The Vineyard Isn't Abandoned!

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33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. (Matthew 21:33-46 NIV)

A most marvelous of Mondays be with you is my prayer. May it be the start of a great week in all respects. Love one another; seek to outdo others in service! The winner will be God and you! Please continue to pray for Mr. Gerald Gabbert as he continues in hospice care. His condition is worsening. Prayers for him to be comfortable and this walk into the arms of Jesus be peaceful; for his wife as she is taken to the hospital every day to be with him; and for all who are tending and caring for him. Nellie and I worshiped in our home church and our pastor delivered one of his most powerful and touching sermons that I've heard him preach and we were blessed! So blessed we drove to Austin for lunch like two senior citizens at Luby's! It was sure good! And this after a great evening in Fredericksburg, watching our grandson's marching band, the Canyon High School Cougar Band competing in the Hill Country Marching Festival! They did a wonderful job! But don't get a grandpa going in his ratings versus the judges! Judges lose all the time! We're proud of Liam!

We come to a powerful parable, very personal one in fact, that Jesus delivers as the "religious folks" of His day continue to plot His demise. Let that sink in. Yet, we know the realites of "church" life; some of the most wonderful things and experiences one hopes to have come from church life; yet, we also know that in the church some hear the worst possible things and some even have terrible things done to them as well.

Jesus is still in the temple courts, still in the middle of what has become an increasingly pointed conversation with the chief priests and elders, and He tells them another parable. At this point in Matthew's Gospel, the parables are getting sharper and the audience is getting less comfortable, which is roughly the opposite of what the chief priests had hoped for when they came to challenge His authority on Tuesday morning. They had a bad week planned for Jesus. It is not going the way they planned.

The parable He tells is not subtle. A landowner plants a vineyard — digs it, walls it, builds a watchtower, leases it to tenants, and goes away. This is a picture every person in that courtyard would have recognized immediately as Israel's story, because Isaiah had used exactly the same imagery centuries earlier. The vineyard is Israel. The landowner is God. The tenants are the religious leaders entrusted with the vineyard's care. Everyone listening knows this. Which makes what follows both a story and a mirror. It reads like an episode from The Sopranos!

When harvest time comes, the landowner sends servants to collect the fruit. The tenants beat one, kill another, and stone a third. He sends more servants — same result. And then, in the move that defies every human calculation of self-interest, he sends his son. "They will respect my son," he says. And here is where the parable turns from uncomfortable to devastating, because the tenants see the son coming and say to each other — and you can almost hear the conspiratorial whisper — "This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance." So they throw him out of the vineyard and kill him. The son is killed outside the vineyard, outside the city walls, on a hill called Golgotha, and the people who were supposed to be tending the Father's vineyard are the ones who do it.

Jesus asks the question that He has been building toward: when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? And the chief priests and elders, still not realizing they are pronouncing their own sentence, answer correctly: he will bring those wretches to a wretched end (more Sopranos!) and will rent the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time. Yes, Jesus says. Exactly. And then He quotes the psalm that has been sitting under this whole conversation: the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The one they threw out of the vineyard is the one on whom everything else will be built.

And then He says the sentence that makes the chief priests and Pharisees realize what He's been doing the whole time: "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit." Ouch! They look at each other. They look at Him. And Matthew tells us they wanted to arrest Him right then, but they were afraid of the crowd, who regarded Jesus as a prophet. So they leave. Which, in retrospect, is both the politically prudent choice and also proof that they have learned absolutely nothing from the parable they just heard about what happens when you refuse to receive what the owner sends.

But here is where the passage opens into something genuinely hopeful, because the stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone is not primarily a statement about judgment. It is a statement about what God does with what people throw away. The son who was killed outside the city walls is the one on whom the whole new structure is built. The rejected stone becomes the foundation. The death that the tenants intended as the end of the story is the very thing God uses as the beginning of the new one. This is the resurrection logic that runs through everything — the thing that looks like defeat is the hinge on which everything turns.

The vineyard is not abandoned. The harvest is not cancelled. The owner does not walk away from the project because the first tenants mismanaged it. He finds new tenants — he opens the invitation wider, extends the vineyard to a people who were not originally in the picture, pours out His Spirit at Pentecost on sons and daughters and slaves and free people and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord — and the harvest happens. It was always going to happen. The only question was who would be the tenants when it did.

We are those tenants. We have been handed something extraordinary — the gospel, the community of faith, the vineyard that the owner has entrusted to us for this particular season of history. And the question the parable presses on us is not whether the harvest is coming — it is — but whether we will be tenants who tend it faithfully and give the owner His share, or tenants who get so comfortable in the vineyard that we forget whose it is.

The cornerstone is in place. The vineyard is open. `.

