BUILDING12: Forgive Others

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14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15 NRSV)

Dear Friend, as we pray today, please pray this request shared by a dear friend and former DS in another conference: "Prayers for Bruce, a dear friend, a believer, a Vietnam vet, in Methodist Hospital in DesMoines for Cancer treatments. Peace, Dave." May our voices ring in heaven asking that Bruce receive healing and new strength! Prayers also for this old man as I will preach at Pilgrim Presbyterian Church on April 12th. May the Lord give me a word!

My favorite movie of all time, until it changed, was Monty Python's Search for The Holy Grail. It came out when I was in seminary in Denver,Colorado. I guess being far from home, single, lonely, and eager to entertain myself, I went to see the movie and loved it, and returned a totatl of sixteen times. Money well spent says I! There is a scene in the movie where the seekers (looking for the Holy Grail) are stopped by an old knight known as The Black Knight, who simply says, "None shall pass." *link below to see that scene. And this verse is saying the same thing!

There are passages in Scripture that comfort. There are passages that instruct. And then there are passages that simply stop you where you are and refuse to let you pass until you have dealt honestly with what they are saying.

Matthew 6:14–15 is the third kind.

Jesus has just finished teaching His disciples to pray — the prayer we call the Lord's Prayer, the one that has been on the lips of the church in every generation since. And embedded in that prayer, almost in passing, is a petition that most of us recite without fully absorbing its weight: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. It is a remarkable line — the only petition in the prayer that comes with a built-in condition. We are asking God to treat us the way we treat others.

And then Jesus steps outside the prayer and underlines it. Twice. Once positively, once negatively. As if He knows — because He does know — that this is precisely the place where His followers will be most tempted to make an exception, to find a footnote, to quietly decide that this particular teaching does not apply in their particular case.

There is no footnote. There is no exception. There are just these two verses, standing like a door that must be walked through. This comes, believe it or not, at the heart of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount and the seriousness of the Lord's words is what we shall study; for Jesus was speaking not only to the gathered crowds, but to the !2 especially. "For if you forgive others their trespasses..."

The word translated trespasses is paraptōmata — literally, a falling beside the path, a deviation, a stumbling. It is a word that captures the way human beings wrong one another — not always with calculated malice, but with the ordinary failures of selfishness, carelessness, blindness, and broken promises that accumulate in any relationship over time.

People will wrong you. Some will do so casually, without realizing the damage they leave behind. Some will do so deliberately, with full knowledge of what they are taking from you. Some will betray your trust in ways that alter the course of your life. Some will wound you in the very places where you are most exposed — precisely because they were close enough to know where those places are.

Jesus does not minimize any of this. He does not say the trespasses are small, or that they don't matter, or that you should simply pretend they didn't happen. He acknowledges that there is something real to forgive — a genuine wrong that has been committed, a genuine debt that is owed. Forgiveness is not the denial of injury. It is the decision about what to do with an injury that is real.

The condition Jesus sets — if you forgive — is a present, active, ongoing posture. Not a single dramatic moment of release, after which forgiveness is permanently achieved, but a continued orientation of the will toward the one who has wronged you. Forgiveness, in this sense, is less a feeling and more a decision renewed as often as the wound resurfaces.

"...your heavenly Father will also forgive you..."

The promise here is as clear as anything Jesus says. Forgiveness extended to others is met by forgiveness from God. The one who releases others from what they owe finds themselves released from what they owe. Grace given flows into grace received.

The heavenly Father's forgiveness, in other words, is not simply the reward for our forgiving others. It is the source from which our forgiveness of others must flow. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We release because we have been released. The grace we extend is always a secondary grace — a passing on of what we ourselves have first received.

"But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." And here is where the passage refuses every comfortable shortcut.

This is among the most unsparing things Jesus says in the Gospels, and the church has wrestled with its implications in every generation. Is Jesus saying that our forgiveness of others earns God's forgiveness of us — that it is a precondition we must satisfy before divine mercy is available? The more faithful reading understands the connection differently. An unforgiving heart is not a heart that has genuinely encountered the grace of God. It is a heart that is still operating by the logic of debt and merit — still keeping accounts, still insisting on what is owed, still measuring relationships by the ledger. And a heart still operating by that logic has not yet fully received, or has not yet fully internalized, what forgiveness from God actually means.

The refusal to forgive is not merely a moral failure. It is a spiritual one. It reveals a heart that has not yet stood honestly before its own need and received, with open hands, the mercy that was offered.

Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Reconciliation requires two parties — the one who forgives and the one who receives that forgiveness with genuine repentance. Forgiveness can be granted even when the other person is absent, unrepentant, or no longer living. You can release someone from your inner ledger without having a restored relationship with them. Sometimes, especially in cases of abuse or betrayal, restored relationship is neither possible nor safe — and Jesus is not commanding it here.

Forgiveness is not the erasure of memory. The wound does not have to disappear for forgiveness to be real. Grief and forgiveness are not opposites — you can mourn what was lost while simultaneously choosing not to hold the person who caused the loss in a posture of resentment.

Forgiveness is not the pronouncement that what happened was acceptable. It does not declare the trespass to be no trespass. It does not minimize the harm or excuse the failure. It says, rather: this was real, it cost me something, and I am choosing not to let it define the posture of my heart toward this person going forward. That is a profoundly costly choice — and Jesus never pretends it is otherwise.

Forgiveness is not a feeling that arrives after sufficient emotional processing. It is a decision of the will, made often in the absence of any feeling that supports it, and then renewed as the feeling of injury reasserts itself — which it will, sometimes for years. The willingness to keep forgiving, to refuse to let resentment rebuild what grace has torn down, is the ongoing work of a lifetime.

Lent is precisely suited to this passage because Lent is, at its core, a season of honest self-examination in the light of the cross.

The cross is the place where God's forgiveness of us is most fully displayed. Jesus, in the moment of His execution, prays for His killers: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. He practices what He preaches, at infinite cost. And the entire movement of Holy Week — from Palm Sunday through Good Friday to Easter — is the story of how far God was willing to go to forgive us. While we were still sinners. While we were, in the deepest sense, the ones who put Him there.

To sit with Matthew 6:14–15 during Lent is to hold it up against that reality and ask: in light of what has been forgiven me — the full weight of it, the cost of it, the grace of it — is there anyone I am still refusing to forgive?

You do not have to pretend the wound is not there. You do not have to manufacture a feeling you do not have. You simply have to be willing to begin — to bring the unforgiveness before the God who has forgiven you everything, and to ask Him to do in you what you cannot do in yourself.

