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.

Remember What God Has Done for You!

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/4gSQ21w

1 Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. 2 Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. 3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. 4 Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. 5 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced, 6 you his servants, the descendants of Abraham, his chosen ones, the children of Jacob. 7 He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth.8 He remembers his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations, 9 the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac.10 He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant:11 “To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.” 45 that they might keep his precepts and observe his laws. Praise the Lord. When I was in active ministry one of my main concerns was church growth. I urged, pleaded, begged my churches to open their hearts and minds towards growth; to expanding God's kingdom. What was the main obstacle to growth? As the old joke said, instead of standing on the promises of God, the church was content to sit on the premises of God. "Let someone else do it!" Or, they would remind each other of the glory days (pre-1968 when most churches were full!) and how God had blessed them back then. It's not bad to look back as a church or even as an individual, but we must know that ours is a calling to move ever forward with a desire to move upward as we will discover in today's text. Let the adventure begin!

There's a phrase near the beginning of this psalm that's easy to skim past but worth pausing on: "make known among the nations what He has done." Not what He might do. Not what He promises to do someday. What He has already done. This psalm is built on memory — the deliberate, intentional act of looking back and telling the story of God's faithfulness, out loud, to other people. And it starts not with a request, but with praise: "Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; make known among the nations what He has done."

Isn't that a striking place to begin? Before asking God for anything, the psalmist starts by giving thanks and by singing — "sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts." There's a rhythm here worth noticing: gratitude first, then glory in His name, then rejoicing. It's as if the psalmist knows that before we bring our needs to God, we need to remind ourselves who it is we're actually bringing them to. Praise reorients us. It reminds us that the God we're approaching today is the same God who has already proven Himself faithful, over and over, across generations.

Then the psalm turns toward something deeply personal: "He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever, the promise He made, for a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the oath He swore to Isaac." This is a God who doesn't forget His promises. He didn't make a covenant with Abraham and let it fade with time — He reaffirmed it to Isaac, then to Jacob, confirming it "as a decree" and "an everlasting covenant." That word everlasting carries weight. It means the promises God makes aren't fragile or temporary. They don't have an expiration date tied to our circumstances or our faithfulness. They rest on His character, not ours.

And here's what makes this even more remarkable — this covenant was made and confirmed while God's people were still "few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it." They weren't living in security or abundance when God made these promises. They were small, wandering, vulnerable. If you've ever felt like your life is too uncertain, too unsettled, too "not enough" for God to be doing something significant in it — this psalm gently pushes back on that. God's covenant faithfulness was never dependent on His people already having it together. He commits to us in the wandering, not just after we've arrived.

The psalm closes with a purpose clause in verse 45: all of this — the promises, the provision, the faithfulness — was so "that they might keep His precepts and observe His laws." In other words, remembering isn't just a nostalgic exercise. It's meant to shape obedience. When we recall what God has done, it strengthens our resolve to walk in step with Him today. Memory fuels faithfulness.

So here's the quiet challenge tucked into this psalm: don't keep your memories of God's goodness locked away in your own heart. Tell them. Make them known — to your family, your friends, your community. Let your story of His faithfulness become part of how someone else learns to trust Him too.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, thank You for Your covenant faithfulness that never wavers — help me remember Your wonderful acts, declare them boldly to others, and let that remembrance draw me deeper into obedience today. This we pray in Jesus' strong name, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Set aside a few minutes today to recall and share with someone — out loud or in writing — one specific way God has proven faithful in your life.

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 and His love!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Waiting Well While Trusting God

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

15 Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.” 16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. 18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.” 19 Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. 21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.” 22 So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. 23 But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. 24 And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant. 25 When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?” 26 Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.” 28 And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. (Genesis 29:15-28 NIV)

Let's be honest — this is a strange little story. I would venture to guess your story and experiences with love might not quite match this, but then again I don't know! I do know a man who's married to the daughter of a man who told him he could not marry the one he loved because the older daughter had to marry first, so he married her instead. And they're still married, though we wonder how those first years were for the younger sister! We read that Jacob falls for Rachel, works seven years to earn her hand in marriage, and then on the wedding night, Laban pulls a switcheroo and sends in Leah instead. Jacob wakes up the next morning, realizes he's been tricked, and has to work another seven years for the woman he actually loved. Fourteen years of labor, a deception in the dark, and a family situation that's already messy before it even gets started. It's not exactly the stuff of a fairy tale. But underneath the drama, there's something in this passage worth slowing down for — because most of us know what it's like to wait a long time for something we want, and to feel like life pulled a switch on us right when we thought we'd arrived.

