When Crumbs Are Enough

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/45ck7lI

10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” 15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 16 Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” 21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that moment. (Matthew 15:10-28 NRSV).

Dear Friend, happy Monday! Here's praying you have been blessed and you have been busy blessing others! Rejoice in the Lord and be glad! May the fears and worries about today melt in the presence and power of God's word as we examine the passage for this coming Sunday! Open your ears, hearts, eyes, and spirit to receive all the Lord may be sharing with you! As we pray please be in prayer for the family of Mrs. Beatriz Espericueta of Edinburg, Texas, who died on Friday. She was an amazing woman. She was a blessed mother not only to her twelve children, and get this, she birthed six boys, then six girls! But she blessed many who were not biologically related to her. Nellie and i were blessed by many of her kids in our ministry, especially in my campus ministry days there in Edinburg. I pray for the comfort of the Lord to be with that family and who all loved and were blessed by Mrs. Espericueta.

Most of us have some traces or influences of the Jewish faith and culture in our lives. If you've not yet done a DNA history of your life, I urge you to do so! You may get some surprises! And you might even get some family out of it! Okay, that's a story for another time. But in my wife's case, her mother had a unique, very Jewish practice that would fall under kosher practices. She had special pots and pans set aside for different cooking purposes and cross use of such were not allowed. This was taught by her Mom and her Mom before her and may Moms down the line back to España where the Jewish influence was very real and present in that family. There were purposes for those laws as we find them in the Old Testament as well as for the dietary safeties they provided. Today's passage addresses this some. May it bring a blessing to us.

There's a moment in this passage that always makes me smile a little, even though it comes wrapped in some pretty heavy stuff. Jesus has just finished dismantling the Pharisees' entire system of ritual cleanliness — the hand-washing rules, the food laws they'd turned into identity markers — and he says something wonderfully blunt to the crowd: it's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you, it's what comes out of your heart. Evil thoughts, murder, adultery, theft, false testimony, slander — that's the real contamination. Meanwhile, eating a sandwich with unwashed hands? Not exactly a spiritual crisis.

The disciples, bless them, come to Jesus afterward a little nervous. "Do you know the Pharisees were offended?" And Jesus basically shrugs — every plant not planted by his Father will be pulled up, so let them be, they're blind guides leading the blind, and you know how that ends: everybody in a ditch together. Peter asks him to explain the parable, and Jesus gently points out that even his own disciples are still slow to get it. Whatever goes into the stomach passes on through and ends up, well, exactly where you'd expect. But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and that's what makes a person unclean.

It's a sharp teaching. Jesus is essentially saying: stop performing purity and start examining what's actually going on inside you.

And then — right on the heels of that — Jesus leaves and heads toward Tyre and Sidon, Gentile territory, about as far outside the boundaries of "acceptable" as you could get in that world. And a Canaanite woman comes to him, shouting, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly."

Jesus doesn't answer her. Not a word.

Read that again, because it's easy to rush past. The Son of God, who just finished saying purity isn't about external categories, seems to go quiet in front of a woman who — by every external category available — didn't belong. She was a Canaanite. A woman. Shouting in public. Three strikes in that culture, and Jesus says nothing.

The disciples, ever the diplomats, urge him to send her away because she keeps yelling after them. Jesus tells her he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. She keeps coming. She kneels before him. "Lord, help me." And then Jesus says something that lands hard on modern ears: "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs."

I'll admit, the first time I really sat with this, I wanted to explain it away fast. But let's not rush past the discomfort — let's actually watch what happens next, because this woman does something remarkable. She doesn't argue theology. She doesn't defend her dignity. She takes his own metaphor and turns it into an act of faith: "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table."

She's essentially saying: fine, call me a dog if you want — just let me have what falls from the feast. I don't need a seat at the table. I just need the crumbs, because I know even the crumbs from you are enough to heal my daughter.

And Jesus' response is one of the great "mic drop" moments of the Gospels: "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." Her daughter is healed at that very hour.

Here's what I think is happening underneath the surface of this whole passage, from the hand-washing debate straight through to this remarkable woman. Jesus just spent an entire conversation teaching that what defiles or purifies a person has nothing to do with external categories — what you eat, what group you were born into, which side of the boundary line you stand on. And then a Gentile woman shows up who has every external mark of "outsider," and by the internal marks — humility, tenacity, faith that doesn't quit even when it seems ignored — she turns out to be the truest insider in the whole story. She sees who Jesus is more clearly than the religious professionals did a few verses earlier.