PRAYER: Father, You have forgiven me more than I can fully reckon with. Soften whatever in me is still clenched around an old wound, and give me the grace to release it — not because it didn't matter, but because Your mercy toward me is greater than any debt owed to me. In Jesus' strong name I pray, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Bring one name before God — the person it costs you something to forgive — and simply say: I am willing to be made willing. Let that be the first step.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Lead the way with love!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

* https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jiRcreu7WEE

BUILDING12:Humility and Servanthood

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43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:43-35 NRSV)

Dear Friend, a most marvelous of Mondays be yours! A reminder to pray for Mrs. Marie Currie as she undergoes knee replacement surgery in Gonzales, Texas. May the Lord bless this operation to bring healing and wholeness to Marie. Prayers for her husband, Emmit as well. Please pray for Jeff and Sammie Massie. Jeff will be having a steroid epidural shot in his back next Tuesday morning and on April 14 he'll be having shoulder surgery. Please pray that both of these procedures are successful and allow for relief of his pain.Please pray for those who have asked prayers from us through our church's prayer list. Always remember why we pray! Because God answers prayer!

This is a message I need to hear. Often. I am part of a society where the old phrase is still current and applicable; the rat race. I feel it every time I get behind the wheel of my vehicle. It seems drivers in our region are in a hurry and sometimes I'm leading the pack. I'm thankful my loving wife still coaches me on my driving. I need to hear her comments as I am one, like most of this region's drivers who want to get where we are going as quickly as we can. And, given we live in a construction zone that won't be finished until the year 2525, lane changes are a way of life and most of them without notice and usually in the blink of an eye. And that's the blink you'll see as most cars on the road today don't have blinkers! And on a national scale the political climate is far from perfect or peaceful. And here we have Jesus sharing with His disciples and with us, a better way to live.

I remind us that the disciiples were not perfect people because they suffered from the same condition as us; being human, and with that the usual symptoms and desires. Though the phrase "Looking out for number one" was not yet invented it was still very much in use. The reason Jesus addresses this need for humility and servanthood was because two brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to Jesus with a request. They want the best seats in the kingdom — one on His right, one on His left. They want to be, when all is said and done, the greatest. And before we judge them too quickly, we ought to sit with the uncomfortable recognition that their ambition is not alien to us. The desire to matter, to be recognized, to occupy a position of significance — this is not a peculiarity of first-century fishermen. It is the persistent hum beneath most human striving.

When the other ten disciples hear about the request, Mark tells us they are indignant. Which almost certainly means they are angry not because James and John were wrong to want greatness, but because James and John asked first. The whole group is infected with the same ambition. They have been arguing about who is greatest since at least chapter nine. The question of status and rank has been running beneath the surface of the entire journey.

And then Jesus calls them together — all twelve — and upends everything they thought they understood about power, greatness, and what it means to lead.

"You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them." v. 42) Jesus begins by naming the world's model of greatness honestly and without sentimentality.

The Gentile rulers — the Herods, the Caesars, the Roman governors they have all watched operate — exercise power in a particular direction: downward. Authority flows from the top and presses on those beneath it. Greatness is measured by how many people are below you, how completely they are subject to your will, how thoroughly your preferences shape the lives of others. The great ones lord it over — the Greek is katakurieuousin, to dominate, to exercise power over — and the great ones are tyrants, katexousiazousin, those who press the weight of their authority onto others.

This is not a crude caricature. Jesus is describing a system of power that was everywhere visible in the ancient world and has lost none of its familiarity in our own. The hierarchy of domination — where greatness means being served, where leadership means leveraging position for personal gain, where the measure of your importance is how many people exist to meet your needs — is not a relic. It is the default operating system of human institutions, including, if we are honest, many of our churches.

Jesus does not say this system is surprising. He says: you know this is how it works. Of course you do. You have grown up inside it. You have been shaped by its logic. And it is precisely this logic that James and John have carried, without realizing it, into their request for seats of honor.

"But it is not so among you..." Four words that change the entire architecture.

It is not so among you. Not: it should not ideally be this way. Not: try to do a little better. A flat, declarative negation. The community gathered around Jesus operates by a different logic entirely — not a modified version of the world's system with the rough edges softened, but a genuine inversion of it. The kingdom of God does not merely improve on the Gentile model of power. It overturns it.

This is one of the most radical claims Jesus makes in the entirety of His ministry, and it is delivered not in a formal theological discourse but in response to a squabble among His closest friends about who deserves the most honor. The ordinariness of the occasion makes it more remarkable, not less. This is not abstract teaching for later application. It is the direct correction of an actual failure happening in real time among real people.

And the you matters enormously. Jesus is not speaking about the world in general, or about what society at large ought to look like. He is speaking about the community of His followers specifically. The church — the gathered people of God — is called to be a living demonstration that a different way of ordering human life is possible. Not because Christians are inherently better people, but because they follow a Lord who has shown them a different way and calls them to embody it.

"...whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant..." Jesus does not abolish the desire for greatness. He redirects it.

He does not say: abandon your ambition, suppress your desire to matter, make yourself invisible. He says: if you want to be great — and greatness itself is not the problem — here is what greatness actually looks like in the kingdom. The desire to matter, to make a difference, to lead well, to be significant — these are not sins to be extinguished. They are energies to be reoriented.

The word translated servant is diakonos — from which we get the word deacon. It referred to someone who waited on tables, who attended to the practical, unglamorous needs of others. It was not a position of honor in the ancient world. It was the work of those who had no status to protect.

To become great in the kingdom, Jesus says, is to become this. Not to perform servanthood as a strategy for eventual recognition — doing visible good works with an eye toward how they will reflect on your reputation. But to genuinely orient your life around the needs of others, to find your deepest satisfaction not in being served but in serving, to measure your days not by what you have accumulated or achieved but by what you have given.

This reordering of ambition is not natural. It runs against the grain of every instinct that has been formed by a world that measures human worth by output, status, and recognition. It requires a sustained, daily, Spirit-enabled transformation of the self — which is precisely why it belongs at the heart of a Lenten devotion. Lent is the season in which we examine what our lives are actually oriented toward and ask whether it matches what our lips confess.

"...and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all." Jesus escalates the language deliberately.

From servant — diakonos — He moves to slave — doulos. In the ancient world, this was not a subtle shift. A servant had some degree of social standing. A slave had none. A slave's time was not their own, their preferences were irrelevant, their existence was entirely structured around the needs of another. By using this word, Jesus is not endorsing the institution of slavery — He is reaching for the most extreme image of self-giving available to His audience to make His point impossible to soften.

The one who would be first — who would lead, who would hold the highest place in the community — must be the one most completely given over to the wellbeing of everyone else. Leadership in the kingdom is not a privilege to be enjoyed. It is a burden to be carried on behalf of others. The higher the position, the greater the obligation to serve. The more authority entrusted, the more completely that authority must be wielded for others rather than over them.