PRAYER: Lord, make us faithful tenants of the vineyard You have entrusted to us, tending it with the care of people who know whose it is and who are grateful beyond measure to be working in it. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Ask yourself honestly this week what fruit the owner would find if He came to check on the part of the vineyard entrusted specifically to you — and take one step toward producing more of it.

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

We Will Not Hide It

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View the devo: https://bit.ly/4ArsWGJ

My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter hidden things, things from of old— 3 things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. 12 He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan. 13 He divided the sea and led them through; he made the water stand up like a wall. 14 He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night. 15 He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them water as abundant as the seas; 16 he brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers. (Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16 NIV)

Are you good at keeping secrets? You shouldn't be when it comes to sharing how God has blessed you! People are hungry to hear how God has been at work in your life! If you don't share it, it stays a secret right when the world needs truth!

Happy Thursday to you, Friend! I pray you are well, and holding up when others may be giving up. Taking in what others may be painfully sharing when others don't care nor want to hear what they have to say!

Nellie and I took a long drive today and we drove through my birthplace of Kingsville and I remembered when I was a child at certain times of the year, my mother and grandmother would load all of us kids into the big black Chevy they owned and Mom would roat to life the engine in that land yacht and we would drive out in the country looking for fresh nopalitos. Nopalitos are the newly grown pads of the cactus that when cooked just right, usually with eggs, becomes a hearty and tasty meal. It was neat to be out in the country and to see these two dear ladies use their knives to cut the pads (nopales) and put them in the large pan they brought with them. Once home they would further the cutting and cooking. It was too bad that I never acquired a taste for them, but others in the household did. More for them! Looking back it was not so much the cactus as it was the conversations that Mom and my Momo would have. How I wish I had been older to remember and cherish what they had to say then; but I also realize they may have been sharing opinions and comments best left to God's memory, not mine!

There's a particular kind of conversation that only happens in certain families — the kind where someone sits the younger generation down and says, let me tell you where we came from. Let me tell you what happened before you were old enough to remember it. Let me tell you about the things that were done for us that made it possible for us to be here today. Psalm 78 is that conversation, written in verse form and set to music, which tells you that the people who wrote it understood that stories stick better when they're sung. They weren't wrong. We remember what we sing long after we've forgotten what we were told.

The psalmist opens with an intention that is both humble and urgent: I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter hidden things from of old — things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from our children. We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done. There's something almost fierce about the "we will not hide them" — as if the psalmist has seen what happens to a generation that doesn't receive the story and is determined not to let it happen again. The story is not just interesting history. It is the thing that shapes how you understand who you are, whose you are, and what kind of God you're dealing with. Lose the story and you lose the orientation.

And then the psalmist gets specific, which is always where good storytelling lives. Not "God did wonderful things in Egypt" — though that's true and could be said. But: He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan. He divided the sea and led them through. He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night. He split the rocks in the desert and gave them water as abundant as the seas. He brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers. Every one of those details is a specific, dateable, locatable event that real people witnessed with their own eyes and described to their children, who described it to their children, who eventually arrived at the psalmist sitting down to write it all in a song so the chain wouldn't be broken.

The specificity matters because vague stories produce vague faith. When you know that God split the rock at a particular place and the water came down like rivers — not a trickle, like rivers — you have something to hold onto when your own rock looks solid and dry. You have a track record. You have evidence. You have the accumulated testimony of people who were there and who saw it and who made sure someone else knew about it. Faith in the biblical world is almost never a solo exercise in private spiritual experience. It is the inheritance passed down through the practice of telling, which means that every generation has a responsibility both to receive the story and to pass it on.

This is where the passage carries a challenge that is quietly uncomfortable for those of us who live in an age of religious privacy. We have developed, somewhere along the way, a cultural instinct to keep our faith quiet — to treat it as a personal matter, to avoid the social awkwardness of talking about God in mixed company, to let the story stop at us rather than risk the reaction of passing it on. And Psalm 78 looks at that instinct and says, gently but firmly: we will not hide them from our children. The wonders are not yours to keep. The praiseworthy deeds are not a private archive. They are the inheritance of the generation coming behind you, and they need you to tell them.

The rock that split in the desert and produced rivers of water is the same rock that Paul identifies as Christ — the provision that God positioned before the crisis, the source that looks dry from the outside but holds abundant life within. And the Living Water that flowed from that rock in the wilderness flows from Christ Himself, who promised that everyone who believes in Him will have rivers of living water flowing from within them. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost is the river that the psalmist was pointing toward without fully knowing it — the water that doesn't just sustain a generation but flows through them into the next one and the one after that.

Tell the story. Sing the song. Sit someone down and say: let me tell you what happened before you were old enough to remember. Let me tell you what God did. The generation coming behind you needs to know that the rock split and the water came out like rivers, and that the God who did it then is the God who is doing it now.

