The Hinge Everything Hangs On

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34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” “The son of David,” they replied. 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, 44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ 45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” 46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:34-46 NIV)

The teachers used to say, usually at the beginning of the school year, "There are no such thing as stupid or dumb questions." She usually meant we should ask questions; but we knew better for we had heard truly dumb and stupid questions. You're smiling because you know that too! And you've been in a setting when the professor or chairperson has outlined all that we need to conclude the meeting and someone will, inevitably, ask, "Did you mean that..." and makes the chairperson to once again repeat what he had just said and the meeting's conclusion is delayed for another ten minutes. You say, "I will make it to the restroom in time!"

Have you ever been asked a question that wasn’t really a question? You could tell the person wasn’t looking for an answer. They were looking for a gotcha.

That’s the scene in Matthew 22. The Sadducees have just been silenced, so the Pharisees regroup, and one of them, an expert in the law, steps forward to test Jesus. His question sounds sincere enough: which commandment is the greatest? With hundreds of laws to choose from, any answer might spark an argument.

But Jesus doesn’t dodge, and He doesn’t play the game. He takes them straight to the heart of it all: love the Lord your God with everything you are, heart, soul, and mind. Then He adds a second that is just like the first: love your neighbor as yourself. Every bit of the Law and the Prophets, He says, hangs on those two.

Picture a door hanging on its hinges. Take the hinges away, and the door is just a heavy slab leaning against a wall. These religious leaders knew the Scriptures backward and forward, but they had lost the hinge. They could recite the commands and still miss the One who gave them.

Then Jesus turns the tables with a question of His own: “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is He?” They answer, “David’s.” Jesus presses further. If the Messiah is merely David’s son, why does David, speaking by the Spirit, call Him “Lord”? Matthew tells us no one could answer Him, and from that day on, no one dared ask Him another question.

Here’s what I find so inviting about this passage. The Pharisees came with questions to test Jesus. Jesus answered with questions that invite us to know Him. He is not only a descendant of David but David’s Lord, which means He isn’t just a teacher to evaluate. He is the King to love.

So today, maybe the question isn’t “What’s the minimum I need to do?” Maybe it’s “Where have I let love slip out of the center?” Have you been checking boxes with God instead of leaning into Him? Have you kept your neighbor at arm’s length while staying busy with spiritual things?

The good news is that Jesus doesn’t ask us to love in our own strength. He loved first, and He shows us how. Start there, with the One who is worthy of your whole heart, and watch how love for those around you begins to follow.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, You are both my Savior and my King, so teach me to love You with all my heart, soul, and mind, and to love the people around me the way You have loved me. In Jesus’ strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, do one intentional act of love for a neighbor, coworker, or family member, and let it be an offering to the Lord.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me. Be intentional in your love for all people.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Show Me Your Glory

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12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.” 14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” 17 And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.” 18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” 19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” 21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” (Exodus 33:12-23 NIV)

Happy Wednesday, dear Friend! I ask you please pray for this old man as Nellie and I will be traveling down to our county, (though they spell it wrong!) Val Verde County, to preach at the 8:30 and 11:00 am worship services at First United Methodist Church of Del Rio, Texas. Pray the Lord share a word for me to share with them. Thursday I have my eye surgeon appointment to see how this eye has healed and I pray that I can order some glasses that same day! Thank you!

Since 1968 scholars tell us the Church in the USA has been on the wane. With that rare and praying never repeated exception of the Sunday after the 9-11 attack on our country, when the churches were filled, a lot of churches are hurting today and many have closed. There are many reasons for this decline and will vary from church to church, but the overall sentiment, as one long time friend told me once, "Looking out at who shows up for worship, the reality is that one Sunday most could die of old age and we'd be without a congregation!" Thanks, friend! And today a church "expert" broke down the eleven or so reasons why the Church is no longer the powerhouse it once was. What we once took for granted has now been taken. Who remembers Sunday night worship? And do any churches ever have an actual on-the-day Thanksgiving service? Most will have that Sunday before Thanksgiving worship and call it the Thanksgiving worship service, when in reality most can't wait to worship the event between the Detroit Lions and that team from Dallas. We do want to yell the title of our devotional today, "Show me Your Glory God!" Yet, we know God still cares. God still loves and God still shows us His glory in everyday ways. Let's see what Moses was up to today!

This conversation between Moses and God is one of the most intimate and revealing exchanges in all of Scripture, and it happens right after one of the lowest moments in Israel's history. The golden calf has just happened. The tablets have been smashed. Thousands have died. The people are in disgrace, and God has told Moses that He will send an angel ahead of them to the promised land — but that He Himself will not go with them, because He might destroy them on the way given how stiff-necked they are. Which is, honestly, a fair assessment of the situation.