Notice something about Jacob first: when he agreed to work seven years for Rachel, Scripture tells us those years "seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." That's a beautiful line. Real love has a way of reshaping how we experience time and sacrifice. When you love something — or someone — deeply, the cost of pursuing it doesn't feel like pure burden. It feels like devotion. That's worth remembering the next time you're in a long season of waiting for something meaningful: a calling, a relationship, a healing, a dream. The waiting itself can become holy ground if your heart stays anchored in love rather than resentment.

But then comes the twist. Jacob does everything right — he works hard, he keeps his word, he shows up faithfully for seven years — and he still gets deceived. Laban swaps Leah in for Rachel under the cover of darkness, and Jacob doesn't even realize it until morning. Can you imagine that gut-punch? The disorientation, the betrayal, the sense that something he thought was settled wasn't settled at all? We must remember weddings back then were not the same kind of weddings we have today (though some come awfully (emphasis on awful) close!

Here's the thing worth sitting with: Jacob himself was a deceiver. ("serves him right - you deceiver you!). Just a few chapters earlier, he tricked his own father and stole his brother's blessing. And now here he is, on the receiving end of trickery from his uncle. There's a kind of quiet, sobering symmetry in that. Life has a way of bringing us face to face with our own patterns, sometimes through the very people we thought we could trust. It's uncomfortable, but it's also an invitation — a chance to look honestly at our own hearts and ask what God might be shaping in us through the very things that wound us.

And yet — this is not a story where God is absent. Even though His name isn't mentioned much in these verses, His fingerprints are all over the larger story. Leah, the unwanted, overlooked one, becomes deeply significant in the unfolding story of Israel. Her son Judah will become the line through which King David — and ultimately Jesus — will come. The very woman who arrived in a moment of deception and heartbreak turns out to be woven into God's redemptive plan in a way no one could have seen on that wedding night. That's how God so often works. Not by canceling out our messy, painful circumstances, but by weaving purpose through them anyway, often in ways we can't recognize until much later.

If you're in a season of waiting right now — waiting for a relationship, a breakthrough, a promise to be fulfilled — this story doesn't promise you'll skip the hard parts. Jacob still had fourteen years of labor and a complicated family ahead of him. But it does whisper something steady underneath all that mess: God is present in the waiting, and He can bring purpose even out of our disappointments and other people's betrayals. Nothing you're walking through is wasted on Him, even when it doesn't look anything like what you hoped for.

So if today you feel like you did everything right and still got the short end of the deal — take heart. Your story isn't finished. God is still writing something good, even in the parts that feel like a bait-and-switch.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, when life doesn't unfold the way we expected, help us trust that You are present and working even in our disappointment, weaving something good out of what feels broken. Grant us patience, peace, wisdom and understanding! This we pray in Jesus' strong name, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Reflect on one area where you feel like you've been "waiting a long time" or facing disappointment, and ask God to show you where He might be quietly working purpose into that very situation.

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

Win the world for Jesus by loving all people. No exceptions!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

When We Don't Know What to Pray

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/4yrIQ2V

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes[a] with groanings too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:26-39 NRS)

It was after church. The receiving line of "Good job, pastor," and "You've certainly given us a lot to think about." And a lady waited to be the last to come greet me and she just cried. Her only daughter was dying of a vicious cancer and she said, "Pastor, I just don't know what to pray anymore!" I hugged her and shared how I understood and shared with her the powerful words of verses 26-27 of this passage. She took comfort in them and we prayed together.