PRAYER: Lord, make us faithful tellers of Your story, so that the generation coming behind us inherits a living faith and not just a faded memory of one. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Tell one specific story of God's faithfulness in your life to one person this week — a child, a friend, a neighbor — and let your testimony be the link in the chain that keeps the story going.

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

Winning the world for Jesus means losses for you-know-who's kingdom! We want that kingdom erased!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr./

Water From The Rock

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View the devo: https://bit.ly/4hcwlQE

17 From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 The people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do for this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. 6 I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” 8 Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 9 Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some men for us and go out; fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 10 So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’s hands grew heavy, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on either side, so his hands were steady until the sun set. 13 And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the sword. 14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a remembrance in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” 15 And Moses built an altar and called it, The Lord is my banner. 16 He said, “A hand upon the banner of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:1-17 NRSV)

Who holds your arms up when you're praying and growing weak and weary? Be like Moses and find your own Aaron and Hur!

Welcome to ConCafe for Wednesday, 23rd of September. If you're reading this early enough, why not drive over to See You at the Pole at your nearest school? This is a global event asking God for global blessings and changes! Also, great news! All of ConCafe materials are on our new website, concafe.tv. So, if you're referring someone to our ministry use that as the place to go. If you miss a day and think you can't find it ever again, no such luck! You'll find it here! My thanks to Mr. Douglas Copeland for his help in getting this set up for us! Let's win the world for Jesus by our prayers and our love! Update on Mr. Gerald Gabbart; he's on hospice care now and Lord only knows how long it will take, but doctors are sure it can't be too long. May we pray for God's will to be done and that the family receive their strength from the Lord!

There is something almost comforting about the fact that the Israelites are complaining again. Not because complaining is admirable — it isn't, and the text doesn't treat it as such — but because the consistency of it tells us something true about human nature that we might as well acknowledge right up front. These are the people who watched the ten plagues, walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, saw Pharaoh's army swallowed by the water behind them, ate manna from heaven, and watched God guide them with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. The evidence of God's faithfulness is, at this point, genuinely extraordinary. And they are thirsty, and so they quarrel with Moses and say, in essence, did you bring us out here to die?

We should be careful about feeling too superior to them. Most of us have a similar track record. We can look back at the places where God came through — the provision that arrived at the last possible moment, the relationship that was healed when we'd given up on it, the situation that turned around in ways we still can't fully explain — and then three days later, when the new problem arrives and the water runs out, we quarrel with whoever is nearest and wonder if God has lost interest in us. The Israelites are not a cautionary tale from a primitive era. They are a mirror.

Moses, to his credit, does not take this personally — or rather, he does take it personally for about thirty seconds and then takes it to God. "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." Which is, honestly, a very pastoral prayer. It's not a theological reflection or a carefully composed petition. It's a man at the end of his rope telling God exactly where he is. And God, who is never surprised by where His people are, responds immediately — not with a rebuke of Moses for the inelegance of the prayer, not with a lecture about the Israelites' ingratitude, but with a practical, specific, do-this-and-it-will-work answer. Take the staff. Take some elders. Go to the rock at Horeb. Strike it. Water will come out.

The rock. This detail is so ordinary that we might walk right past it, which would be a significant mistake. There is a rock, and inside the rock there is water, and the water has been there all along, waiting for Moses to strike it. God didn't create the water in the moment of the crisis. He positioned it before the crisis arrived, in a rock that looked like nothing, in a desert place that offered no visible promise of relief. The provision was already there. What was needed was not a miracle from nothing but the obedience to strike the rock that God was pointing at.

Paul, writing to the Corinthians centuries later, identifies the rock explicitly — the rock was Christ. The provision that sustained Israel in the wilderness, the water that came from the struck rock, is a picture of the one who would be struck on the cross so that living water could flow from His side to a thirsty world. Jesus Himself tells the woman at the well that whoever drinks the water He gives will never be thirsty again — that the water He gives will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The rock in the wilderness is the earliest chapter of a story that runs all the way through the Gospels and erupts in the wind and fire of Pentecost, when the Spirit — described by Jesus as rivers of living water flowing from within — is poured out on all flesh. The thirsty people of Israel got water from a rock. We get the Spirit from the Risen Christ, and the Spirit is the water that does not run dry.

There's a name Moses gives to the place that is worth sitting with: Massah and Meribah, which mean testing and quarreling. The place is named not for the miracle but for the question the Israelites asked in the middle of it: "Is the Lord among us or not?" It's a haunting question, and a deeply honest one. In the middle of the thirst, in the middle of the waiting, in the middle of the wilderness between the last miracle and the next one — is the Lord among us or not? Moses strikes the rock. Water pours out. And the answer to the question is written in the desert sand: He was here the whole time.