This inverts every natural assumption about what leadership is for. Power, in the kingdom, is not a reward for faithfulness. It is a tool placed in the hands of the servant for the sake of those who cannot serve themselves.

"For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." And here is where the teaching ceases to be merely ethical instruction and becomes gospel.

Jesus does not say: this is a good principle, now go practice it. He grounds the entire inversion in His own person and His own mission. The reason the community of His followers is called to this radical servanthood is not that it is a philosophically superior ethic. It is that He came to serve. The logic of the kingdom is not an abstraction — it is an incarnation.

The Son of Man — the title Jesus most consistently uses for Himself, drawing on Daniel's vision of the one who receives an everlasting kingdom — came not to be served. The one who had every right to every honor, the one before whom the whole creation will one day bow, the one at whose name every knee will bend — He came to serve. He came with a basin and a towel. He came to touch lepers and eat with sinners and weep at tombs. He came, ultimately, to give His life.

A ransom for many — the Greek word lytron was the price paid to free a slave or a prisoner. Jesus is using the language of His own approaching death and giving it its meaning before it happens. He will not be merely the victim of unjust execution. He will be the servant giving everything — His very life — in exchange for the freedom of others.

This is the ground of all Christian humility and servanthood. We do not serve to earn our salvation. We serve from a salvation already given, at infinite cost, by the one who bent lowest of all so that we could stand.

The cross is the ultimate act of servanthood. And every act of genuine, self-giving, ego-surrendering service by a follower of Jesus is a small reflection of it — a tiny echo of the great self-giving that purchased our freedom.

The Mirror This Passage Holds Up It is worth pausing here, in the Lenten spirit of honest examination, to let this passage ask its questions directly.

Where in your life is the world's logic of power — the expectation of being served, the protection of status, the quiet insistence on recognition — still operating? Where do you find yourself indignant, like the ten disciples, when someone else receives honor you felt you deserved? Where do you lead with position rather than with a towel?

These are not comfortable questions. But they are the questions this passage will not let us avoid. James and John were not villains. They were people who loved Jesus and had nonetheless absorbed the world's assumptions about greatness so thoroughly that those assumptions shaped even their prayers. We are not so different.

The invitation of this passage is not condemnation. It is reorientation. The same Jesus who corrected His disciples corrects us — not to shame us, but to show us a better way. A truer way. The way He Himself walked, all the way to the cross.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, You are the one who came not to be served but to serve, and You gave everything — held nothing back. Forgive me for the ways I have sought the seat of honor, protected my own status, and measured my worth by who serves me rather than by how freely I serve. By Your Spirit, reorder my ambitions. Make me genuinely, practically, daily a servant — not for recognition, but because You first served me at the cost of Your life. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Find one concrete, unannounced act of service to perform today — something that costs you something, that no one will likely notice or praise, and that is done entirely for the good of another.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Bless someone with hope today!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

BUILDING12: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

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39 And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' (Matthew 22:39 NRSV)

To be a disciple of Jesus, Jesus taught them that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. For some it might have been a reaffirmation, but Jesus wanted them ot know the seriousness of this commandment. If you ever see infants interacting with other infants, you see that they are still at a point where they have not made any judgments about differences and thus no negative thoughts have entered into their mind; how long do you suppose that lasts? Sadly, we all know the answer. It just takes one parent to say something negative about someone else. and the baby has learned something new albeit something awful. And if it isn't the parent, then someone else will step in and begin to teach the infant what the infant would be so much better off not knowing. Interesting that the moment Jesus says this to His disciples is during the last week of His life on earth. Imagine the weight of this moment.

Jesus has entered Jerusalem to crowd-shouts of Hosanna, has cleared the Temple, and is now engaged in a series of increasingly hostile exchanges with the religious establishment. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes come at Him in waves — each group testing Him with questions designed to trap, discredit, or expose Him. The question about the greatest commandment, posed by a lawyer in Matthew 22:36, is one of these tests. It was not an innocent theological inquiry. It was a snare.

And yet Jesus answers it not defensively but with stunning clarity and generosity — first citing the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:5, the heart of Jewish daily prayer, and then immediately adding: "And a second is like it."

That phrase — like it — is everything. The Greek word is homoia, meaning similar in kind, comparable in nature, belonging to the same order. Jesus does not say the second commandment is a footnote to the first, or a lesser obligation to be attended to after the primary one is satisfied. He says it is like the first — cut from the same cloth, inseparable from it in practice. You cannot, He implies, genuinely fulfill one while ignoring the other.

The commandment Jesus quotes is not new. It comes from Leviticus 19:18 — "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord."

In its original setting, the command appeared within a dense cluster of ethical instructions governing communal life in Israel. The surrounding verses address fair wages for laborers, honest treatment of the deaf and blind, impartial justice in court, and the prohibition of slander. The love commanded here was not a vague sentiment — it was expressed through specific, concrete practices that protected the vulnerable and held the community together.

Crucially, in Leviticus 19, the word neighbor initially referred to fellow Israelites — "your people." But within the same chapter, just a few verses later, the command is extended: "The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself" (v. 34). Even in its original context, the boundary of neighbor was already being pushed outward.

By the time of Jesus, the question "Who is my neighbor?" was one of active and serious rabbinical debate. Different schools drew the circle differently. Some interpreted neighbor narrowly — fellow Jews, fellow members of the covenant community. Others were more expansive.

Jesus addresses this question directly in Luke 10, where the same exchange about the great commandment is followed immediately by the Parable of the Good Samaritan. When the lawyer presses — "And who is my neighbor?" — Jesus responds not with a definition but with a story in which the hero is a Samaritan, a person the Jewish audience would have considered a religious and ethnic outsider. The neighbor, Jesus concludes, is whoever acts with mercy — and the real question is not who qualifies as my neighbor but whether I am willing to be a neighbor to whoever stands before me in need.

In Matthew 22, Jesus does something equally significant. He links the two commandments so tightly that He can say in verse 40: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." The entire moral and spiritual architecture of Israel's covenant life — every command, every prophetic call to justice, every instruction about worship and ethics — is suspended from these two points. Pull them out, and everything else collapses. Honor them, and everything else falls into its proper place.

The standard reading of "love your neighbor as yourself" treats the as yourself as a measure of degree — love them this much, as much as you love yourself. And that is certainly part of it. But there is more here worth examining.

The command assumes a basic, healthy self-regard — not vanity or self-absorption, but the ordinary human instinct to care for oneself, to seek one's own wellbeing, to take one's own needs and dignity seriously. This is the baseline. Now extend that same instinct outward. What you naturally do for yourself — attend to, protect, provide for, take seriously — do for the person in front of you.