Some scholars think Jesus' initial silence and the "dogs" comment were even testing or drawing out the disciples' assumptions as much as hers — letting everyone watch what real faith looks like when it doesn't get the immediate yes. Whatever the mechanics, the outcome is the same: the crumbs from Jesus' table turn out to be more than enough. That's not a small thing to say about him. A king with such abundance that his leftovers heal.

Maybe you're in a season where you feel like you're only getting crumbs. Underqualified, outside the circle, praying and not hearing much back. This woman's story isn't a lesson in groveling — it's a lesson in tenacious, undignified, wonderfully persistent faith that trusts even a crumb from Jesus is more substantial than a feast anywhere else.

PRAYER: Living Lord, give us the humble, relentless faith of the Canaanite woman, who trusted that even the crumbs from your table were enough to heal what we cannot fix ourselves, in Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord. OUR CALL TO ACTION: Bring your unresolved, maybe-too-small, maybe-too-bold request to Jesus today, and don't stop asking just because the first answer feels like silence.

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

Let's share love today like never before to the unloved and unwanted and especially the unseen!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

What is God Preparing for You?

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/4fT8LId

1 O give thanks to the Lord; call on his name; make known his deeds among the peoples. 2 Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works. 3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. 4 Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually. 5 Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles and the judgments he has uttered, 6 O offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones. 6 When he summoned famine against the land and cut off every supply of bread, 17 he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who had been sold as a slave.18 His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron;19 until what he had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him. 20 The king sent and released him; the ruler of the peoples set him free. 21 He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions, 22 to instruct his officials at his pleasure and to teach his elders wisdom. 45 that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws. Praise the Lord! (Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b NRSV)

Dear Friend; it's Thursday! I pray it's a terrific and tremendous Thursday in all that you plan to do for the Lord including the unplanned, the unexpected, and the unusual! God's Adventure is just like that! You open yourself to God, offer yourself, and away we go - doing, blessing, and helping to change the world for the better! And honestly the world needs our attention and affection!

Our youngest grandchild, little Ari James, has the sweetest voice right now. He's learned to say in response to kindness, such as slliced strawberries, popsicles, Hersey's kisses and the like, "Thank you!" To hear them from a two-year old in his sweet voice melts both grandma and grandpa. He doesn't realize it yet, nor perhaps some of you, there is power in giving thanks, especially to the Giver of All Things. Hint; I mean God! An article I read yesterday said that always giving thanks even before anything happens changes the outcome! God knows the day ahead for us and if we start in prayer, giving thanks for what is to come, it may be blessing after blessing. And even if not all things are blessings, your mindset and attitude changes and you better receive whatever it is that is coming. For example, I went to what I believed was a followup to my left cataract surgery and I'm told as I sign in that the surgeon wanted to check on my right cataract. And as all the prelims were done and the doctor walks in she says that my cataract was "Medically ready" to be removed. I heard, "The insurance company will pay for this procedure!" But she also said that it had to be done within three months and I might even consider having the left macular puckering removed as well. Gulp. But having given thanks this morning, these news didn't hit as hard. I know I have a supportive and loving wife to walk with me and help me heal, and a loving and powerful God to guide the surgeon in whatever surgeries I agree to. And I know even now many of your are praying for this old man! That Check Engine light sometimes burns bright!

King David knew how to give thanks for he knew the One receiving the thanks was always at work in his life and God is faithful. This psalm addresses the thanks and calling on God through prayer for our days. On social media I saw a story about a man who dreamed him going to a major hospital, third floor and even saw the room number he was to enter. And he heard the word go. He woke up the next morning and told his wife about the dream and the wife asked what he was going to do, and the man said I guess I go and see this person for whom I am to pray. And he gets in his truck and drives to the hospital he thinks he saw in his dream and there it was. It had three floors, so he knows he's in the right place and gets on the elevator and goes to the room where he saw the number he had seen in his dream. He sees the door is open and a man lying in bed. He knocks and the man gruffly asks, "Who sent you?" The man said I dreamed last night that I was to come into this room, so I guess God sent me!" The man starts to weep and says, "I've been praying for God to send me someone because I doubted in God, and I basically prayed, 'God if you're real, send me someone to pray for me.' And God is real!" Both men are now crying and celebrating faith. I tell you because I know faith is an adventure!

