Go to Your Brother

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's win the world for Jesus with our acts of love and kindness!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Remember and Praise

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

1 O give thanks to the Lord; call on his name; make known his deeds among the peoples. 2 Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works. 3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. 4 Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually. 5 Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles and the judgments he has uttered, 6 O offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones. 23 Then Israel came to Egypt; Jacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham. 24 And the Lord made his people very fruitful and made them stronger than their foes, 25 whose hearts he then turned to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants. 26 He sent his servant Moses and Aaron, whom he had chosen. Praise the Lord! (Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c NRSV)

Dear Friend, I pray this finds you well and enjoying God's blessings. Do you enjoy praising God? I believe God enjoys hearing our praises and our gratitude. As this psalm begins if we have been blessed by something good from God we should not hesitate or restrain our giving thanks to God. We're more than ready to share when good news comes our way, and the good news of God's love and mercy cannot be beat for the best news out there! If we know God as a worker of good among us, we should alert all people to that reality. Keep an open mind, an open heart and spirit as we read what this psalm is trying to share. Prayer Update: The Rev. Michael Dobbs underwent a successful gall bladder removal and is recovering at Doctor's Regional in Corpus Christi. Also, The Rev. Scott Bradford got a new update on his battle against prostate cancer. After retiring and moving to Colorado a VA doctor ordered an MRI and the battle continues. Our prayer is that Rev. Bradford be able to fight without surgery. Prayers for our brother and that God grant him a victory over this terrible illness. Please lift up these two servants of God in prayer for the victories they need. May God bless you in your struggles too! And prayers for this old man as I prepare for my early Friday morning cataract surgery in San Antonio.

The psalm opens like someone who simply cannot keep good news to themselves — "O give thanks to the Lord, call on His name, make known His deeds among the peoples!" There's an urgency to it, an almost breathless quality, as if the psalmist has just remembered something so important that sitting quietly is no longer an option. Sing to Him. Sing praises. Tell of His wonderful works. Glory in His holy name. Seek His presence continually. It's a list of commands that builds on itself like someone adding instruments to a song until the whole thing is gloriously loud and full and impossible to ignore.

And here's what's worth noticing right at the start: the psalmist isn't asking anyone to manufacture a feeling they don't have. He's doing something much more practical than that. He's calling the people to remember. "Remember the wonderful works He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He has uttered." Memory, in the biblical world, is not a passive exercise in nostalgia — it is an active, deliberate, almost disciplined practice of refusing to let what God has done get buried under what is currently hard. The psalm is essentially saying: before you look at your circumstances, look at your history with God. Before you assess what's in front of you, remember what He's already done behind you.

Then the psalm takes us somewhere unexpected — to Egypt, and to Moses and Aaron, and to the moment when God sent them as His servants to a people who had been in slavery so long that some of them had probably stopped believing they would ever be anything else. Israel had gone down to Egypt in the time of Joseph — that's the thread connecting our devotional series — and what began as a rescue from famine had become, over the generations, a captivity. The very land that saved them had become the land that enslaved them. And God, who had not forgotten a single one of His promises, chose two very ordinary men — a man with a speech impediment and his brother — and sent them to tell the most powerful ruler in the world that it was time to let the people go.

Now, if you were designing a liberation movement from scratch, Moses and Aaron might not be your first draft. Moses had a complicated history with Egypt, a self-described inability to speak well, and a tendency toward self-doubt that would try the patience of a less patient God. Aaron was essentially drafted because Moses kept asking for help. And yet these are the men God chose, and the choosing itself is the point — because when two men like that walk into Pharaoh's palace and eventually walk out with two million people behind them, nobody is confused about whose power made it happen. God has a long history of choosing the unlikely precisely because the unlikely make the best advertisement for what He alone can do.

The psalm closes this section with a word that connects everything — "Praise the Lord!" which in Hebrew is Hallelujah, the word that has been erupting from the throats of God's people in every language ever since. It's the word that belongs at the end of every chapter of the story where God has done what only He could do — freed the captive, used the unlikely, kept the forgotten promise, turned the Egypt that enslaved into the Egypt that was left behind on the way to something better. Hallelujah is what comes out of your mouth when you realize the story was never actually in danger of going wrong, even when it looked like it was.