He is here the whole time. The rock was already positioned. The water was already inside it. The staff was already in Moses's hand. The elders were already there to witness it. And the Lord was standing on the rock before Moses ever arrived — which is the most important detail of all. He goes ahead. He positions the provision before the crisis arrives. He stands at the place of the need before we know there is a need. And when we finally get there, thirsty and quarreling and wondering if He's even paying attention, the water comes out and we realize He has been here all along.

Is the Lord among us or not? Strike the rock. Find out.

PRAYER: Lord, when we quarrel in our thirst and forget Your track record, remind us that You have already gone ahead to the rock and the water is already waiting for us. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Name the specific thirst you're carrying today — the need that's making you quarrel or doubt — and strike the rock by bringing it to God in honest, direct, Moses-style prayer right now.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! Show love to all people today in ways that show Jesus in you!

Blessings,

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Mind of Christ

View the devo: https://bit.ly/46DDWmA

Hear the devo: https://bit.ly/4rm9t60

2:1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:1-13 ESV)

What power do you feel as you hear the name of Jesus? For Paul, it was to hear everything! May it be so for us as well!

I'm having to be very careful with what I say in front of our two year old grandson! He's at the stage where he repeats everything including things I should not be saying. Don't be alarmed I am not cussing. But I do say descriptive things about people I need not say. We went through the whole thing with his older brother who is now six. He did hear a mild (?) curse word about his dog having accidents and so every accident she had, our grandson say the descriptive word and her name. Paul knew that encouragement is key among believers of all ages, especially the newer or younger of believers among us. And he's talking about being positive and loving towards all things. Let's spend some time with his passage for today.

Paul opens this passage with four rapid-fire "if" statements, and the way he strings them together is worth a moment of attention. If there is any encouragement in Christ — if there is any comfort from love — if there is any participation in the Spirit — if there is any affection and sympathy. He's stacking up things that everyone in the room knows are true, building a case with premises nobody can argue with, so that by the time he gets to the conclusion — complete my joy by being of the same mind — the congregation has already agreed to everything that leads there. It's gentle, it's relational, it's Paul at his most pastoral, and it's also a little bit like someone saying "well, since we all agree that gravity exists and the sky is blue and the sun rose this morning — clearly you should stop arguing with each other." The logic is airtight and the tone is warm, which is a combination that is genuinely rare and genuinely effective.

The unity Paul is describing is not the unity of people who never disagree about anything — that would be less a church and more a particularly well-organized echo chamber. It's the unity of people who have the same mind, the same love, the same spirit, the same purpose — who are, at the deepest level, oriented toward the same thing, even when they approach it from different angles. And the obstacle he identifies to that unity is not theological disagreement or personality conflict or the worship wars that have been going on in one form or another since approximately the second century. It's two things: selfish ambition and conceit. The desire to be seen. The need to win. The habit of counting your own interests as the most interesting interests in the room.

The antidote Paul offers is not a management technique or a conflict resolution strategy. It's a Person. "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus." And then he launches into what scholars believe is an early Christian hymn, one of the most breathtaking passages in the entire New Testament — the great condescension of Christ, who was in the form of God and did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness, humbling Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Let that land for a moment. The one who had every reason to grasp, every right to insist, every legitimate claim to the best seat in every room — chose not to. He looked at the divine prerogatives He could have held onto and said, essentially, I will set these down for now because love requires it. He did not come as the Roman emperor arrived, preceded by heralds and accompanied by soldiers and received with compulsory adoration. He came as a baby in a manger in a backwater town to a teenage girl and a carpenter, and He spent the next thirty-three years giving Himself away so thoroughly that the cross was not an interruption of His life's pattern but its fullest expression.

This is the mind Paul is asking us to have. Not a performance of humility — the kind where you say "oh, it was nothing" while clearly hoping everyone disagrees — but the genuine, downward-moving, other-centered orientation of a life that has been reshaped by what Christ did. Count others more significant than yourselves, Paul says. Look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Which is, in the context of a community that has selfish ambition and conceit circulating in it, either an impossible ask or the most practical thing Paul could have said — depending entirely on whether the Spirit is actually at work in the people being asked.

And here is where the passage ends with one of the most energizing and clarifying sentences in all of Paul's letters: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." This is not a contradiction. It is a collaboration. Work it out — live it, practice it, let it take shape in your actual daily choices — because God is already at work in you, producing the desire and the capacity to do exactly what He's asking. The wanting and the doing both come from Him. Your role is to cooperate with what He is already moving in you, to say yes to the impulse toward generosity and humility and other-centeredness when it arises, because that impulse is not random — it is the Spirit working in you toward the good pleasure of a God who looks very much like Jesus.