This has a disorienting implication: those who genuinely cannot love themselves — who live in deep self-contempt, shame, or self-destruction — will find this command extraordinarily difficult, not because they are morally deficient but because the instrument of measure is itself broken. The pastoral wisdom here is that learning to receive God's love for oneself is not a selfish detour from the command — it is necessary equipment for obeying it.

The apostle John will make this explicit decades later: "Those who say 'I love God' and hate their brothers or sisters are liars" (1 John 4:20). The vertical and horizontal cannot be separated without both being distorted. A religion that is all transcendence and no mercy becomes cold and self-righteous. A social ethic that is all horizontal service with no grounding in God eventually loses its footing — its sense of why human beings are worth loving at all.

The reason the neighbor is worth loving, at full depth, is that the neighbor bears the image of God. Every human being — the agreeable and the difficult, the familiar and the strange, the deserving and the seemingly undeserving — carries within them the imago Dei, the divine image that makes them irreducibly valuable. To love the neighbor is, in some genuine sense, to honor the God whose image they bear. The two commandments are not just companions. They are reflections of one another.

The church in every generation is tempted to redraw the circle of neighbor in ways that conveniently exclude whoever is most threatening, most foreign, most ideologically opposed, or most costly to love. We do this not with malice but with the quiet management of categories — deciding, below the level of conscious thought, who counts and who doesn't, who is close enough to deserve our full moral attention.

Jesus will not allow it. The parable of the Samaritan was told precisely because the original question — Who is my neighbor? — was a boundary-drawing question, an attempt to identify the edge of obligation. Jesus dissolves the question. He refuses to hand over a list. He tells a story instead, and in that story, the neighbor turns out to be the one you least expected, loving the one you would least have chosen. The command is not love the neighbors you have selected. It is be a neighbor to whoever you encounter.

In our fractured cultural moment — sorted by politics, class, race, geography, and ideology into increasingly sealed communities — this commandment lands with particular force. The person across the aisle, across the border, across the theological divide is not exempted from the second great commandment. They are, in fact, precisely the test of whether we are keeping it.

PRAYER: Lord, forgive me for the neighbors I have quietly decided not to see. Expand my circle. Soften my categories. Make Your love for every image-bearer You have made the love that moves through me. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Think of one person you find it genuinely difficult to love. Pray for them by name today — not that they would change, but simply that God would bless them. Let that be your first act of obedience to the second commandment.

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr. TOMORROW: Repent and Believe the Good News

BUILDING TWELVE: Love God Completely

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37 He said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38 NRSV)

Twelve. An important number. It's the number of the followers called by Jesus to His disciples. Most heard from Jesus' lips, "Come. Follow me." All said yes. None knew the extent of the commitment they were making in saying yes. Not one of the twelve asked to be released. They all followed Jesus for three years and after Jesus' resurrection and ascension into Heaven, still followed. All died for their faith because of the love they had for Jesus.

Today we will look at the first of Jesus's Twelve Major Teachings to the Disciples in hopes of you and me becoming like the original twelve an becoming true followers at Jesus' invitation to transform the world. I want Jesus' teachings to impact our lives in positive and contagious ways, so that in time, you and me will reach at least eleven more and have a band of brothers and sisters to continue the unfinished work of Jesus. I want us built up spiritually and theologically. If you're willing, please continue reading. If you're not, thank you for stopping by and I pray God bless and protect you in whatever path you choose to follow Jesus. Pray for us.

The first major teaching of Jesus was from His own Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures we call the Old Testament. We first find this in Deuteronomy 6:4–5: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” The Hebrew word for "Hear" is Shema and is called "The Shema." Years ago, in Florida, in a Jewish store I made a purchase and the store owner placed in my bag a small copy in Hebrew of The Shema. It was his way of witnessing to his faith. He has "heard," and wants others to hear. And beyond hearing comes obeying and following what the commandment teaches. It was what Jesus held as very sacred and important: We must love God completely. As the ancients wrote it, Jesus taught it and lived it, for it was central to His faith; loving God.

The commandment says this love begins in our heart. With the love that the heart produces, we lift it up to God. Completely. With whatever capacity we hold in our heart should be that which we have towards God. From God we have received all things, and it is only fitting that we return that love to Him. For the Jews, this commandment is recited morning and evening; as a reminder, as a prayer, as a guide for the day's objectives and goals. Could you make that part of your morning and before-bed prayers? Imagine the day and the sleep you will have as you remind yourself of the need we have to love God completely.

In Hebrew thought, the heart — levav — was not primarily the seat of emotion. It was the seat of the will, the place where decisions are made, where intentions are formed, where the self most essentially chooses. To love God with all your heart is to ask that your deepest wanting be reoriented — that what you reach for first, what you return to when no one is watching, what your life quietly orbits — be Him.

This is where most of us feel the gap most acutely. We know what our hearts actually reach for. We know what fills our idle thoughts, what we turn to for comfort, what we quietly treasure above all else. Loving God with the whole heart does not mean those other loves vanish entirely — but it means they are ordered beneath the one love that holds everything together. It means asking, again and again: Lord, be the center. Be what I want most.

The second part of the commandment says we shall love the Lord our God with all our soul. The word here is nephesh — breath, life-force, the animating essence of a person. It carries the sense of everything you are, not merely what you think or decide. Some of the ancient rabbis taught that loving God with all your soul meant loving Him even if He required your very life — that nothing, not even survival, would be withheld from this love.

For most of us, the daily application is less dramatic but no less costly. It means that no part of us is held in reserve, no corner of our life quietly marked off limits to God's claim. Our ambitions, our fears, our identities, our private selves — all of it offered, all of it available. This is not a single dramatic surrender but a thousand small ones, made over the course of a lifetime. It means asking: Lord, have all of me. Even the parts I haven't shown anyone. Again, imagine making this a part of your morning and evening prayers? What could become of you?

The final part is to love God with all our mind. The Hebrew word meod is unusual here — it more literally means "muchness" or "abundance," and it carries a sense of force, energy, and resources. Love God with everything you have to bring: your strength, your time, your money, your attention, your energy at its best rather than its leftover dregs.

This dimension is perhaps the most practical and the most convicting. It asks where we actually spend what we have been given. Not in a spirit of anxious accounting, but in a spirit of honest examination: does the way I spend my days reflect someone in love with God? Does my energy go toward knowing Him, toward the people He loves, toward the work He has given me? To love God with all your might is to ask that nothing be withheld on the grounds of cost.

What makes this commandment finally livable is the recognition that we cannot fulfill it on our own — and that the God who commands it is also the one who produces it in us. The whole of Deuteronomy 6 is set within the framework of God's prior love: He brought them out of Egypt, He chose them, He remained faithful across generations. The commandment to love does not come as an entrance requirement. It comes as a response to love already given.