And Moses, rather than accepting this arrangement and being grateful that God is at least sending help, pushes back. He doesn't push back timidly or carefully. He pushes back with the directness of someone who has been having honest conversations with God for long enough to know that honesty is welcome. "You have been telling me to lead these people," he says, "but you have not let me know whom you will send with me." In other words: You gave me this assignment, but I don't actually know who's helping me with it, and that's a problem. It is one of the most relatable prayers in the Old Testament — the prayer of a leader who has said yes to something enormous and is only now fully registering what he's agreed to.

God's response is immediate and generous: "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." My Presence. Not a more capable assistant. Not a better-equipped angel. The Presence — the actual, full, unmediated Presence of the living God — will go with them. And Moses, rather than breathing a sigh of relief and moving on, immediately grasps the full weight of what has just been promised and builds his whole argument on it. If Your Presence does not go with us, he says, do not send us up from here. What would distinguish us from every other people on the face of the earth if You did not go with us? It is a remarkable negotiating position — essentially, the only thing that makes this whole enterprise worth doing is You. Without You, the promised land is just a piece of real estate. Without You, we are just another wandering group of people with a complicated history.

God agrees. And then Moses, encouraged perhaps by the success of the negotiation so far, goes further. "Now show me Your glory." It is the most audacious request in the entire conversation, and possibly in the entire Old Testament. Moses has already seen more of God than almost anyone alive. He has spoken with God face to face, as a man speaks with a friend. He has seen the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. He has been on the mountain for forty days in the divine presence. And still he wants more. Show me Your glory. There is in Moses a hunger for God that is never fully satisfied by any previous experience of God, which is itself one of the most important things the passage tells us — genuine encounter with God produces not satisfaction but deeper hunger.

God's answer is both generous and honest. He will cause His goodness to pass before Moses. He will proclaim His name. He will be gracious to whom He will be gracious and merciful to whom He will be merciful. But He draws the line at the full direct vision: "You cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live." And so the arrangement that follows is one of the most tender and almost domestic images of God in the entire Old Testament — He places Moses in a cleft of the rock, covers him with His hand as He passes by, and then removes His hand so that Moses can see His back, but not His face. The back of God. The afterglow of the divine glory, seen from the shelter of a rock with the hand of God as a shield.

This is the best available to Moses, and it is extraordinary beyond description. But it is not the final word. Because what Moses saw from the cleft of the rock — the passing glory, the covered face, the glimpse of what he could not fully behold — is precisely what the New Testament says has now been fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. John says that no one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son has made Him known. Paul says that the light of the knowledge of God's glory is seen in the face of Christ. What Moses longed for from the cleft of the rock — the full face of God, the direct unmediated vision of divine glory — is exactly what the incarnation provides. The hand has been removed. The face is visible. And the Spirit poured out at Pentecost is the ongoing presence of the one whose face Moses longed to see, now living in every believer as the down payment of the day when we will see Him face to face, fully, without the cleft and without the covering hand.

Moses wanted the Presence more than the destination. He was right to want it. And what he wanted is what we have been given.

PRAYER: Lord, give us the hunger of Moses — the kind that is never satisfied with less than Your Presence, that would rather stay in the desert with You than enter the promised land without You. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Tell God today, in your own words, that His Presence matters more to you than any destination He could send you to, and ask Him to make that true in you not just in the asking but in the living.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! There's no place too far to go for the good of God and God's people!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Faithful And Thankful Example

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1:1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. 2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9 For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 NRSV)

Good Tuesday, Friend! I pray this finds you well and being a great blessing of God to others! We're about to read someone else's mail, shhh! Don't tell anyone, but in our country that is a federal offense; in the Bible, it might be a biblical offense NOT to read it! We will take it from there as we'll eavesdrop on what God may be sharing with an important church! Please pray for this old man as Nellie and I will be traveling to Del Rio to preach at First UMC there at their two morning services, 8:30 and 11:00. Pray the Lord share a good word with me!