There's something the psalmist knows that it takes most of us years to learn, and he puts it right at the very start: before you do anything else, before you ask God for a single thing, before you bring your needs and your worries and your requests — give thanks. Seek His face. Tell someone what He has done. Sing to Him. The opening of Psalm 105 is a call to remember before it is a call to anything else, because the psalmist understands that a people who remember what God has done are a people who can face what God is asking them to do next.

And the remembering matters so much here because what follows in the psalm is one of the hardest parts of Joseph's story to sit with — the part that our devotional series has been building toward, the part where the pit gives way to the prison and the years keep adding up without any visible sign of the promise being fulfilled. The psalm puts it plainly and without softening it: God had sent Joseph ahead of them, and when he arrived in Egypt, his feet were hurt with fetters and his neck was put in a collar of iron. A collar of iron. This is not poetic embellishment. This is the reality of what the beloved dreamer endured in the years between the pit and the palace — real chains, real confinement, real suffering that went on long enough to make anyone question whether the dreams were ever anything more than the wishful thinking of a favored child.

And yet the psalmist, looking back from the far side of the whole story, describes every bit of it — the slavery, the false accusation, the prison, the iron collar — as God's doing. Not that God was the author of the evil done to Joseph, but that God was sovereign over the circumstances that resulted from it, threading even the injustice toward a destination that nobody could see from inside the suffering. The word of the Lord tested him, the psalm says. This is the refiner's fire language, the silversmith watching the crucible — not cruelty for its own sake but the forming of something in Joseph that the easy road never could have produced. The capacity to forgive. The wisdom to govern. The character to hold power without being corrupted by it. None of that was forged in Jacob's comfortable tent. All of it was forged in the pit, in the house of Potiphar, in the dungeon where the prisoners were kept.

And then — at the time the king sent and released him, the psalm says — everything changed. Joseph went from the prison to standing before Pharaoh in what must have felt like no time at all, though it had actually been years. He was made lord of Pharaoh's house and ruler over all his possessions, to instruct the princes at his pleasure and to teach the elders wisdom. The one who wore an iron collar around his neck was given a gold chain and a signet ring and the second chariot of Egypt. The one who had been sold for twenty pieces of silver became the man through whom an entire nation and eventually his own family were saved from famine. The dreamer's dreams came true — not on the dreamer's timeline, not in the way the dreamer had imagined, but in a way so far beyond what the dreamer could have designed that the only reasonable response was worship.

This is why the psalm opens the way it does. Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, sing to Him, sing praises to Him, tell of all His wondrous works. The people who can do that are the people who have remembered that the collar of iron and the seat of power are both in the same story, both held by the same God, both moving toward the same destination. You can't praise with that kind of depth unless you know the whole arc — unless you've seen enough of it to trust that the parts you're currently living in are not the whole of it.

This is where Jesus stands in the story, and He stands there unmistakably. The beloved Son, sent by the Father, sold for silver, stripped and condemned and placed in a tomb as final as any prison — and raised on the third day to a name above every name, a throne above every throne, a reign that will never end. The Joseph story is a rehearsal for the Jesus story, told in advance so that when the real thing happened, the people of God would have the pattern already in their hearts. And the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is the same Spirit who was at work in every prison cell and every moment of waiting and every iron collar that God's people have ever worn on the way to what He was preparing for them.

The psalm ends where it should always end — with praise, with the hallelujah that belongs to a people who have seen enough of God's faithfulness to know that the iron collar is never the last word.

PRAYER: Lord, give us the long memory of this psalm — the kind that praises You in the prison because it trusts that the palace is already in Your plans. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! CALL TO ACTION: Take five minutes today to write down three specific things God has brought you through that once looked like iron collars, and let the remembering become your act of praise.

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

Set free the prisoners of sin in Jesus' name and love!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Dreamer in the Pit

Hear and View devo: https://bit.ly/4wMzs8Q

37 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. 2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. 12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, 13 and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.” “Very well,” he replied. 14 So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” 16 He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?” 17 “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. 18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. 19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” 21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. 23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. 25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. 26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? 27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. 28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. (Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 NIV).

I've said it more than once, and you know it to be true; if you're looking for a perfect family in the Bible, there is none. Not even the Holy Family. And more so if you're looking for one in modern life. Humans are humans and some are worse at it than others. And here is a story about another yet imperfect family.