Have you ever sat down to pray and just... come up empty? Not because you don't care, not because you don't have anything going on in your life — but because what you're carrying is so heavy, or so confusing, that you genuinely don't know what words to use. You open your mouth, or you sit in silence, and nothing comes. Just a groan, maybe. A sigh. Tears, if you're honest.

If that's ever been you, Paul has good news for you right at the start of this passage: "the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Let that sink in for a second. Paul isn't scolding believers for not having polished, articulate prayers. He's saying the opposite — when your prayers fall apart, when all you've got is a groan, the Holy Spirit takes that groan and translates it. He carries what you can't even put into language. You are never praying alone, and you're never expected to have it all figured out before you come to God.

That's a relief, isn't it? Because so much of our spiritual life gets tangled up in the idea that we have to say the right things, feel the right things, perform faith correctly. But this passage says something much more tender: God meets you in your weakness, not in spite of it.

From there, Paul zooms out to one of the most quoted — and most misunderstood — verses in the whole Bible: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose." This verse isn't a promise that everything that happens to you is good. Loss is still loss. Pain is still pain. What Paul is saying is something sturdier than that — that God is actively at work, weaving purpose and redemption even through the hard, confusing, painful chapters of your story. Nothing you walk through is wasted on Him. That's very different from "everything happens for a reason" as a throwaway line. It's a promise that God is present and working, even when you can't see it yet.

Then Paul asks a series of questions that build like a drumbeat: "If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold His own Son, but gave Him up for all of us, will He not with Him also give us everything else?" There's a logic here worth sitting with. If God already gave you the most costly thing imaginable — His own Son, on a cross, for you — why would you doubt His willingness to walk with you through whatever smaller thing you're facing today? The cross is the proof. It answers the question before you even finish asking it.

And then comes the crescendo — maybe one of the most comforting passages in all of Scripture. Paul lists off everything that might try to separate us from the love of Christ: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. He's not being poetic for effect — he's naming real, brutal things people were actually facing. And his answer, after all that? "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Not because life gets easy. Not because the hardship disappears. But because none of it — nothing in death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, height or depth, or anything else in all creation — can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sit with that phrase for a second: "more than conquerors." That's not the language of someone barely surviving. It's the language of someone standing on solid ground in the middle of the storm — not because the storm isn't real, but because it doesn't get the final word.

So here's what I want you to carry out of this passage today: whatever you're facing, whatever you don't have words to pray about, whatever loss or fear or uncertainty has you feeling disconnected from God — you are not separated from His love. Not by circumstance, not by failure, not by anything. The Spirit is groaning with you right now. God is working, even in the mess. And nothing — nothing — can put you outside the reach of His love.

You don't have to have it together to come to God today. You just have to come.

PRAYER: Lord, thank You that nothing in life or death can separate me from Your love — meet me in my weakness today, and remind me that I am held, even when I don't have the words to say so. And Father, we lift up those who don't know what to pray because they feel helpless and defeated; help them know You are listening and are responding. Above all things we pray Your will be done, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, instead of trying to find the "right" words to pray, simply sit quietly for a few minutes and let the Holy Spirit intercede for what you can't put into words.

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

Win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Treasure

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

31 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” 33 He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. 47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied. 52 He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 NIV).

I moved to Denver the year the Aurora Mall opened in the city by the same name. It was a big deal for that community at that time to have a mall open. My friends from Texas who had moved to Denver earlier, had a connection for one of them, Kay Morton, worked at a jewelry store. Her husband Jerry called me to tell me about the mall's special promotion. The mall had built a "mine" filled with real diamonds and the not so real cubic zirconias. For a small fee one could try their luck in trying to find the real diamond and if you found it you could keep it. The day I made it to the mall there was only one diamond left. Kay arranged for me to meet with the jeweler who told me simply, "the diamond is smaller and a bit more dull than the cubic zirconia." Given the size of the clay made mine, it was a tough task. "Take your time" the jeweler and my friends told me. And I did, and I finally found the diamond! It was placed in a small envelope and it was mine!