The mind of Christ is not a destination you arrive at after years of self-improvement. It is a gift you receive and then live out of, imperfectly, gratefully, one ordinary choice at a time — choosing the lower seat, choosing to count the other person's interests as significant, choosing to set down what you're grasping and open your hands instead. And the God who worked through the humility of the manger and the cross and the empty tomb is still working — in you, through you, for His good pleasure and your genuine joy.

PRAYER: Lord, form in us the mind of Christ — the kind that empties itself, serves freely, and finds in the downward movement the joy that grasping could never produce. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one relationship or situation today where you've been counting your own interests first, and choose one concrete act of genuinely counting the other person's interests as more significant than your own.

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

Let's be positive about Jesus today in all things, enough to win some new souls over!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

First Yes or First No?

Hear, View devo: https://bit.ly/4xy9Zzd

23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ 29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. 30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. (Matthew 21:23-32 NIV)

If you have ever said NO, or WAIT to God. It's okay. Even if you said YES and followed it up with NO action. It's okay, too.

My healing continues and it's been a different sort of journey. My first cataract was on my weak eye, so removig the cataract on that eye left me with a fully working eye. This surgery was on my strong eye, so the weak eye is doing what it can and the right eye needs to continue healing and I will need glasses to get everything in focus.

At my last appointment I found mysef behind a sweet lady that was patient but clearly frustrated. Finally, the clerk told her she was there a week early. The dear lady not knowing to show embarrassment or anger, left and the kind clerk said it happened all the time. I said, "I have a friend, who packed and flew from Texas to Nashville for a long-awaited convention. Upon arrival at the host hotel he waited patiently while many on staff looked for his room reservation. Finally, a manager came an told him that he was a year early for his convention. And I still think of a morning in a previous chiurch where my secretary said an irate church member wanted to see me. I opend my door and a usually very sweet elderly member asked, "Brother, what did you do?" Great question. I did a lot of things and had to answer for most, but I did not register the question. She continued, "There's nobody here! Sunday school rooms are empty, there are no cars in the parking lot! Are we going to have church today or not?" I felt sad immediately. I said very calmly, "Sister, today is Monday. Church was yesterday." I'm headed there as may be many of us, but we smile and love.

Jesus has just ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey to the sound of hosannas, turned over the tables in the temple, cursed a fig tree, and healed the blind and the lame in the temple courts — and it's only Tuesday. The chief priests and elders are, to put it mildly, not having a great week. So they come to Him with what they clearly believe is an unanswerable question: "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" It's the kind of question designed less to get information and more to put someone on the defensive — the ancient equivalent of "who do you think you are?" And Jesus, because He is Jesus, answers their question with a question of His own, which is both brilliant and must have been enormously satisfying to watch.

"John's baptism — where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?" And the chief priests and elders huddle. We can almost picture them — the most powerful religious figures in Jerusalem, whispering among themselves, doing the political calculation in real time. If we say from heaven, He'll ask why we didn't believe him. If we say of human origin, the crowd will turn on us because they all thought John was a prophet. And so they land on what is simultaneously the most politically safe and the most intellectually embarrassing answer available to them: "We don't know." The men who have just challenged Jesus's authority on the grounds that they are the authorized interpreters of God's will have just publicly admitted that they cannot discern whether John the Baptist was sent by God or not. Jesus, with what must have been considerable restraint, simply says: then neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Checkmate, and they walked into it themselves.

But Jesus doesn't leave it there, because He never just wins an argument and moves on. He tells them a parable, and this one is pointed enough that by the end of it they will realize they've just rendered a verdict against themselves — which is becoming something of a pattern in Matthew's Gospel. A man has two sons. He goes to the first and says, go work in the vineyard today. The first son says no — flat out, directly, without apology. And then later he changes his mind and goes. The father goes to the second son with the same request. The second son says yes, absolutely, consider it done, I'm on my way — and then doesn't go. Jesus asks the obvious question: which one did what the father wanted? And they answer correctly: the first one. Yes, Jesus says. And the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

That would have landed like a thunderclap. The tax collectors and the prostitutes — the people who had said no to God with their entire lives, who had visibly, publicly, professionally walked away from everything the religious establishment stood for — are ahead of you. Not instead of you. Ahead of you. The door is still open. But the people who said no with their lives and then turned around when John came preaching repentance are further through it than the people who said yes with their lips and then stood in the temple courts demanding to see Jesus's credentials.

The parable is not really about two sons. It's about two kinds of religious life — the life that performs the right answers and produces no fruit, and the life that starts from the wrong place but genuinely turns when it hears the invitation. John came in the way of righteousness, Jesus says, and the tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. The chief priests and elders saw it happen and still didn't turn. There is a sobering word in that for anyone who has been around religion long enough to be very comfortable saying the right things — because the comfort of the correct answer can become, over time, a substitute for the actual turning that the correct answer is supposed to produce.