"Bless be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above." That line is more than a line from a loved hymn that is, for the most part, rarely sung anymore. It is to me a strong and loving reminder of faith in college students; in this case, a ragtag group of kitchen, rather cafeteria workers, who worked breakfast and lunch on Sunday, then had the evening to fend for themselves in securing a meal. This group, at my urging, joined me in a nice walk from the campus of Lon Morris College to the steps and sanctuary of First United Methodist, then within walking distance of the campus. The Rev. Dr. Gilpin was pastor and he loved worshiping God even at a night worship service on a Sunday, no less! Not many people came, but the welcome we all received was a blessing. At the end of worship, Dr. Gilpin would gather us in a circle and we would sing this hymn. I confess I did not know many hymns in English; I was raised a Spanish-singing United Methodist and I quickly learned this hymn because our hearts were truly binded to God and to each other as we sang after worshiping together in this church. The benediction was given and this group would then walk to Dairy Queen, a long-sanctified place of meals in many a Christian tradition even to this day. The week had started on a positve note and onward and upward we would go in faith.

Paul in this letter is saying something along the same lines, as he opens with one of the warmest greetings in the New Testament. He's writing to the Thessalonians — a church he planted under genuinely difficult circumstances, having been run out of Philippi before arriving there, and run out of Thessalonica not long after — and yet the tone is not cautious or guarded or tinged with the anxiety of someone checking on a fragile plant he's not sure survived. It is grateful, affectionate, and almost bursting with a pride that he can barely contain. We always thank God for all of you, he says, and we continually remember you in our prayers. Always. Continually. This is not the prayer life of someone going through the motions. This is a man who thinks about these people constantly and is genuinely, unreservedly glad that they exist. What he remembers when he prays for them is worth sitting with, because it gives us one of the clearest pictures in the New Testament of what a genuinely healthy church looks like from the outside. He remembers their work produced by faith, their labor prompted by love, and their endurance inspired by hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Work, labor, endurance — these are not passive words. They are words of sustained, costly, active engagement. And they have three different energy sources: faith, love, and hope. The work comes from believing something true. The labor comes from loving someone real. The endurance comes from hoping in something that hasn't fully arrived yet. Put those three together and you have a community that is not just surviving but moving — forward, outward, with genuine momentum.

And then Paul says something that sounds straightforward but carries enormous weight: we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that He has chosen you. We know. Not we hope, not we assume, not we're pretty sure based on available evidence. We know. And how does Paul know? Because of what happened when the gospel came to them. It came not simply with words, but with power and with the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. The gospel arrived in Thessalonica doing things that words alone cannot do — it changed people, it produced faith in people who had previously had none, it generated the kind of conviction that held up under the kind of opposition Paul is about to describe. When the gospel comes with the Spirit behind it, you can tell the difference. There's a quality to what happens that mere rhetoric, however eloquent, cannot produce.

And the opposition was real. The Thessalonians received the word in the midst of severe suffering, Paul says, and yet they received it with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. Severe suffering and joy in the same sentence, held together by the Spirit. This is not the joy of people who have been spared difficulty. This is the joy of people who have discovered that the Spirit is sufficient for the difficulty — that the peace and the presence and the life of God that came with the gospel does not evaporate under pressure. They became imitators of Paul and of the Lord — which means the pattern of their lives began to mirror the pattern of a crucified and risen Savior, someone who went through the worst and came out the other side not merely surviving but transformed.

And the result of all this is something Paul describes with what sounds like genuine delight: their faith has become known everywhere. Not just in Macedonia and Achaia — everywhere. Paul says that when he arrives somewhere new, people are already telling him about the Thessalonians before he even has a chance to bring them up. Your reputation has gone ahead of you, he says to them. Everywhere we go, people are talking about how you turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and how you are waiting for His Son from heaven — the one He raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. The church's reputation in the surrounding region is not for its building or its programs or its eloquent preaching. It is for the fact that people's actual lives have changed — they turned from something to Someone, they left behind what was false to serve what is real, and the evidence of that turn is visible enough that strangers are mentioning it to Paul on the road.

This is what a Spirit-filled community looks like from a distance. Not a community of perfect people — Paul will address various problems in subsequent letters. But a community whose faith is working, whose love is laboring, whose hope is holding through the hard parts, and whose changed lives are making the gospel audible to everyone around them. That is the Thessalonian church. And it is, in its best moments, the church that the Spirit poured out at Pentecost has been building ever since — in every city and every century where a group of people turned from idols to the living God and let the evidence of that turn speak for itself.

PRAYER: Lord, make us a community whose work comes from faith, whose labor comes from love, and whose endurance comes from hope — a people whose changed lives make the gospel visible and audible to everyone watching. 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 today what an outside observer would say your community is known for — and identify one specific thing you can contribute this week to making it known for the right things.

I love you and I thank God for you, just like Paul! You matter to God and you matter to me. Winning hearts in love is a good way to win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Whose Image is This?