And so this great commandment becomes, finally, a great prayer. We hold up to God the love He requires of us and confess: I cannot do this. Not fully. Not consistently. Not in my own strength. And we ask Him to do in us what we cannot do ourselves — to reorder our hearts, to claim our whole selves, to become the one our lives increasingly orbit.

This is not a prayer prayed once. It is the prayer of a lifetime, renewed each morning, returned to each time we drift.

PRAYER: Loving God, You alone are worthy of this love, and I confess that I have given You so much less. My heart wanders to smaller things. My soul holds back corners I am afraid to surrender. My strength goes to a hundred lesser purposes. Forgive me, and do what I cannot do for myself: draw me back to You. Reorder what I love. Claim what I withhold. Fill me with a love for You that is not manufactured by effort but kindled by Yours. Make the Great Commandment the great story of my life. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Make the repetitiion of this prayer a daily thing at first awakening and right before bed. Make it a part of your daily prayer life!

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me. Build someone up with your faith!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr. TOMORROW: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself!

Can These Bones Live?

Image from christchurchoftraversecity.org

Hear devo: https://bit.ly/3PhuRuf

View devo: https://bit.ly/4bfFV3I

1 The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ” 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. 11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’ ” (Exekiel 37: 1-14 NIV)

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow! I am thankful my new computer has arrived and I once again can prepare my devotions in a rapid manner. I also ask prayers for Mr. Samuel Alcudia Hernandez, of Nixon, Texas, who suffered a stroke and is now in Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. May the Lord restore him to fullness of health and strength. Mr. Hernandez is a single man who is on Medicare and still works. He has one son who is a truck driver always on the road. May the Lord bless him in all areas of his life.

Nellie and I were blessed to walk the Holy Land and see some sacred sites including many a valley where great battles of the Bible occurred. Among those we were in the Valley of Elah, where David and Goliath took place. As we walked in that place, I found a round stone, and not a smooth one at that, but I imagined it as the right size that David the boy used inn his sling to kill the enemy of Israel, Goliath. I also have a sling of that era and have used both in sermons of that battle, as props to help us better imagine what took place on that day.

One could imagine the blood and flesh spilled on that sacred land, and today's passage takes us to a similar valley where only the sun-bleached bones of such a battle are left still being burned by the sun. It is here where God leads the prophet Ezekiel and asks him a question that might make many laugh; "Son of man, can these bones live?" God did not bring Ezekiel to the edge of this place and ask him to observe it from a safe distance. He led him among the bones — back and forth, all around — until the prophet had no choice but to reckon with the full, terrible scope of the desolation. This is where Lent finds us, too. Many would have laughingly said, "Ain't no way!" And that's why many of us are not prophets. The wise prophet replies, "Sovereign Lord, You alone know." Nice answer but still not what he wanted to hear; but God continues, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!" And the Lord continues with a plan of what the prophet will say and the result that will com from that sermon. The result of that encounter with God brought new life to dead bones. This lenten season invites us to stop avoiding the dry valleys in our own lives — the relationships that have gone brittle, the faith that has grown rote, the parts of us where we've quietly stopped expecting anything to happen. Lent is not a season of manufactured guilt. It is a season of honest inventory, of allowing God to walk us through what is dead so that we are no longer pretending otherwise.

The meaning for the exiles of Israel was immediate: their national hope was not finished. But the resonance reaches further. The same God who can reassemble scattered bones and breathe life into them has entered our own dry valleys in the person of Jesus — and on Good Friday, He will descend into the deepest death of all, so that on Easter morning, resurrection will not be a metaphor. It will be the fact upon which everything else stands.

We are in the season between the valley and the morning. Lent asks us to stay there honestly, to feel the weight of the silence before the rattling begins — not because despair is the destination, but because hope that bypasses the valley is not really hope. It is avoidance.

Breathe, Spirit. These bones need You.

PRAYER: Lord of the valley and the living breath, walk with us through the dry and scattered places we have been avoiding. Where we have grown brittle, speak Your word. Where we have given up expecting, remind us that You alone know what is possible. Revive what only You can revive — and make us willing to be made alive. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one area of your life you have quietly declared dead. Write it down. Bring it before God in prayer each day this week, not demanding an answer, but simply holding it open before the One who breathes life into dry bones.

I love you and I thank God for you. You matter to God and you matter to me. Together we can win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

As a Man Thinketh... A Woman, too!

Image from bible.com

Watch devo: https://bit.ly/4sJ4aNu

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

6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (Romans 8:6-11 NRSV)

My Dad many a time had to ask me, "Where's your mind, boy?" It was a great question most times, but sometimes my mind was not where it should have been. Many times my Dad asked me that question after I had messed up more than one time, like getting a flat head screwdriver when he had specifically asked for a Phillips head. And Paul, writing this passage to the people of the world's capital city of the time, new the power of the mind and the way our thoughts can shape us positively or ruin us completely. It was in 1902 that James Allen wrote a book called "As a Man Thinketh" based on the passage from Proverbs for Mr. Allen built the book around the same core idea found in that verse: that a person’s inner thoughts shape their character, actions, and ultimately their life. The biblical proverb emphasizes the link between inward thinking and outward being, and Allen expands this into a full philosophy of personal responsibility and mental discipline. It would be in 1952 (a wonderful year by the way!) that The Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale would publish his best-selling book, "The Power of Positive Thinking" that helped many people live better lives and made Dr. Peale a wealthy preacher! And the book invited many to poke fun by using the title of their book to justify their drinking, as in The Power of Positive Drinking! Two musicians, Lou Reed in 1980 and Chris Janson had songs by that name.

What Paul is addressing is a serious issue; as we live our lives as believers, have we truly committed ourselves to live lives based on the things of God or are we still living grave clothes, thinking on earthly themes and concerns. And the vast separation in Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus, is the same separation between those who set their minds on the flesh, for they are headed towards death; and those who set their mind on the Spirit, for their's is the gift of life and peace. The mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God; it rejects all things God, especially the Commandments and the law; and submission to God's law is not even possible. They will never be able to please God. Those whose minds are on the Spirit; know this; the Spirit lives in you and you belong to God; Christ is in you and your life is now righteousness. Paul knows that "If the Spirit of Him, who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwells in you." Bam!

Friends, know this; Resurrection power is at work in you. Not just someday when you die. Right now. Today. The Spirit is giving life to your mortal body—the body that gets tired, that feels pain, that carries stress and worry and fear.

So why don't we experience more of this life and peace Paul describes? Often, it's because while the Spirit dwells in us, we're still setting our minds on the flesh. We're focused on our circumstances instead of God's presence. On our limitations instead of the Spirit's power. On what we lack instead of what we've been given.