But here is the joy in this passage, and there is real joy in it: the first son changed his mind and went. He said no and then went anyway. Which means that the no you said at some earlier point in your life — the period of walking away, the season of doing things you're not proud of, the years when the vineyard was the last place you wanted to be — none of that disqualifies you from the going. The father in the parable does not receive the first son with a lengthy lecture about his earlier refusal. He receives him because he went. The Spirit who was poured out at Pentecost on tax collectors and fishermen and people with complicated histories is still being poured out on people with complicated histories. The vineyard is still open. The invitation is still going out. And changed minds are exactly what the Father has been hoping for all along.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, turn our yes from a word we say into a life we live, and give us the humility to keep turning toward You whenever we find ourselves walking in the wrong direction. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one area of your life where you've been saying yes with your words but no with your actions, and take one concrete step today toward actually going into the vineyard.

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

Let's win the world with full, unconditional love for all people.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Blood on the Doorframe

View devo: https://bit.ly/4zTniwI;

12:1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10 You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. 11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. 12 I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14 “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. (Exodus 12:1-14 NRS)

Happy Wednesday! Friend, make it your best day ever by being the best person you can be! Love all people. Smile more. Give more! Prayers for this old man as he prepares to preach in the home office of First Gonzales this Sunday at 8:30 and 10:45! May God give me a word to share with all people.

It's that time of year for the Procrastinators of America to get their taxes done! And yes, dear Sainted Reverend Thom Elliott, my friend and brother in Christ Jesus, I think of you often, but more so as I get my information in order to file in time for the last possible day to send Uncle Sam what I render unto him. And that involves me printing the 2025 calendar month by month so I can look over how many medical-related trips I made to Gonzales, and Mission, Texas for health and dental trips. Oh, and I can't forget San Antonio for vision-related jaunts. And tis funny how the online calendar shows every detail but the printed version does not, so I have bring the printed calendar here so I can write in the details I need. And speaking of calendars, this passage has the God of the Universe resetting the calendar!

There's a moment in this passage where God does something that feels almost strange for the God of the universe to bother with: he stops to reset the calendar. "This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you." Before a single plague finishes, before a single Israelite takes a step toward freedom, God says, essentially, "mark this on your calendars — everything starts counting from here now." When God is about to do something enormous, he doesn't just act — he makes sure you remember when it happened. This wasn't going to be a footnote. It was going to be the new starting line for how an entire people measured time.

Then come the instructions, and they are wonderfully, almost comically specific. Every family is to take a lamb — one per household, unless your household's too small to finish it, in which case you team up with your nearest neighbor and figure out the math together based on how many people can actually eat it. The lamb has to be without defect, a year-old male, and you don't just grab it and slaughter it right away — you keep it, watch it, live with it for four days before the appointed time. There's something almost tender in that detail. This isn't an anonymous animal grabbed at the last minute; it's something the family has had underfoot, part of the household, before it becomes part of their salvation.

On the fourteenth day, at twilight, the whole assembled community slaughters their lambs. And then comes the part that changes everything: they're to take some of the blood and put it on the two doorframes and the top of the frame of the houses where they eat the lamb. Not sprinkle it inside for good luck. Not paint it somewhere private and decorative. Put it right on the doorframe — the most visible, unmissable part of the house, the thing everyone walking by would see.

I love imagining this scene a little: an entire nation, in one single night, painting blood over their front doors, roasting lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, dressed and ready to move with their sandals on and staff in hand, eating in a hurry like people who might have to run at any moment. It's not a quiet, contemplative meal. It's Passover eaten standing up, coats on, bags practically packed — dinner and an escape plan rolled into one.

And then God tells them exactly why the blood matters: "The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." The blood isn't a magic charm that wards off evil on its own merits. It's a sign — something visible, something that testifies to whose household this is, something God himself promises to look for and honor. The destroyer doesn't pass over because the family behind that door was more righteous than the family next door. He passes over because of the blood. Full stop. Nothing else about that night saves anyone.

If that sounds familiar, it should — because this is the exact shape of the gospel showing up more than a thousand years before Jesus ever walked into Jerusalem for his last Passover meal with his disciples. Blood applied to a doorframe, marking a household as covered, sparing it from judgment that fell everywhere else. It's not hard to see why Paul would later call Jesus "our Passover lamb" without much explanation needed — the story had already been telling us what to look for.

And then God adds one more instruction that I find strangely moving: this day shall be a day of remembrance for you, you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord, throughout your generations, as a perpetual ordinance. God isn't just rescuing this generation of Israelites. He's building a memory into the DNA of a whole nation, so that centuries later, families would still be gathering around tables, still asking "why is this night different from all other nights," still telling their children about the blood on the doorframe that meant death passed over their house.