Let's be honest about this story from the start, because it doesn't let us off easy. Joseph's brothers throw him in a pit and then sit down to eat a meal. That detail is almost too raw to read without flinching — the casualness of it, the ordinary hunger that continues right alongside the extraordinary cruelty. They've just stripped their brother of his robe, tossed him into a dry cistern, and listened to him cry out to them, and then they pull out their food and eat. There's something in that detail that tells us everything about how thoroughly they had closed their hearts to him. He had become, in their minds, a problem to be solved rather than a brother to be loved.

And how did they get there? It started with favoritism and a coat and a father who didn't hide it very well. Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons — we're told that plainly, without apology — and he made him an ornate robe, the kind that said to everyone watching that this one is different, this one is set apart, this one is going somewhere the rest of you might not go. And then Joseph had the dreams, and made the mistake — whether innocent or not, the text doesn't entirely say — of telling his brothers about them. Dreams in which they bowed down to him. Dreams in which he was elevated and they were beneath him. You can understand why that didn't land well. The brothers couldn't say a kind word to him, Matthew tells us. The hatred had moved in and settled.

So when the opportunity comes — when Joseph walks across the fields to check on them and they see him coming from a distance — the hatred that has been building finds its outlet. They call him "the dreamer" when they see him, which tells you that the dreams are still the wound, still the thing that festers. They plan to kill him. Reuben, the oldest, talks them back from the edge of murder — let's not shed blood, let's just throw him in the pit — and he privately intends to come back and rescue Joseph later. But before Reuben can act on that plan, a caravan of Ishmaelite traders passes by, and Judah has an idea. Why kill him? Why get blood on our hands? Let's sell him. And so for twenty pieces of silver, the dreamer is sold to strangers heading down to Egypt, and the brothers have to live with what they've done.

What strikes me every time I read this is the way the story holds together two things that seem incompatible: genuine human evil and the sovereign purposes of God moving quietly through it. The brothers meant it for harm. They were not instruments of God's plan in any self-aware sense — they were jealous men acting on jealousy, and what they did was genuinely wrong and genuinely damaging and genuinely painful for Joseph in ways we can barely imagine. And yet. The coat that caused so much trouble, the dreams that provoked so much hatred, the pit that seemed like the end of everything — all of it was being threaded, by a God who works in ways we cannot always trace in real time, toward something none of them could see from where they were standing.

Joseph in the pit is one of the clearest Old Testament pictures of Jesus we have. The beloved son, sent by the father to his brothers, rejected and stripped and sold for silver by the very people he was sent to. Thrown into a kind of death, only to emerge on the other side of it as the one through whom salvation would come to the very people who had betrayed him. The parallel is not accidental. God has a long history of working through betrayal and abandonment and the kind of cruelty that makes you wonder where He is — and arriving, on the other side of all of it, with a redemption so large that even the people who caused the suffering end up inside the rescue.

If you're in a pit today — not the dramatic Biblical kind, but the kind that feels just as dark and just as enclosed — this story is speaking directly to you. The pit is not the end of your story any more than it was the end of Joseph's. The coat may have been stripped from you by people who should have loved you better. The dream may feel like mockery now rather than promise. But the God who was with Joseph in the pit, who was working toward Egypt and a throne and a rescue that would save many lives, is the same God who is with you in whatever cistern you're currently sitting in. The caravan hasn't passed by yet. The story is still going.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, remind us when we are in the pit that You are already in Egypt, preparing what we cannot yet see, working through what was meant for harm toward a redemption larger than our current suffering. 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 about the pit you're in, and ask Him specifically to show you one sign that He is already at work ahead of you, turning what was meant for harm toward a purpose only He can see.

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

Let's love each other to the fullest, in fact, to the point people will point at us and wonder what's going on in our hearts!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Beautiful Feet

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

5 Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.” 6 But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), 9 because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. 11 The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” 14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:5-15)

Dear Friend; how beautiful are your feet? Did you know the average American spends on average $60 per shoes based on the fact that Americans spend $121 Billion dollars on shoes each year? That's based on the 2.1 billion pairs of shoes sold here in the US! I don't know about you, but that is a large amount of shoes sold! If you're like me you buy a pair of shoes and think you're fine, but next thing you know it's been three years since you bought those shoes and you wonder why the soles are worn out? If you're an active runner your running shoes will wear out in 4 months; 12 months if you're an average runner. Work shoes will last between 1 to 2 years, and Sunday go-to-meeting shoes will last about 4 years, more if you get them re-soled and maintained. The song framed it best; "Never been with a woman long enough for my boots to grow old."*

The Bible is an action book with the word "go" in it enough times for us to know that God wants us moving to get His love and kingdom growing! Paul examines a part of that in this passage.