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15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” 18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” 22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away. (Matthew 22:15-22 NIV)

Marvelous Mondays only happen when we ask God to make them so! God can and does make the mundane marvelous; and it's as simple as giving and loving more. So, do you want this Monday to be awesome, make it so by blessing others! Smile more. Smile again. And again! Do kind things. Do kind things to mean people. Love those who may not necessarily love back, but that's on them; you did your part. Feed the hungry. Care for the homeless and walk the second mile to bless those who do not expect it!

When we moved to Houston my Mom took me on a walk. We only had one car so that was the logical thing to do. We walked two city blocks from our street, Brazos to the big street named Westheimer. When we got to the corner, Mom said, "This is the bus stop and you'll wait here for the bus. All buses take you to Lanier Junior High. And each way will cost you ten cents. I will give you 20¢ every day; don't lose them! And ride the bus. Gulp. Yes, ma'am. And so began my journey into trusting God more. I was frightened. I can't deny it. In Kingsville I knew most people and I walked to school with long time friends and hoped for girlfriends. No telling where I was walking to and with. All I knew was that the following morning I would be a student at Syndey Lanier Junior High. I had no idea who he was, but I looked him up right away. A writer and poet who wrote about the Knights of The Round Table. Sounded promising. And that morning before all the time changes, I was awaked and fed by my Mom and her big boy walked to the bus stop. As I got there there was a man waiting for the bus as well. He smiled and welcomed me. He was a black man named Willie and he asked my name and we started talking. I sensed I could trust him and I thanked God for a person who would stand by me as I made my new adventure of bus travel to school. He was a blessing to me. Soon I made friends from the school who would also get on several stops after I got on and before we knew it I had graduated from the ninth grade and on to a new school.

One of my fears was more from theatrical sources of bullies waiting at the bus stop, much like what I read Jesus had to endure especially when He was in His Father's House! The man of neverending love had to endure those men of neverending hatred and evil. One belonged to the Father of Life; the others to the enemy; the Father of Lies. Let's dive into this passage.

The Pharisees and the Herodians walking into the temple together should have been a warning sign to everyone watching. These two groups disliked each other under normal circumstances — the Pharisees were religious purists who resented Roman occupation, and the Herodians were political pragmatists who had made their peace with it. The only thing that could bring them into the same room with a shared agenda was something they both disliked more than they disliked each other, and that something was Jesus. They have pooled their considerable combined talent for making things difficult, and they approach Him with what they are convinced is an unanswerable question wrapped in a compliment so thick you could spread it on the bread we just preached about.

"Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are." Lovely. Very flattering. You can almost see Jesus watching the compliment arrive and knowing exactly what's behind it. And then the trap: "Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?" It's a masterpiece of a political trap, genuinely elegant in its construction. If He says yes, pay the tax, the crowd that regards Roman taxation as a form of oppression will turn on Him. If He says no, don't pay it, the Herodians will report Him to the Roman authorities for inciting tax resistance. They have constructed what appears to be a perfect either-or with no third option, which is exactly the kind of intellectual corner that a genuinely good teacher would notice and refuse to enter. And if you think the IRS is bad, the Romans would laugh us out of church!

Jesus sees through it immediately — Matthew tells us He knew their evil intent, which must have made the elaborate flattery feel rather transparent from His end — and He asks for a coin. A denarius. And here is the first turn: He doesn't have one. He has to ask them for it, and they produce one, which means they are carrying Caesar's money in the temple courts while asking Jesus whether Caesar's money is legitimate. The question they intended to trap Him with has already revealed something about their own position before He's said a word.

He looks at the coin and asks: whose image is this? Whose inscription? Caesar's, they say. And then the sentence that has been discussed, debated, preached, and applied for twenty centuries: give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. They are amazed and they leave Him, which is about the best response He could have hoped for given the circumstances.

Now, the easy reading of this passage is that Jesus is drawing a clean line between the civic and the spiritual — render to each their own sphere, keep church and state in their separate lanes, and everyone goes home satisfied. But the word Jesus uses is not "give" in the simple sense of handing something over. It is "give back" — which implies returning what already belongs to someone. Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's. The coin bears Caesar's image and inscription. It came from Caesar's realm, it operates in Caesar's economy, and returning it to that economy is simply acknowledging that fact. Fine.

But then: give back to God what is God's. And here is where the question becomes personal rather than political. What bears God's image? The coin bears Caesar's image. What in your life, in your very person, bears the image of God? Genesis 1 answers that before you even finish asking — humanity, made in the image of God. You bear His image and His inscription. You came from His realm. And giving back to God what is God's means returning yourself — your time, your attention, your allegiance, your whole life — to the one whose image you carry and whose inscription is written on your heart.