Jesus is doing something deliberate with all these short parables placed side by side, and it's worth noticing before we open any one of them individually. He is not giving us a single angle on the kingdom of heaven and expecting it to be sufficient. He is turning the diamond slowly, showing us one facet, then another, then another, because the kingdom is too large and too various to be captured from a single vantage point. A seed. Yeast. A hidden treasure. A pearl. A net. Five images in quick succession, and not one of them duplicates what the others have already said. The kingdom of heaven is like this — and this — and also this. Stay with Me. There is more.

The mustard seed and the yeast belong together because they are making the same point from two directions. The mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, Jesus says, and yet it grows into a tree large enough for birds to nest in. The yeast is a small amount — a woman takes and hides it in a large quantity of flour — and yet it works through the whole batch. Both images carry the same breathtaking claim: do not be deceived by what something looks like at the beginning. What appears negligible, almost invisible, almost not worth taking seriously, contains within it a life and an energy and a capacity for growth that the initial appearance gives no hint of.

The disciples who first heard this had watched Jesus heal the sick and raise the dead and still command audiences of thousands, so in one sense the kingdom didn't look small to them at all. But they had also watched the religious establishment resist Him, watched crowds turn away when the teaching got hard, watched the seed fall on all kinds of soil with wildly different results. The kingdom, from inside the story, could look very much like a minority report — a small, countercultural, surprisingly fragile thing in a world that had other arrangements and was not particularly interested in changing them. And Jesus is saying: look at the mustard seed. Look at the yeast. Don't measure by what you can see at the beginning. Measure by what the life inside the thing is capable of becoming.

This is, of course, the Pentecost story before Pentecost happened. One hundred and twenty people in an upper room, praying in a city that had just crucified their Lord. By any human calculation, that should have been the end — a small, frightened remnant, soon to be dispersed. And then the Spirit came, and within a single morning three thousand people were added to the number, and within a generation the gospel had traveled from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria and was pressing at the edges of the known world. The mustard seed became a tree. The yeast worked through the whole batch. Not because the disciples were particularly impressive, but because the life inside the thing was not their life — it was His.

Then come the two treasure parables, and these are not about the kingdom growing outward but about the response the kingdom provokes in those who encounter it. A man stumbles across a treasure hidden in a field and in his joy goes and sells everything he owns to buy that field. A merchant who has spent his career searching for fine pearls finally finds one of such extraordinary quality that he immediately liquidates his entire inventory to acquire it. In both cases there is no hesitation recorded, no weighing of pros and cons, no reluctant sacrifice. There is joy — "in his joy" the man sells everything — because he has found something so obviously worth more than everything he is giving up that the transaction doesn't feel like loss. It feels like the best business decision he has ever made.

The parable of the net gathers everything together with a sober honesty that Jesus seems to insist on including even in passages that lean toward celebration. The net sweeps in fish of every kind — the kingdom call goes out indiscriminately, widely, to everyone — and at the end of the age the sorting will happen. The angels will separate the righteous from the wicked with the same finality that the closing parables of chapter 13 keep returning to. Not to produce fear in the person who is genuinely following, but to remind us that the kingdom is not without consequence, and that the treasure we are being offered carries with it a seriousness that deserves the whole of our response.

Jesus ends the chapter by describing the teacher who has been instructed about the kingdom as someone who brings out of their storeroom treasures both new and old. This is the image He leaves His disciples with — the well-equipped person of God as someone who holds both, who doesn't discard the old in favor of the new or ignore the new out of loyalty to the old, but who carries them together as a double inheritance, each illuminating the other. The Spirit at Pentecost did exactly that — He took what the Old Testament had been saying in seed form and brought it into full flower, connecting the old treasure of Israel's story to the new treasure of the risen Christ, showing how all of it belonged to the same storeroom all along.

PRAYER: Lord, give us eyes to see the treasure hidden in the field of Your kingdom and hearts willing to sell everything to possess it. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Ask the Holy Spirit today to show you one thing you are still holding onto that is worth less than the treasure He is offering, and take one step toward releasing it.

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.