The truth is that where we set our mind determines the quality of our life. And this can start today if you're not already enjoying this. And here's how:

Setting your mind on the Spirit means:

Beginning your day remembering: "The Spirit of God dwells in me"

Turning anxious thoughts into prayers of trust

Looking for evidence of God's presence in ordinary moments

Choosing truth over feelings when feelings lie

Surrendering control instead of grasping for it

This isn't denying reality or practicing spiritual bypassing. It's recognizing a deeper reality—that the Spirit who raised Jesus from death is alive and active in you.

And when you set your mind there, something shifts. The same circumstances that produced anxiety yesterday can become opportunities for trust today. The same challenges that felt overwhelming can become places where you experience God's strength.

Life and peace aren't something you manufacture. They're what flows naturally when your mind is set on the Spirit who already dwells in you.

The question isn't whether the Spirit is present. The question is: where is your mind?

PRAYER: Loving God, for those who have loved us enough to ask where our minds are, we give you thanks. If we have ever asked that of our children we pray they know the love behind our question. And for Paul's asking us this question through Your word, we are also thankful, and we pray that we might answer that our minds are set on You, now, tomorrow, and forever; for in You, loving Father, we can find hope and peace. And we pray this in faith in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Choose one recurring anxious thought you have. This week, every time it surfaces, pause and say aloud: "The Spirit of God dwells in me." Then ask the Spirit to give you His perspective on that concern.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! No matter what others, including parents, may have said negatively about you, hear this: You are a person of solid worth. Think on that and let that guide you always!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

We Were Darkness...

Image from biblia.com

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/47rxekl

8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly;13 but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:8-14 NRSV)

Many a time someone will ask if I remember a particular thing I said or did; and sadly in most cases, I will reply that I do not. It's often embarrassing because the person will be laughing quite hard at whatever it was that I said or did, and I have no clue. Even sadder is to be shown a faded picture of me and them and them telling me what had just happened or what I had just said that caused them to take the photo. The photos captured just a moment of something then, and then life moved on. The image captured of me or of a loved one may or may not look anything like we remember them as now. Such is what is happening here, Paul is showing them a verbal photo of the believers in Ephesus and reminding them of how they once were. The first five words hit hard, for Paul does not say, "You were once walking in darkness;" he says, "You were darkness." Ouch. Their every thought, word, and deed, were strongly rooted in things not of God, thus darkness. Almost like a slap in the face but a needed one. Not just that we did dark things or lived in dark places, but that darkness defined us. It was our identity, our essence, our nature. We weren't just lost in the darkness—we were the darkness.

But now—and this is the scandal of grace—now in the Lord you are light. Not "you have light" or "you're moving toward light." You are light. Your very identity has been transformed. This is the miracle of the gospel: what we were has been fundamentally changed by who Christ is.

Lent is a season when we remember this transformation. We look back at the darkness we were rescued from—not to wallow in shame, but to magnify the grace that pulled us out. We face honestly what we were so we can live gratefully in what we've become.

But Paul doesn't stop at identity. He moves immediately to implication: "Live as children of light." Become who you are. Walk in the reality of your new identity. Let your behavior match your being. The fruit of the light, Paul says, is goodness, righteousness, and truth. Not performance. Not perfection. Not pretending. But genuine goodness that flows from a transformed heart. Righteousness that seeks what's right even when it's costly. Truth-telling, even when lies would be easier.

Then Paul gives us a challenging command: "Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord."

This requires intentionality. Discernment. Paying attention. It's not autopilot Christianity. It's actively asking, "In this situation, in this relationship, in this decision—what would please the Lord?" And then having the courage to do it.

Paul continues: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them."

This is uncomfortable. It means we can't compartmentalize our lives—light here, a little darkness there. It means we can't participate in gossip, deception, exploitation, or injustice and think it doesn't matter because "everyone does it." Children of light expose darkness, and sometimes that exposure begins in our own hearts.

But notice: "everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light."

Light is transformative. When we bring our secrets, our shame, our hidden sins into the light of Christ, they lose their power. What's exposed can be healed. What's visible can be addressed. Darkness only has power when we keep it hidden.

This is the work of Lent—bringing everything into the light. Confessing what we've kept secret. Acknowledging what we've rationalized. Exposing the shadows we've been living in.

And then Paul quotes what may be an early Christian hymn: "Sleepwalk no more! Christ will shine on you."

How much of our lives do we live on autopilot? Going through the motions. Numb to sin. Comfortable with compromise. Spiritually sleepwalking through our days.

Lent is a wake-up call. It's Christ shaking us gently and saying, "Wake up. You're children of light now. Stop living like you're still in darkness. Stop sleepwalking through the life I died to give you."

The light of Christ is already shining on us. The question is whether we'll wake up and live in it.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, Light of the World, wake us from spiritual slumber. Show us the darkness we've been tolerating, the autopilot we've been living on. Help us walk as children of light—in goodness, righteousness, and truth. Shine your light into every corner of our lives; in Thy name we pray, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Expose one "work of darkness" you've been hiding—a habit, attitude, or secret you've kept in the shadows. Confess it to God and to one trusted person. Let the light in. Then ask God: "What pleases you in this area of my life?" and take one concrete step to live as a child of light.

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 by sharing God's love to ALL people!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

"Here's Mud in Your Eye!"

Image from liturgicalconference.org

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

1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. 8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No, he only looks like him.” But he himself insisted, “I am the man.” 10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked. 11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.” 12 “Where is this man?” they asked him. “I don’t know,” he said. 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided. 17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.” 18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?" 20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.” 25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” 26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?” 28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out. 35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. (John 9:1-42 NIV)

Happy and Delightful Monday, dear Friend! I pray your weekend was great and that God blessed you in some significant way during the weekend. Nellie and I were blessed two years ago Sunday, when our youngest grand-baby was born. Ari James Muñoz made his debut in Houston, Texas to our daughter Caitlin and our son-in-law Jesse. It was an awesome day! I chuckle because my youngest sister would joke she was born in Houston at Methodist Hospital and she wasn't. She along with the four of us, were all born in Kingsville, Texas! We moved to Houston and adopted Houston as our home town, but Eli and Ari are the ones who can truly say they were born in Houston. Also, please be in prayer for a young man named Nate, who is recovering from surgery. May God give him peace, new strength, recovery and a secure vision for the future. In Jesus' name!