The Pharisees and Herodians walked away amazed without understanding that the trap they had set for Jesus had opened into the most fundamental question any human being can face: are you giving back to God what bears His image? Are you returning to the one who made you what actually belongs to Him? The coin goes back to Caesar. The self goes back to God. That is the answer Jesus gives, and it is simultaneously the most politically neutral and the most personally demanding response He could have offered.

The Spirit poured out at Pentecost is the Spirit who restores the image — who takes what the fall distorted and begins, from the inside, the long work of making us genuinely and fully what we were made to be. Giving back to God what is God's is not a one-time transaction. It is the daily, Spirit-enabled, wholehearted return of a life that has been claimed, redeemed, and is being restored to its original image.

PRAYER: Lord, remind us daily that we bear Your image and belong to You, and give us the grace to return our whole selves — our time, our attention, our allegiance — to the one whose inscription is written on our hearts. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Ask yourself today what area of your life you've been keeping in Caesar's column that actually belongs in God's — and take one step toward giving it back to the one whose image you bear.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! And you matter to many others some of whom you're not even aware of! Let's win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

God's Love Never Quits

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106 1-3 Hallelujah! Thank God! And why? Because he’s good, because his love lasts. But who on earth can do it— declaim God’s mighty acts, broadcast all his praises? You’re one happy man when you do what’s right, one happy woman when you form the habit of justice. 4-5 Remember me, God, when you enjoy your people; include me when you save them; I want to see your chosen succeed, celebrate with your celebrating nation, join the Hallelujahs of your pride and joy! 6-12 We’ve sinned a lot, both we and our parents; We’ve fallen short, hurt a lot of people. After our parents left Egypt, they took your wonders for granted, forgot your great and wonderful love. They were barely beyond the Red Sea when they defied the High God —the very place he saved them! —the place he revealed his amazing power! He rebuked the Red Sea so that it dried up on the spot —he paraded them right through! —no one so much as got wet feet! He saved them from a life of oppression, pried them loose from the grip of the enemy. Then the waters flowed back on their oppressors; there wasn’t a single survivor. Then they believed his words were true and broke out in songs of praise. 19-22 They cast in metal a bull calf at Horeb and worshiped the statue they’d made. They traded the Glory for a cheap piece of sculpture—a grass-chewing bull! They forgot God, their very own Savior, who turned things around in Egypt, Who created a world of wonders in the Land of Ham, who gave that stunning performance at the Red Sea. 23-27 Fed up, God decided to get rid of them— and except for Moses, his chosen, he would have. But Moses stood in the gap and deflected God’s anger, prevented it from destroying them utterly. They went on to reject the Blessed Land, didn’t believe a word of what God promised. They found fault with the life they had and turned a deaf ear to God’s voice. Exasperated, God swore that he’d lay them low in the desert, Scattering their children here and there, strewing them all over the earth. (Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23 The Message Bible)

Thursday. It's here. May it be tremendous for you, Friend. You have a role to play in making it so, and you're good at ti, if you let God guide you and bless you!

Nothing beats the voice of a little one praising God. I've always loved children in the church. Sadly, some older ones don't. They do not realize the absence of little voices means there won't be any older voices when the current ones are called home. I loved the church that put a small flyer/brochure on every pew paper holder that said, "God put the wiggle in babies!" Indeed! And I add, God put the giggle in babies! And the joyful sounds and songs they may lift up at unexpected times are part of what the psalmist is trying to teach us, the Church.

The Message opens Psalm 106 with a burst of praise that is as direct and energetic as anything in the Psalter: "Hallelujah! Thank God! And why? Because He's good, because His love never quits." There's no throat-clearing, no lengthy theological preamble, no carefully constructed argument for why praise is appropriate given the current circumstances. Just — Hallelujah, He's good, His love never quits, and that's sufficient reason to begin. The Message has a gift for cutting through the formality to get to what the text is actually saying, and what it's saying here is: the reason to praise God is not that everything is going well. The reason to praise God is who He is. His love never quits is not a weather report about the current season. It is a character description that holds in every season.

But then the psalmist does something that takes a certain amount of spiritual courage: he turns from the praise to the confession, and he doesn't do it gently. "We've sinned a lot, both we and our parents; we've fallen short, hurt a lot of people." The Message renders the confession with a bluntness that is both uncomfortable and refreshing. We've sinned a lot. Not a polite acknowledgment of occasional imperfection. A lot. And it's communal — we and our parents — which suggests that what the psalmist is about to describe is not just personal failure but inherited pattern, the kind of spiritual tendency that runs through families and communities and whole generations. None of us arrived at our current spiritual condition from a standing start. We all carry something from the people who came before us.