Paul has a way of taking something that feels impossibly complicated and placing it so close to you that you can almost reach out and touch it. That's exactly what he does in this passage. He's been talking about righteousness — about how it comes, what it costs, who can get it — and he's about to make the most important turn in the argument. Forget the idea that the gospel is something you have to climb to, something far away at the top of a mountain that only the most spiritually athletic can reach. Forget the idea that you have to somehow ascend into heaven to bring Christ down, or descend into the deep to bring Him up from the dead. You don't have to do any of that. The word, Paul says, is near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart.

That's one of the most disarming sentences in all of Scripture. Near you. Not up there somewhere, not behind a veil of religious complexity, not requiring credentials you don't have or a spiritual experience you haven't had yet. The word of faith that Paul is proclaiming is as close to you as the next word you're going to speak, as close as the thought that's forming in your mind right now. God has done the impossible distance-crossing already, in Christ, and what remains is not a long journey but a short confession.

And here it is, as plain and as profound as anything in the New Testament: if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Two things. A confession and a belief. Not a performance and a record. Not a résumé and a recommendation. A confession — which means saying out loud, in the hearing of others, that Jesus is Lord, that He is the one to whom all allegiance belongs, that every other claim on your life bends the knee to His — and a belief that the resurrection actually happened, that the tomb is actually empty, that the one who died on the Friday actually walked out of the grave on the Sunday. This is the heartbeat of the whole thing, and Paul says it with a simplicity that should make us stop and breathe for a moment.

Because here's what's easy to miss: the order matters. Belief is in the heart, and it leads to righteousness. Confession is with the mouth, and it leads to salvation. The inner conviction and the outward declaration belong together — you can't have a living faith that never takes verbal form, and you can't make an honest confession that isn't rooted in something genuinely believed on the inside. But Paul is saying that both of these things are available to everyone, without exception, without qualification: "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on Him." The same Lord. Generous to all. Call on Him and see.

Then Paul asks a series of questions that build on each other like steps on a staircase, and each one is worth following all the way down: How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him of whom they have never heard? How will they hear without someone to proclaim Him? How will anyone proclaim Him unless they are sent? And then the verse that has launched more missionaries and more conversations at kitchen tables and more moments of nervous courage than perhaps any other in the letter: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." Beautiful feet. Not eloquent lips or impressive theological credentials or a platform with a large following. Beautiful feet — the feet of the person who simply goes, who shows up where the word hasn't yet arrived, who is willing to be the link in the chain between someone's hearing and their believing and their calling and their salvation.

This is where the personal becomes missional, and where the good news stops being something we receive and becomes something we carry. Every person in this room who has ever heard the gospel and believed it is standing in the middle of that chain. Someone had beautiful feet that brought the word to you. And somewhere ahead of you, there is someone who is waiting — perhaps without knowing they're waiting — for the word to arrive on feet that turn out to be yours.

The confession that saves is meant to travel. The belief that produces righteousness is meant to be spoken into the silence of someone else's not-yet-knowing. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" — everyone, without distinction, without qualification — but the calling requires hearing, and the hearing requires someone willing to go and speak, and the going requires feet willing to be beautiful in the service of news that is genuinely, astonishingly good.

PRAYER: Lord, give us the courage to open our mouths with the confession that saves and the willingness to go with the feet that carry the beautiful news to everyone who hasn't yet heard it. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Think of one person in your life who hasn't yet heard the good news in a way that made it personal to them, and take one step this week toward being the beautiful feet that bring it.

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

Let's surprise someone with love today!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

*Heard It In A Love Song

Jesus, Save Me!

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/3TygOmi

22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” 32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:22-33 NIV)

Happy new week, Friend! I pray the blessings of God blessed you and prepared you to serve humanity in Christ Jesus' love! Seek out those whom no one else sees or wants, and show you can see them and love them in the name of the Lord! What a blessiing that will bring to you!

In the old Walk to Emmaus movie shown to pilgrims as they began their three day walk with Jesus, the disciples are shown in the upper room celebrating Holy Communion. They are seated according to how Jesus wanted, Peter is upset because he did not get the seat he thought he deserved and quietly mumbled, "I'm the only one who walked on water!" As the supper is ended and they have a little time the disciples are talking about what life would be like after their time in ministry with Jesus. The first disciple says what he's going to do when he returns home. The second stops him and tells him he doesn't understand that life will never again be the same; there would be no return home. And that is how the Christian life is for those who give themselves fully to Jesus and His mission. Here's the story about the water-walking.