There's something worth sitting with here about how God saves. It's specific. It's visible. It requires trust — because imagine being the one family on the block wondering if maybe this time the blood thing was overkill, maybe we don't really need it. It's applied, not assumed. And it points, unmistakably, all the way forward to a cross.

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for the blood that covers us and the judgment that passes over because of Jesus, our true Passover Lamb, in Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Take a few minutes today to thank Jesus specifically for being the Lamb whose blood covers you, rather than assuming your safety is automatic.

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

Win the world for Jesus with your love!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Wake Up and Owe Nothing But Love

Hear and View devo: https://bit.ly/4xD4q3u

8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. 11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13 let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:8-14 NRS)

Happy Tuesday, dear Friend! Be a surprise blessing to many today by doing unexpected outrageous (for you) things! Blessings will be yours all day long! This is an adventure after all! Make it a fun one! Prayers for this old man as I prepare to preach at First Methodist Church in Gonzales this coming Sunday at 8:30 and 10:45! I may be a bit rusty!! Crusty too! lol.

I remember very vividly the day I paid off my credit card. Yes, I had fallen into the illusion of credit cards. I applied for a Foley's credit card and was elated that I was approved! I remember having supper with an old friend, and one of his old friends, who was bragging about having an American Express card. "They give them to anyone who applies!" he said, and dummy here applied and again, APPROVED! I also applied for a MasterCard and guess what, again, approved. I didn't rack up a lot of debt; Amex had to be paid monthly, so anything I charged during a month had to be paid at the end of that same month, and Foley's, well, I didn't buy expensive clothes, so I never really used it. But the MC was something else; and I charged gas and food on it; and of course, I was working with Ma Bell and making very good money for a single man; then I went away to seminary and I went on faith knowing I had to pay off my new car and other charges; and the day came I owed MasterCard nothing! And to celebrate I went and bought a new pair of boots to use in the snow there in Denver. And that was the beginning of what seemed lifetime debt to MC nation. Debt is no fun.

And here comes the Apostle Paul acting like Dave Ramsey in this passage with his "Owe no one anything..." Yeah, right! If you've ever had a loan you couldn't quite shake — the kind that shows up in your mind at 2 a.m. reminding you it still exists — you know exactly the itch Paul is describing. Debt lingers. It follows you around. It's the one bill that never seems to close out.

And Paul says there's exactly one debt he's comfortable with you carrying forever, never paying off, always owing a little more: love. Every other debt gets settled eventually. This one doesn't, and that's the point — you're never going to wake up one day and think, "well, I've loved my neighbor enough now, I can stop."

Then Paul does something that would've been almost scandalous to a first-century Jewish audience: he says the entire law can be summed up in a single sentence. Whoever loves another has fulfilled the law, because the commandments — don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't covet, and whatever other commandments there are — are all summed up in this: love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, so love is the fulfilling of the law.

Think about how radically simplifying that is. The Pharisees had built an entire industry out of parsing 613 commandments into finer and finer categories — which ones apply on which days, under which conditions, with which loopholes. Paul walks in and essentially says: you can stop counting. If you actually love your neighbor — really love them, not just tolerate them from a safe distance — you've already kept the whole list, because love doesn't do the things the list is trying to prevent. It's like discovering that instead of memorizing six hundred rules for a card game, someone just tells you: don't be a jerk, and you'll never break a rule again.

Then Paul shifts gears into something with real urgency: besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. He's telling the Roman church, and by extension us, to check the clock — salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. The night is far gone, the day is near. So let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

It's such a vivid image — waking up, throwing off the covers, putting on daylight like it's something you can wear. And then Paul gets almost startlingly specific about what needs to be laid aside: not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. It reads like a list someone wrote after attending one too many parties that went sideways. Paul's not being prudish here — he's naming the stuff that keeps people stuck in a fog, groggy and half-alive, sleepwalking through their own lives instead of actually living them.

And then the final instruction, which I think is the real heartbeat of the whole passage: instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

That phrase — "make no provision" — is such practical wisdom dressed up in old language. It's not just "resist temptation when it shows up." It's "stop leaving the door unlocked for it in the first place." Don't stock the fridge with what you're trying to avoid. Don't keep the relationship active that you know is pulling you toward darkness. Don't set your alarm for the version of yourself you're trying to wake up from. Paul knows that most of our failures aren't sudden ambushes — they're the predictable result of provisions we made for them days earlier, half-consciously, hoping we wouldn't actually have to follow through.

Put on Christ instead. Not as a costume you wear to church on Sunday and take off Monday morning, but as your actual wardrobe — the thing that determines how you show up in every ordinary interaction, every debt you never quite finish paying off, every neighbor you're called to love instead of merely endure.