And then the psalm zeroes in on the specific incident that is the most vivid example of that inherited tendency: the golden calf at Horeb. They traded in their glorious God, The Message says, for a cheap piece of sculpture — a grass-chewing bull. They forgot God, their very own Savior, who had performed those great miracles in Egypt. And then, with a phrase that is almost heartbreaking in its accuracy: they forgot so fast. They forgot so fast. The miracles were recent. The sea was barely dry. The manna was still falling. And they forgot. Which tells you something important about the nature of spiritual amnesia — it doesn't require much time and it doesn't require bad intentions. It just requires a moment of anxiety and a visible alternative and the very human tendency to reach for something you can see when the God you can't see feels far away.

What follows is the moment that connects the psalm to everything we've been exploring in our series: God would have destroyed them — Moses had received that offer and turned it down — but Moses stood in the gap. The Message renders it beautifully: "Moses stood in the breach to keep the anger from destroying them." Stood in the breach. The image is of a wall with a gap in it — a place where the city is exposed, where the enemy can come through, where the destruction has a way in — and Moses placing himself in that gap, using his body and his prayer as the barrier between the people and what they had earned. It is one of the most vivid images of intercession in the entire Old Testament, and it is, as we have been seeing all week, the clearest preview of what Jesus does for us at the cross and continues to do at the right hand of the Father.

There is a beautiful irony in the structure of this psalm that The Message makes very clear. It opens with hallelujah and it moves almost immediately to confession, which is the most honest sequence in all of worship. You cannot praise God fully while pretending you haven't fallen short. And you cannot confess honestly without the hallelujah underneath it — the assurance that the God to whom you are confessing is the one whose love never quits, who has been standing in the breach for His people since before Moses, who sent His Son to stand in the ultimate breach so that the destruction that was heading for all of us was absorbed by the one who didn't deserve any of it.

His love never quits. Say that to yourself right now, wherever you are in your story. Say it about the golden calf chapter. Say it about the forgot-so-fast chapter. Say it about whatever chapter you're currently in that you're not entirely proud of. His love never quits is not a statement about your performance. It is a statement about His character, and His character has not changed since He was good to a people who forgot Him fast at the foot of a mountain and needed someone to stand in the breach on their behalf.

Someone is still standing there.

PRAYER: Lord, thank You that Your love never quits and that the One who stood in the breach for Moses's people stands in our breach still, so that we can begin again with hallelujah. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Write down one chapter of your story that needs the hallelujah of His never-quitting love placed over it today, and let that be the beginning of the honest, courageous, Spirit-assisted praise this psalm is calling you to.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me. Help babies praise God by loving them and welcoming them into your worship spaces!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr. Twitter Facebook Website

The Peace That Guards

Hear devo: https://bit.ly/4zla6zM

View devo: https://bit.ly/3Tr5nx7

4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends! 2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:1-9 NIV)

Happy Tuesday the 6th! May you bless the Lord this day is my prayer and your assignment! Seek to make blessings a part of your joy! The world needs joy from joyful people! And guess what? You're one!

We should stand in amazement at the boldness of this man. HIghly trained, and superbly educated by the finest teachers of his day; and yet, when called by Jesus, his boldness increased and his willingness to serve was beyond measure. He stood when many of us are afraid to stand. He spoke when most of us freeze and hem and haw and know not what to say. He led when most people would retreat; and yet he faced the greatest of challenges to enter into an already religious world with new teachings and ideas that rocked the establishment; all because he loved Jesus! He started churches, mended tents to support himself, and on and on he went. We fight just to make ourselves go to church... Here is a letter to his favorite church, and as we read, not even our favorite churches get along with each other. You can smile here. Okay, enough smiling; start to pray!

Paul opens this passage by calling the Philippians his joy and crown, which is a beautiful thing to say to a church — and then, almost immediately, he names two people in that church by name and asks them to please, for the love of all that is holy, get along with each other. Euodia and Syntyche are not getting along. We don't know what the disagreement is about. We don't know whose fault it is. We don't know how long it has been going on. What we do know is that it has risen to the level of Paul hearing about it from prison and deciding it needed to be addressed in a letter that would be read aloud to the entire congregation — which, if you've ever had a conflict with someone at church, is approximately the most uncomfortable thing that could happen to you short of a skywriting campaign. Whatever they were disagreeing about, it was significant enough to threaten the unity of a community Paul loved deeply, and he wasn't going to let it slide.

