in us the good soil that only Your Spirit can create, so that the word sown in us today produces a harvest we could never have arranged for ourselves. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Ask the Holy Spirit today to show you which kind of soil your heart currently resembles, and surrender the specific thing — the rock, the thorn, the hardness — that He identifies

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.