And here's the Pentecost thread running quietly through all of it — the same Spirit who hovered over the waters at creation, who strengthened Moses and Aaron for an impossible assignment, who parted the Red Sea and led the people through the wilderness, is the Spirit who was poured out in wind and fire in Jerusalem and who now dwells in every person who belongs to Christ. The God who remembered Israel in Egypt has not developed a shorter memory since then. The God who chose Moses for what looked like an impossible task is still choosing ordinary, unlikely, self-doubting people for tasks that look just as impossible from the outside — and still showing up to do through them what they could never do without Him.

So give thanks. Call on His name. Make known His deeds to the people around you who need to hear them. Tell the story. Sing the song. And remember — before you look at what's in front of you today — what He has already done behind you. The track record is impeccable. The promises are intact. And Hallelujah is always the right response.

PRAYER: Lord, make us a people who remember Your faithfulness so vividly and so gratefully that our praise spills over into the lives of everyone around us. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Write down one specific thing God has done in your life that deserves a Hallelujah, and tell someone about it today — out loud, on purpose, as your act of making His deeds known.

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 as we share His love with all people.

Your in Christ Jesus,

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr. paypal.me/eradiovalverde

The Bush That Doesn't Stop Burning

Hear and View devo: https://bit.ly/45OXe88

3:1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation. (Exodus 3:1-15 NIV)

Dear Friend, today at this writing it is a sad day for many, many people at the news of the death of one of the greatest entertainers and humanitarians in the world; Ms. Dolly Parton. I remember her from way, way back when we would watch The Grand Ole Opry and the Porter Waggoner Show with Dolly as co-host and co-star. Later in her movies she became more and more real, in my opinion, and then stories leaked out of the many ways she helped the underprivileged; for she never forgot from whence she came and many were the blessings she shared and showered with so many. Her distinctive voice and countless stories she told in her songs, and many of them made larger by other stars, helped many become true believers in who she was and what she stood for. One of her family members said she was resting in the arms of Jesus. May it be so and may He help all who mourn her death while thanking God for her life.

It matters not what or who you were before you met God; it's what you allow God to make of you when God needs you. This has been true in my life and possibly yours as well. You may have worn torn shorts, walked barefoot through most of your early life and maybe a shirt that you didn't wash as often as it needed; but that was just a part of the transformation that can take place in your life before your interview with God when God reveals who you are to be. Please keep in mind it matters not your age now nor when finally this interview takes place; just that you're ready because you know it's coming! And when it does, you may look at both of your hands and wonder why these hands get to do the bidding of God in matters so sacred you keep looking over your shoulder waiting for the "real one" to show up; but it is you. Moses, like so many of the heroes of the Bible were just like you at one time; but when their time came, God showed up, and so did they. Eventually. So will you!

Moses is having, by any reasonable measure, a quiet life. He's tending his father-in-law Jethro's sheep out in the wilderness, which — let's be honest — is not exactly the résumé line you'd expect for the guy about to lead a nation out of slavery. Forty years earlier he was a prince of Egypt with a bright, complicated future. Now he's out past the desert, on the far side of nowhere, at a mountain called Horeb, doing the same job every day: watch the sheep, don't lose the sheep, go home. If Moses had a LinkedIn profile at this point, it would just say "shepherd" and nobody would be impressed.

And then he sees something odd. A bush is on fire, but it isn't burning up. Not smoldering, not collapsing into ash — just steadily, strangely on fire, indefinitely. Moses' reaction is wonderfully human: "I will go over and see this strange sight." Not "I will fall to my knees in holy terror" — just simple curiosity, the same instinct that makes you slow down for a car wreck or peek into a stranger's yard when something looks off. Moses goes to check it out because it's weird, and honestly, if a bush were doing that in my backyard, I'd go look too.

But the moment God sees that Moses has turned aside to look, everything shifts. God calls his name — twice, "Moses, Moses" — and tells him to take off his sandals, because the ground he's standing on is holy. Then comes the introduction: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses hides his face, because he's afraid to look at God.

It's worth sitting with that moment before rushing ahead, because so much is happening underneath the surface. God doesn't show up with fireworks over the palace where Moses used to live. He shows up in the most unremarkable setting imaginable — a random shrub, in a random pasture, in the middle of an ordinary workday — and turns it into the holiest ground Moses has ever stood on. God has this habit, doesn't he, of showing up in exactly the places we'd least expect to find him, and then informing us, after the fact, that we should have taken our shoes off.