But notice what he says to them: I urge them to be of the same mind in the Lord. Not "I urge Euodia to apologize." Not "I urge Syntyche to see reason." Both of them. Same mind. In the Lord. The resolution Paul is pointing them toward is not the victory of one position over another but the shared orientation that comes when both people stop looking at each other and start looking at the same thing — the Lord in whom they both stand, the gospel for which they have both contended, the community that is being damaged by their division. He even asks his true companion — whoever that is, and scholars have been guessing for centuries — to help them. Reconciliation, in Paul's understanding of the church, is a community project. It doesn't happen just between two people. It happens in the context of a community that cares enough to help.

And then Paul, having addressed the interpersonal crisis, moves to the interior life, and the shift is not as abrupt as it might appear. Because the same condition that makes Euodia and Syntyche's conflict damaging is the condition Paul is about to address — the anxious, grasping, self-focused interior that produces conflict, that lies awake rehearsing grievances, that cannot find peace because it is looking for it in the wrong places. Rejoice in the Lord always, he says. And then, apparently aware that this sounds like an unreasonably cheerful instruction, he says it again: I will say it again — rejoice. The repetition is not accidental. The first time might be inspiration. The second time is instruction. This is something you do, not just something you feel.

Do not be anxious about anything, Paul says — which is either the most liberating sentence in the letter or the most impossible one, depending on what kind of week you're having. But he doesn't leave it as a prohibition without a prescription. Instead, he gives the alternative: in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Not some situations. Every situation. The ones that seem too small to bring to God and the ones that seem too large for God to handle — both of those are wrong, and Paul is gently correcting both at once. And the thanksgiving is not an afterthought. It's not "pray, petition, and then if things go well, give thanks." The thanksgiving goes in before the answer arrives — which is the posture of a person who trusts the character of the God they are praying to more than they trust the resolution of the circumstances they are praying about.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. That word guard is a military term — a sentinel posted at the door, keeping watch. The peace of God is not a pleasant feeling that descends when the circumstances improve. It is a presence that stands watch at the door of the heart and mind, in the middle of the circumstances, before they have resolved. And it transcends all understanding, which means it will not always make sense to the people watching from the outside. They will look at your situation and wonder how you are still standing. That is the testimony of the peace that guards.

Finally, Paul tells them — and us — what to think about. Whatever is true. Whatever is noble. Whatever is right, pure, lovely, admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. This is not naive positive thinking that pretends the hard things aren't real. It is the deliberate, disciplined, Spirit-assisted practice of feeding the mind on what is true and good rather than on what is anxious and destructive. And the promise that follows is the richest in the passage: the God of peace will be with you. Not just the peace of God as a resource you access. The God of peace Himself — present, personal, accompanying — will be with you.

Rejoice. Pray with thanksgiving. Think about what is true and noble and right and lovely. And the God of peace, who is Himself everything you're looking for, will be with you.

PRAYER: Lord, fill us with the peace that only You can give, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, and help us to think on what is true and noble and worthy of praise in the days ahead. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Write down three things today that are true, noble, and worthy of praise in your life right now — and let that list be the beginning of the practice Paul is recommending.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Send a nice note to someone with the recommendations of the Call to Action; all in hopes and prayers of winning the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

paypal.me/eradiovalverde

Street Corner Invitation

View devo: https://bit.ly/4zeDd7J

Hear invitation: https://bit.ly/4zbU76G

22 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.” *(Matthew 22:1-14 NIV)

A most blessed of all Mondays be yours today, dear Friend! I pray this finds you well and blessed and ready for being a blessing to all people this week, especially those who have no one from whom to find a blessing. Ask God and God will show you just who you need to bless! Are you ready?

Nellie and I were bittersweetly blessed this past Saturday. I awoke a little after 4 am to shower, dress, pray, and drive to Corpus Christi to take part in The Rev. Dr. Harold Onwiler's memorial service at St. John's UMC. Nellie, though under the weather, accompanied me. We arrived I thought with plenty of time to enjoy a hearty breakfast and then time to fill up our car so we could return home in time to see our grandson perform in a high school marching band competition at Seguin High School. We enjoyed a too hearty a breakfast and me so proud that I didn't spill a single drop of menudo on my suit, though I would be robed up and my menudo-stained garments would not be visible! The car took me in the direction the church, but I turned around to head to the gas station. My phone rang and I saw it was Rev. Pamela Dykehouse, the DS of the South District, who was also participating at the service to ask where I was. Me, thinking the funeral would start at 10:30 said, "I'm in town and should be there shortly." She politely said the service was at ten and she and Rev. John Cochran were robed and in the Narthex of the church! Gulp! Thankfully it was 9:47 and so I said, "I'm close by and I'll be there in time!" And thank God I was! The service was very thoughtful and moving and all who shared in it blessed my heart. I was also blessed to see sweet and dear friends and collegues from years past. And God was thanked for having shared Harold with us for a season.