PRAYER: Lord, wake us from our sleepiness, clothe us in Christ, and let love be the only debt we never stop paying, in Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one "provision for the flesh" you've been quietly leaving in place, and remove it today.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Live in a way that says you love all people and want them in the Kingdom of God.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Go to Your Brother

15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[c] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. 18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven. 19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:15-20 NIV)

Happy Monday, dear Friend! I pray you had a great weekend and made time to spend with God. I again thank you for your prayers for my surgery and for my recovery. I have to admit my vision is not yet where it should be. The prescription pre surgery does not work with post surgery results does not allow for my reading or writing well. There may be some spelling errors that I cannot completely identify but I will run this through a spellchecker to make sure I get the words correct. And I may not record any audio or video until I get new glasses. Pray for patience and pea

I've long held that Jjesus meant to say, "Where two or three are gathered, there might be trouble." Sociologically speaking that is true in every setting. Of course, we cannot limit it to sociology, psychologically as well. And even sometimes, one person alone with his or her thoughts might begin trouble within his own mind for himself. And in almost fifty years of ministry I saw and heard things not really meant for the Church. Most of those memories recalled that the first demon exorcised was from a man in the church.

Let's be honest about something right from the start — nobody particularly enjoys this passage. It's the one about conflict in the church, about what to do when someone has wronged you, about the uncomfortable and inconvenient process of actually going to the person who hurt you and saying so. We would almost universally prefer a passage that gives us permission to handle conflict the way most of us actually handle it — by talking to everyone except the person we have a problem with, by letting the thing quietly calcify into a permanent awkwardness, or by the time-honored spiritual practice of simply avoiding the whole situation until one of us moves to another city. Jesus, unfortunately, does not endorse any of these approaches.

What He gives us instead is a process — a remarkably humane, carefully graduated, grace-filled process that is designed not to win an argument or establish who was right, but to win back a brother or a sister. That phrase is worth sitting with before we get to the steps, because it tells us what the whole exercise is for. The goal is not the correction. The goal is the relationship. Not the verdict but the person. Everything that follows in the passage is shaped by that goal — which is why the first step is so private, so small, so deliberately one-on-one.

Go, Jesus says. Just go. Not to the pastor first, not to the church board, not to your three closest friends who will absolutely take your side — go to the person, just the two of you, and talk about it. The genius of this is that it gives the relationship the best possible chance of being restored before anyone else even knows there was a problem. Most conflicts, if they are handled at this first stage, never need to go any further. Most misunderstandings, most unintentional hurts, most of the friction that accumulates between people who are trying to live and serve together — if they are brought into the open between the two people involved, they have a remarkable tendency to resolve. The listening that happens when it's just two people, without an audience, without the pressure of public positions already taken, is a different kind of listening than anything that happens later.

But if that doesn't work, Jesus provides the next step — bring one or two others, so that every word may be established. Not to outnumber the other person, not to build a case, but to ensure that the conversation is fair, witnessed, and grounded in something more than one person's memory of what happened. And if that doesn't work, there is the community of faith as the final court of appeal. The process has a direction — toward restoration, always toward restoration — but it also has a recognition that sometimes the person who has done wrong is not willing to hear it, and that the community has both the right and the responsibility to name that.

And then Jesus says something that stops the whole procedural conversation in its tracks and reminds us what this is really all about: "For where two or three gather in My name, there am I with them." It sounds like a general promise about corporate prayer, and it is — but in context it's something more specific than that. It's the assurance that when two or three people gather in the difficult, uncomfortable, ego-surrendering work of seeking reconciliation, Jesus is in the room. He doesn't just show up for the pleasant gatherings, the celebratory moments, the worship services when everything is going well. He shows up specifically and particularly when two people who have been at odds are trying, in His name, to find their way back to each other. The hard conversations held in His name are sacred conversations. The reconciliation sought in His name carries His authority. The binding and loosing that happens when the community gathers with genuine intention is connected to something larger than any of us can see.

This is, at its heart, a passage about the extraordinary value Jesus places on the relationships within His community. He doesn't give us this process because conflict is pleasant or because He wants us to spend our time in uncomfortable conversations. He gives it to us because the brother or sister on the other side of the conflict is worth the discomfort. Because the unity of the body He is building matters enough to be worth the awkward conversation, the second attempt, the extra effort. Because the alternative — the slow drift of unresolved conflict, the accumulated distance, the relationship that simply fades away because nobody was willing to do the hard thing — is a loss that He takes seriously even when we've already decided to let it go.

The presence He promises is the presence that makes the hard thing possible. You don't have to walk into that conversation in your own strength. You go in His name, and He is already there.

PRAYER: Lord, give us the courage to go to one another in Your name, to seek restoration over vindication, and to trust that where two or three gather in Your name, You are already present and at work. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one relationship where you've been choosing distance over the difficult conversation, and take one step this week toward going — in His name, for the sake of the person, with restoration as the only goal.

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 with our acts of love and kindness!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.