The gospel passage for next Sunday is a delightful one! Yes, delightful seems to be the word for today. Several things are taught here and we would be blessed to learn them all. The first is the age-old question: Does sinning bring about consequences? For the ancients, the simple answer was yes. One's illness or disability was seen as the result of either one's own sin, or the sin of the parents. And while there may be several instances where we could closely prove as true, Jesus has to answer this question because His own disciples asked that question. Was this man blind because he sinned, or was it because his parents sinned? Jesus answers that this blindness "Happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him." He said this to further illustrate that He was the light of the world and this man's darkness caused by his blindness, might still allow the blind man and those who witnessed the coming healing, see the light. Jesus also spits on the ground and made a mud paste with His saliva and put this on the man's eyes, thus the title of the devotional, "Here's mud in your eyes." While Jesus was not sharing a drink with this fellow, He was sharing something way better, sight! The man, obedient to Jesus' command to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam, and he returns home with full vision! Immediately, those who knew him as a blind beggar now see him as a full visioned man. Still, others doubted and asked if he only looked like the former blind beggar. But the man, proudly and thankfully says, "I am the man." Then the questions: How then were your eyes opened and your vision restored? Jesus. He made some mud, put it into my eyes and told me to wash in Siloam, and then I could see. Friends, this is no small miracle. To have been blind and now see, this is headlines news.

Oh oh. This miracle takes place on a Sabbath day; you know, the day when no one is supposed to do anything. Sabbath was a full day of rest, and according to the Pharisees, this was a no-no, a sin, a violation of God's law. "Oh! This man again, He's not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath." "How then do sinners perform miracles," asked another. Division set in to the circle of so-called righteous men. They then ask him, "What have you to say about Him? It was your eyes He opened." Cue the Jeopardy I'm Thinking Music. The man replies, "He is a prophet." No way, no how. They could not believe that a man who was blind could now see. Send for his parents! In come the parents, joyful for sonny's new ability to see, yet fearful because they have been called on the carpet. "Is this your son? Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?" The parents reply, "Yes, that's our boy and we know he was born blind. But how he can now see or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." To me, it's truly sad, that these men of God, instead of joining in praising God for this awesome miracle, cannot see beyond the law. And parents, who should have been planning a party to celebrate God's victory in this man's life, are now fearful they might be punished for having given birth to a blind man, who can now see, healed by the hands of a sinner. Shaking my head. Their idea of glory to God was to have the man tell the "truth" about Jesus being a sinner. The man can only say, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" The man, John Newton, many many years later, when he received his vision about men owning other men being sinful, repented of his sin and freed, or tried to free his own slaves, but also penned a hymn we all love so much, Amazing Grace, whose verses include the response of this man, "Was blind, but now I see."

The Pharisees were relentless, tell us again how he made you see. The man says, "Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become His disciples too?" Whoa. Is this former blind man now not just a believer, but a disciple as well? The Pharisees hurl insults at him. They were not praying thanksgiving prayers as they should have been but do holler they are disciples of Moses; for they knew that God spoke to Moses, but as far as Jesus was concerned, not so much. The former blind man has gained more than just his vision; he now says that God does not listen to sinner, but that God does listen to the godly person who does God's will; for as far as he knew, nobody had told of a blind man having his sight restored, especially those born blind, and his awesome declaration,, "If this man was not from God, he could do nothing." Their closing remark? "You were steeped in sin at brith; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.

Jesus hears about this and goes looking for this man and asks, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He asks, "Who is He, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in Him." Jesus says, "You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the one speaking with you". At this point my eyes would have been sweating big drops of water, and I pray that I would have had the same faith to declare along with him, "Lord, I believe," and he and I would have been worshiping Him.

Meanwhile, the Pharisees insist they can see. And Jesus says that's precisely their problem. The most dangerous blindness is the kind that doesn't know it's blind. Spiritual pride—the certainty that we have God figured out, that we see clearly, that we don't need healing—keeps us from encountering Jesus.

During Lent, we're invited to admit our blindness. To acknowledge the places where we've been stumbling in darkness. To stop pretending we have it all figured out. To say, like the blind man, "Lord, I want to see."

And when we do, Jesus meets us. He makes mud. He sends us to wash. He opens our eyes. And the first thing we see clearly is him.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, for the rain we received on Saturday and Sunday, we thank You and praise You for it. In the same way, renew our faith and remove from our eyes that which keeps us from seeing You at work in the world, and working in us. Open my eyes to see you clearly. Give me courage to testify to what you've done in my life, even when it costs me. Help me worship you with newly opened eyes. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one area where you've been spiritually blind—a sin you've rationalized, a truth you've resisted, a need you've denied. Confess it honestly to God today. Ask him to give you sight. Then, like the healed man, tell someone this week: "I was blind in this area, but now I'm beginning to see."

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Love That Holds Us

Image from shatinangnglican.org

Hear devo: https://bit.ly/4udYk8g

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1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5: 1-11 NIV)

A fantastic Friday be yours, dear Friend! May the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus be with you now and always! Make this be a day of prayer, strong, fervent prayer to the Lord sharing with Him all that may be weighing us down knowing that only He can provide that release that we need. As we pray, pray for the family of Mr. Lynn Wilburn, of Gonzales who passed away on Tuesday and today is his funeral. Lynn was a faithful member of First Methodist Gonzales and a retired law enforcement officer. May God's peace be with Pat, his wife and all who loved him and who will miss him. Also, please join me in lifting up a prayer of gratitude for being released by my orthopedic surgeon from further x-rays and office visits related to my torn tendon surgery! X-rays taken early this morning (Thursday) showed healing progressing as needed; all honor and glory to the Lord! I thank Him for Dr. Gloria Box who did the surgery and has been my surgeon during this ordeal! Also, a prayer to the Lord for allowing Nellie and I to escape what would have been a terrible accident at a very busy intersection on Hwy 46 just outside of Seguin. As the light changed I proceeded slowly and Nellie said for me to stop, which I did, and a pickup truck did not even bother to slow down for his red light! He swerved to miss us but kept going at a very high rate of speed! Gulp! God is good! Yet, another angel story from the Lord and His loving watchful eye on us!

When did you come to know real love? Yes, most of us learned about love from our moms and dads; some from their grandmothers and grandfathers; some from school teachers and some from school friends. But when did REAL love come into your life? My real love came from Jesus when I invited Him into my heart and He gave me such a peace and a joy that I have endured much and experienced more than I ever dreamed possible. At the tender age of eight, I was justified through faith; being made welcome in a world that seeks to exclude and keep out many. God opened a door that only He could and I walked in. John Wesley would have said it was Prevenient Grace that led me there and when I said YES, Justification occurred; a validation of life and faith because of my belief in making the invitation to Jesus; which is what Paul wrote about in verse 1. "Hope in the glory of God" became mine. I knew I could trust Jesus and walk with Him and onward still we go! Now, I wish I could say not a single bad thing ever happened to me; nope. I'm human and I was raised by and around other humans. And when sufferings came, I found glory in God in spite of the pain or anguish that accompanied the sufferings; but Paul takes it to another level, for he believes that the glory in suffering comes with perseverance; that keep on keeping on feeing that says don't quit, don't stop believing. And perseverance leads us to character, a shaping of the inside of us into more of the image of Jesus; a yet imperfect soul, but more loving and tolerant of others; the ability to look above the pain and sorrow to the place where smiles are possible; and Paul further believes that character leads us to hope that place of optimism and joy that faith allows us to see the bigger picture of what may be coming next and the certainty that we journey not now or ever, alone.