Jesus is still in the temple courts, still talking to the chief priests and Pharisees who are still trying to figure out how to arrest Him without causing a riot, and He tells them yet another parable. At this point the religious leaders must be deeply regretting the Tuesday morning decision to challenge His authority, because every conversation since then has produced another parable that is uncomfortably accurate about exactly what they are doing. The parables are piling up and none of them are flattering to the people being addressed. But Jesus, characteristically, keeps going.

The kingdom of heaven, He says, is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. A wedding banquet in the ancient world was not a three hour event with a buffet and a DJ. It was a multi-day celebration, prepared for months in advance, the social event of the generation for anyone lucky enough to be invited. The king in this parable has gone to extraordinary lengths — the oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, the feast is prepared, the tables are set, the wine is ready — and he sends his servants to call the people who have been invited. And they refuse to come. He sends more servants. They ignore them, go off to their farms and businesses, and some of them seize the servants and kill them. Over a wedding invitation. Which is both a significant escalation and an accurate portrait of what the religious leaders of Jesus's day were doing with the invitation He was extending to them.

The king, understandably, is not pleased. But what he does next is the part of the parable that should make every person in this room sit up a little straighter with either enormous relief or considerable self-examination, depending on where they find themselves in the story. He tells his servants: those who were invited didn't deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite everyone you can find. And the servants go out and gather everyone they can find — bad and good, Matthew says, and that detail is worth sitting with for a moment. Bad and good. The invitation goes out without a preliminary screening process. The king is not sending his servants to find people who have earned a seat at the table. He's sending them to fill the table, and whoever says yes gets to come.

This is the Pentecost parable told in wedding imagery. When the Spirit was poured out in Jerusalem — on sons and daughters, on old men and young men, on slaves and free people, on everyone who called on the name of the Lord — it was the ultimate street-corner invitation, the moment when the wedding banquet that had been prepared from before the foundation of the world was thrown open to everyone the servants could find. The first guests, the ones who had been invited longest, the ones for whom the feast had originally been planned — many of them were too busy with their farms and their businesses to come. And so the invitation went out wider, to the corners and the margins and the places where people who thought they weren't on anyone's guest list were going about their ordinary days. Come. The feast is ready. There is room at the table.

And then the parable adds a detail that has been the subject of considerable theological debate for twenty centuries — the man without a wedding garment. The king comes in to see the guests and finds a man who is not wearing wedding clothes, and asks him, friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes? The man is speechless, and the king has him bound and thrown out. This seems, at first glance, almost cruel — the man was invited from the street corner, presumably without time to prepare proper attire, and now he's being ejected for not wearing the right thing? But the ancient context helps here: wedding garments were typically provided by the host. The king gave everyone who came a garment to wear. This man is not wearing his because he chose not to, which means he accepted the invitation while rejecting the provision that came with it. He wanted to be at the feast on his own terms, in his own clothing, by his own merit. And that, it turns out, is not how this particular feast works.

The wedding garment is the righteousness of Christ — the provision that God makes for everyone who comes, the covering that Paul describes when he says we are clothed with Christ. The invitation is free. The garment is free. The feast is free. But you cannot come in your own clothing and expect it to be sufficient, because your own clothing is what you were wearing when the servants found you in the street corner, and it was never designed for this occasion. The grace that opens the door also provides what you need to walk through it.

Many are invited, Jesus says, but few are chosen. This is not a statement about a God who invites generously and then chooses stingily. It is an observation about the human tendency to accept invitations casually, to show up without really showing up, to take a seat at the feast while holding onto our own arrangements. The invitation is as wide as the street corners. The garment is ready for everyone who comes. The only question is whether we will receive both.

PRAYER: Lord, thank You for the invitation that found us in the street corner and the garment that makes us fit for the feast — give us the grace to receive both fully and to come to Your table with our whole selves. 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 today whether you've been accepting the invitation while holding onto your own clothing — your own merit, your own terms, your own arrangements — and choose to put on the garment the King provides instead.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! Share the invitation shared with you with someone who was not aware they were invited!!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.