There's a detail at the beginning of this passage that's easy to miss because the water-walking tends to grab all the attention. After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus "immediately" — Matthew uses that word — makes His disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of Him while He dismisses the crowd. He doesn't ask them. He makes them go. And then He goes up on the mountainside alone to pray. The Son of God, fresh from a miracle that left twelve baskets of leftovers, goes off by Himself to talk to His Father. If Jesus needed that — the sustained, unhurried, just-the-two-of-us conversation with the Father — we probably shouldn't be so quick to skip past it in our own lives.

The disciples, meanwhile, are in the boat in the middle of the lake, and by evening the wind has picked up and the waves are working against them. Matthew tells us Jesus is on the land, watching. He can see them straining at the oars, struggling in the dark, making hard progress against a headwind that isn't cooperating. And in the fourth watch of the night — somewhere between three and six in the morning, the last and darkest stretch before dawn — He comes to them, walking on the water. They see Him coming and they're terrified, because who expects to see a figure walking across the surface of a lake in the middle of the night? They think it's a ghost. And Jesus, typically, is direct with them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid". It is I. Three words that carry the full weight of the divine name. I AM is here. The one who commands the wind and the water is the one coming toward you across it.

And then Peter does the thing that is so magnificently, characteristically Peter that you almost have to love him for it. He doesn't just accept the reassurance and sit back down. He says, "Lord, if it's You, tell me to come to You on the water". If it's You. He wants to know for certain, and the way he wants to know is by being invited into the impossible. Tell me to come. And Jesus says the one word that always precedes the miraculous: "Come". Not "be careful" or "are you sure about this?" Just — come. And Peter gets out of the boat.

What happens next has been preached ten thousand times and is still worth sitting with, because it doesn't happen the way we sometimes tell it. Peter doesn't sink immediately. He walks on the water. He is actually doing it — actually standing on the surface of the lake in the middle of a storm — until he looks at the wind and the waves and shifts his attention from the one who said come to the circumstances surrounding the invitation. And then he sinks. "Lord, save me!" he cries . Three words — the shortest and most complete prayer in the Gospels. And immediately — that word again — Jesus reaches out His hand and catches him. Not after a lecture. Not after a moment of watching him flounder to make a point. Immediately. The hand is already there, already extended, already reaching, before the prayer is even finished.

The gentle rebuke that follows is worth hearing in its full tone: "You of little faith, why did you doubt?". This is not anger. This is the patient puzzlement of someone who watched Peter take the steps, watched him actually walk on the water, and is quietly asking — you were doing it. Why did you look away? The doubt didn't cause the sinking in itself; the doubt caused the loss of focus on the one who was holding the whole moment together. And when the focus came back — Lord, save me — the hand was instantly there.

When they get back in the boat and the wind dies down, the disciples do something that is actually quite rare in the Gospels — they worship Him, right there in the boat, and they say, "Truly you are the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33). Not a theological conclusion reached in a calm classroom. A worship response born in a storm, in the dark, after watching a man walk on water and a hand reach out faster than fear could finish its work. That's where real faith often gets formed — not in the comfortable hours but in the fourth watch of the night, in the middle of a headwind, when the figure coming toward you across the impossible looks, at first, like it can't be real.

What's your storm right now? What's the headwind that's been working against you in the dark hours when progress feels slow and the morning seems very far away? He was watching the disciples strain at the oars the entire time — He could see them from the land. He sees you too. And the word He spoke to them is the word He speaks into every storm that His people are navigating: it is I, don't be afraid, come. The hand that reached for Peter before the prayer was finished is the same hand that is already extended toward you.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, when the waves are high and the wind is against us and the night feels long, remind us to keep our eyes on You and trust the hand that is always already reaching. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify the specific wave you've been staring at instead of looking at Jesus, and today practice the shortest prayer in the Gospels — "Lord, save me" — trusting that the hand is already on its way.