Paul says that hope cannot put us to shame, because we are God's vessels into which God pours His amazing love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who is now ours, and Paul shouts, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ dies for the ungodly." At this point friends, you are free to holler loudly, Hallelujah! This death of Jesus excites Paul and should excite us as believers for Paul writes correctly, that rarely will somebody die for a righteous person, except, he notes, possibly a "good person" might die for us or someone else. But here we can hear that were Paul standing, he was moving excitedly with the words that are coming out of his heart and onto the page where it was being recorded: But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." I don't believe you heard that; let me say it again: WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, CHRIST DIED FOR US!" The paper stuck to our shoes that the mud and dust almost covered up that read: Imperfect. Sinner. Debtor. has flown up and ends up pristine and clean with the words, PAID IN FULL having taken the place of the condemning words. Beside the Paid note it now reads: RECONCILED. And just above that we read the word: SAVED!

I chuckled a bit sadly when I heard my children sing an old song that I learned in a Baptist kindergarten there in Kingsville. Miss Moreno taught all the little brown kids in that Primera Iglesia Bautista to sing, in English, "If you're save and you know it, clap your hands!" And loudly we clapped mainly out of classroom competition, but deep down the Holy Spirit was moving among us, getting us ready for the day we could sing and truly clap, shout, turn around, stand up, and whatever else the song asked, for we were indeed saved. Saved or salvation scares a lot of people and some check their IDs to make sure they're not really Baptist for having said that; but the Baptists do own the copyrights to salvation. But my kids sang, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." Okay, I can see that because, you know, salvation is something very personal and we don't want to hurt the feelings of others; and you don't have to sing it about being saved. But salvation is important to the believer; it is the mark of Jesus on our lives and it's part of the voice of our Shepherd that identifies us as His, so that when it comes time, you and I will recognize that voice and He will recognize us!

Friends, let me meddle a bit in your private life. If you have not yet come to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, please do not put it off any longer. God loves you right now, imagine that love once you've entered the realm of truly being His? All it takes is a simple, heart-felt prayer inviting Jesus into your heart. You can say that you're tired of being a sinful person and want those sins taken away, and say, "Lord Jesus, take the place of sin and all the negative it brought with it, with You, Your love and the positive, freeing things that will give me victory in this life and the joy that will come now and accompany me into the gates of Heaven; in Thy name, I pray, amen!"

PRAYER: Loving Lord, for all You have already done, I am blessed and thankful. For those who pray the above prayer, I rejoice and celebrate. I pray for those hurting and healing; for the lost and confused, and for those who are quite content in their ignorance, praying you open their eyes and minds to the realities of what could be; in Your name, Lord Jesus, I pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, identify one area of suffering or struggle in your life. Instead of asking God to remove it immediately, ask him what perseverance, character, or hope he might be building through it. Journal one sentence about what you sense him saying.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Ours is the Victory in Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Living Waters for Thirsty Souls

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

5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back."17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, "I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" 30 They left the city and were on their way to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together .37 For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world." (John 4:5-42 NRSV)

A blessed and wonderful Wednesday to you, dear Friend! Welcome back to ConCafe! I always say that and wonder how you read that? I'm the one who has been away, but I did miss you! And I missed doing these devotionals. I confess I did enjoy the time off and time away with my bride. God has blessed us with 48 years of wedded bliss. Time is relative. My beloved laptop computer on which I write these devotionals was turned off on Tuesday morning last week as Nellie and I drove off to New Mexico and on Sunday when I tried to start it, it would not. The two power cords I have for it would not indicate it was receiving a charge and so my IT guy said it might be something other than a battery because even a computer without a battery would turn on if plugged in. When he asked how old my laptop was I said it couldn't be more than two years old. Today as I logged into the Apple website, it informed me that the laptop is five years old! I couldn't believe that it was that old! Reading the email report and description of of my "baby" laptop, it read like the thing had barely survived furious battles in the Pacific! So, 48 and 5 years just seem to run together! The damage is my laptop needs a new logic board (I may need two myself, but they don't make them that old!) and that will cost me $800 to fix. Gulp. And Ouch! But onward and upward! It will be ready in about 12 days and I use a desk top to write this.

I write this devotional in the state of Texas known for being hot and dry on most days. It's the heat that has driven some newcomers to head back home mighty quick. And the drought that has plagued our state is still with us. I drive over the Guadalupe River daily and as I glance at it from the bridge we're not too far away from the days when most of us can walk across what was once a mighty and beautiful river. One of my old parishioners replied once when talking about the drought that his doorbell rang and it was a catfish from the river asking for a glass of water. Jesus finds Himself thirsty, dry and dusty, and worn out from the walk He and his crew has undertaken to get to this touchy spot of Samaritan land. John puts it nicely when he says that "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans." It went deeper than that, but there are children present! Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. And she nicely replies, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" We should also note that the time of day is noon. High noon. Not normally the time most women would come to draw water from this well, but the belief is that given this woman's sinful past, she was not likely welcomed as a sister by other women at normal water-drawing times. The cool of the morning, the company and fellowship of neighbors, the daily rhythm of community were no longer hers to enjoy! She's alone in the heat because the weight of her past has pushed her to the margins.

And there Jesus waits — not to condemn her, but to offer her something she has never been given: the chance to be fully known and fully loved at the same time. “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband.’” He names her reality without shaming her. He sees all of it — and stays.

Lent asks us the same question Jesus asked the woman: “What are you thirsty for?” Not the polished, acceptable answer — but the true one. Have we been drawing water from wells that leave us empty? The well of achievement, of approval, of control, of comfort? Every one of those wells runs dry.

What makes this story remarkable is not only what Jesus offers, but what the woman does with it. She leaves her water jar — the very thing she came for — and runs back to her community. “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” The one who came to the well in shame departs as an evangelist. She becomes the first missionary in John’s Gospel, and her testimony brings an entire village to faith.

This is the pattern of grace: we come burdened, we are seen and loved, and we go transformed — carrying the news. The water we receive is never only for us.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, how awesome if Your love for all, even me! You came not to condemn the world, but to save it; so count me in with those who need to be saved from the empty wells and even from ourselves. Revive me and renew me and make me worthy of the living waters You so lovingly share with all who ask. I ask now, fill me til I want no more; fill me up and make me whole. Thank You! In Your name, I pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: This week, identify one person in your life who, like the woman at the well, may feel unseen, marginalized, or shut out. Reach out to them — not with answers or advice — but with the simple gift of your presence and attention. Listen to their story. Let your encounter with living water overflow into their life.

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.