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

Let's win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Let Me See You, God

Hear and View Devo: https://bit.ly/44Yc7Vd 1 Hear me, Lord, my plea is just; listen to my cry. Hear my prayer— it does not rise from deceitful lips. 2 Let my vindication come from you; may your eyes see what is right. 3 Though you probe my heart, though you examine me at night and test me, you will find that I have planned no evil; my mouth has not transgressed. 4 Though people tried to bribe me, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent through what your lips have commanded. 5 My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not stumbled. 6 I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer. 7 Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. 15 As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness. (Psalm 17:1-17, 15 NIV)

Dear Friend; are you a public pray-er? Or a private pray-er? Or I-never pray-er? Throughout my life I have been blessed to see all kinds of peolel who pray. In fact, years ago, a man stood in church and said that he knew the three major ways of Christian pray-ers. One was the Ancient Eastern pray-er style of kneeling and praying hard and loud. He knew the Western pray-er style of standing with hands wide-open of praying hard and loud. And he also knew the American style of pray-er of both hands in both pockets and playing loudly with ones keys. Okay, it was funny years ago! I was saddened by being in the same Rotary Club with a long-time colleague who made it known loudly that he would only pray in public if told 30 days in advance and he a chance to write out his prayers. I would also feel sad if I called on someone to pray and they said, "I don't pray in public," or worse, "I don't pray at all." Today's passage is about a man who loved to pray and wrote about it and today's passage is about that.

There's a boldness to the way David opens this psalm that's almost breathtaking. He doesn't ease into prayer with a long preamble or a careful theological warm-up. He just says it: "Hear me, Lord, my plea is just; listen to my cry. Hear my prayer — it does not rise from deceitful lips" . He's asking God to pay attention, and he's doing it on the basis of his own integrity. That might sound presumptuous at first — who walks into God's presence and says, essentially, I deserve to be heard because I've been honest? But sit with it for a moment. David isn't claiming to be sinless. He's claiming to be sincere. There's a difference, and it matters. He's saying: I'm not playing games here. I'm not performing prayer for an audience. This is real, and what I'm bringing to You is the truth of where I actually am.

Most of us know the difference between the prayer we pray out loud in public and the prayer we pray at two in the morning when there's no one to impress. David is praying the two-in-the-morning prayer. And he invites God to test it: "Though you probe my heart, though you examine me at night and test me, you will find that I have planned no evil" . He's essentially saying — look all the way in. Look at the parts I don't show anyone. You'll still find someone who is genuinely trying, someone whose mouth hasn't been leading his feet into places his heart never intended to go. This is the prayer of a man who has worked hard to live with integrity not as a performance but as a private discipline, and who is now asking God to weigh that in the balance.

And then, right in the middle of this very personal account of his integrity, David pivots to something that is one of the most beautiful images in all the Psalms: "Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings". The apple of your eye. Hide me in the shadow of your wings. These are not the words of someone making a legal argument before a judge. These are the words of a child who trusts so completely in the love of the parent that he's not afraid to say what he actually needs. Protect me. Hold me. Look at me the way someone looks at the thing they treasure most. This is the turn the psalm takes — from integrity as the basis of the appeal to love as the ground of the relationship. David isn't ultimately asking to be heard because he's good enough. He's asking to be held because he knows he is loved.

The apple of your eye is a phrase that appears elsewhere in Scripture — Moses uses it in Deuteronomy when he describes how God cared for Israel in the wilderness, carrying them the way an eagle carries its young. The image of the shadow of wings appears in Psalm 91, in Ruth's beautiful request to Boaz, in Jesus's lament over Jerusalem when He says He longed to gather the city's children as a hen gathers her chicks. It is the language of a God who doesn't manage His people from a safe distance but draws them in close, covers them, shields them with His own body between them and what would harm them. This is who God is in this psalm, and it's who Jesus revealed God to be in the flesh — the one who literally placed His own body between us and what we deserved.

And then the psalm closes with a verse that skips over everything in between and lands on what David ultimately wants more than anything else: "As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness". He's not asking for wealth or victory or a long life or even the defeat of his enemies. He's asking to see the face of God. He's saying that the deepest hunger he carries isn't for any of the things that circulate in the visible world — it's for the presence of the one who made him. And the word satisfied here is the same word used elsewhere for a man who has eaten until he's full, for the ground that has finally received rain after a drought. It's complete satisfaction, the ending of a longing that nothing else has been able to reach.

That longing is in all of us, whether we recognize it as the longing for God or not. We were made with a face-shaped hunger — a hunger for the face of the one whose image we bear. And the extraordinary promise of the gospel is that the face David longed for in the pages of Psalm 17 has now been seen, in the face of Jesus Christ, who came to show us exactly what the Father looks like. When you are satisfied with seeing His likeness, you are seeing the Father. When the Spirit opens your eyes to who Jesus is, you are standing where David stood — seeing the face, satisfied at last with the one thing that was always the answer to everything else.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, keep us as the apple of Your eye, draw us close under the shadow of Your wings, and satisfy us with the sight of Your face in the person of Jesus. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, make one prayer that is completely honest — no performance, no theological polish — just the real thing you need from the God who already knows it and is already leaning in to hear.

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

Let's win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

I Will Not Let You Go

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/4yIdpS1

22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the manbsaid, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. (Genesis 32:22-31 NRSV)

Dear Friend, blessings upon blessings be with you on this Wednesday! May graciousness bring you joy and peace in all you expect or expected to do. Be a person of love and compassion to all people.

There's something about this story that gets under your skin the more you sit with it. Jacob is alone at night by the ford of the Jabbok — and "alone" here carries real weight, because Jacob has just sent everyone and everything he owns across the river ahead of him. His wives, his children, his servants, his flocks — all of it is on the other side. He is stripped down to just himself, and that might be exactly the point. Because what's waiting for him on the other side of the river is his brother Esau, whom he hasn't seen in twenty years, not since he cheated him out of his birthright and his blessing and then ran for his life. Jacob has spent two decades building a new life, acquiring wealth, becoming successful by every outward measure. And now the past is catching up with him, and there is nowhere left to run.

And then, in the middle of that night, a man appears and wrestles with him until dawn.

We are given no introduction, no context, no explanation. Just — a man, and a struggle, and the darkness of the night, and it goes on until the breaking of the day. This stranger is clearly no ordinary opponent. When he cannot overpower Jacob, he touches the socket of Jacob's hip and puts it out of joint with a single touch — which tells you immediately that the limitation on the struggle has not been his, but a choice. He could have ended this at any point. He didn't, which means the wrestling itself is something He wants to happen.

Jacob figures this out somewhere in the night, and when the stranger asks to be let go because the dawn is breaking, Jacob says something remarkable: "I will not let you go unless you bless me" (Genesis 32:26, NRSV). He doesn't know exactly who he's holding onto. But he knows it's someone worth holding onto. And in that moment, the man who has spent his whole life grabbing — grabbing the heel at birth, grabbing the birthright with a bowl of stew, grabbing the blessing with a disguise and his mother's help — is grabbing for something entirely different. Not an advantage over his brother. Not a material gain. A blessing from the only source that actually matters.

The stranger asks him his name. And when Jacob says it — "Jacob" — he's saying more than just a name. In Hebrew, Jacob means something like "heel grabber" or "supplanter," the one who takes what belongs to someone else. He is, in a single word, confessing his whole history. And the stranger immediately renames him: "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed" (Genesis 32:28). Israel — one who strives with God, or perhaps one whom God strives with. The new name doesn't erase the old story. It reframes it entirely. The grabbing and the striving and the wrestling that seemed like character flaws turn out to have been, in God's hands, the very things He was working with all along.

Jacob asks the stranger His name, and the stranger deflects the question — which is its own kind of answer. The name of God is not something that can be pinned down or possessed. But Jacob, limping now where his hip has been put out of joint, names the place Peniel: the face of God. "For I have seen God face to face," he says, "and yet my life is preserved" (Genesis 32:30). He's not walking away unchanged. He's walking away limping, permanently marked by the encounter, carrying the evidence of it in his body for the rest of his life. And that limp, I think, is not a defeat. It is the most important thing Jacob carries across the Jabbok — the physical reminder that he has been in a place where only God could have met him.

We all have a Jabbok. There's a night, sometimes more than one night, where everything has been sent on ahead and we are alone with what we've been avoiding, and something meets us in the dark that we didn't see coming. It might feel like struggle. It might feel like opposition. It might take until morning before we realize that what we've been fighting with is actually the very grace of God, refusing to let us pass through unchanged, determined to give us a new name before the sun comes up. Jesus Himself wrestled with the weight of the cup in Gethsemane and came out the other side transformed, ready to carry what was coming. The Spirit who raised Him and who dwells in us is the same Spirit who meets us in the night wrestling — not to harm us, but to bless us, not to break us, but to rename us.

Hold on. Don't let go. The blessing is coming with the morning.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, meet us at our own Jabbok and wrestle with us until we stop running and receive the new name and the blessing only You can give. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Name the Jabbok you've been avoiding — the struggle, the confrontation, the night you keep putting off — and choose today to stop running and let God meet you there.

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

Let's win the world with love for Jesus Christ!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.