God tells Moses he's seen the misery of his people in Egypt, heard their cry, and is concerned about their suffering. He's come down to rescue them and bring them to a good and spacious land flowing with milk and honey. And now — here's the turn — "I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

You can almost hear Moses' internal record scratch. Me?

Moses' response is the response of basically every person God has ever called to something enormous: "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" It's a fair question. Moses is a fugitive from Egyptian justice, a shepherd with a stutter he'll mention a few verses later, and his most recent encounter with Pharaoh's court ended with him fleeing for his life. On paper, he is possibly the single worst-qualified person in the ancient Near East for this job.

And God's answer isn't a résumé boost. He doesn't say "you're more capable than you think" or "you've got this." He says, simply: "I will be with you." That's the whole qualification. Not Moses' skill, not Moses' confidence, not Moses' past success — just the presence of God going with him.

Moses pushes further. Suppose I go to the Israelites and they ask me, "What is his name?" What should I tell them? And here we get one of the most theologically loaded verses in all of Scripture. God says, "I AM WHO I AM. Tell them 'I AM has sent me to you.'" It's not a name in the way we think of names — it's closer to an assertion of pure, self-existing being. God isn't one god among many with a name to distinguish him from the competition. He simply is, was, and will be — the eternal ground of existence itself, and yet somehow willing to crouch down into a burning bush and have a conversation with a nervous shepherd about sheep and stutters and Pharaoh.

That's the God who calls Moses. Not a tribal deity who needs Moses' talent to get the job done, but the great I AM, who invites ordinary, unqualified, reluctant people into extraordinary purposes — and then backs it up not with a pep talk, but with his own presence.

Maybe you've got your own version of Horeb — some ordinary field you've been tending for years, waiting for nothing in particular to happen. It's worth remembering that God's callings rarely arrive with a fanfare that matches their weight. Sometimes they arrive as a small, strange thing that simply won't stop burning, quietly insisting you come take a closer look.

PRAYER: Lord, give us the courage to turn aside and look, and the trust to go wherever you send us, believing your presence is enough, in Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Notice one place today where God might be trying to get your attention in something small and unremarkable, and pause long enough to actually look.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me. Together we can make a difference in this world by winning it for Jesus with our loving acts of kindness and compassion!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Love Without Pretending

Hear and View devo: https://bit.ly/4zCO9wU

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:9-21 NRS)

Friend, did you go to school with one or more "politicians"? By that I mean a fellow student who always asked how you were doing and walked away before you could answer? The kind where it gets so bad other students would say, "Let's change the expected "I'm fine" answer and say something is terribly wrong with us and see if that impacts them in any way. And of course, it never did. "Glad to hear it!" would be the response to "I'm having a terrible day and there seems to be no remedy!" Now, don't get me wrong, there are some, albeit a few, true policiians who truly do care about us. Okay, maybe two or three. Paul would have disliked going to school with the psuedo policiians because he uses this passage to encourage all believers in Jesus Christ to truly love one another in genuine ways. This passage will help us have a checklist of what that truly means.

Paul opens this section with a phrase that could double as a life motto if you stitched it on a pillow: let love be genuine. Or, as some translations put it, let love be without hypocrisy. Which tells you something important right up front — apparently fake love was common enough in the early church that Paul felt the need to specify. Some things never change. We've all met people who love you like a used car salesman loves you right up until the papers are signed.

But then Paul does something interesting. He doesn't just say "love genuinely" and leave it floating up in the clouds as a nice sentiment. He gets startlingly practical, almost like he's handing you a checklist. Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Love one another with mutual affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Don't lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, extend hospitality to strangers.

It reads almost breathless, like Paul is firing off wisdom faster than he can slow down to explain it — which, honestly, feels true to how real love actually operates. It's not one grand gesture. It's a hundred small, unglamorous choices strung together: showing up, sharing what you have, opening your door to people who might be strangers today and family by dinner.

Then Paul pivots to something that gets significantly harder: how we treat people who've wronged us. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Live in harmony with one another. Don't be haughty, associate with the lowly. Don't repay evil for evil. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

That little qualifier — "so far as it depends on you" — is one of the most quietly gracious phrases in all of Paul's writing. He's not naive. He knows peace takes two, and sometimes the other person isn't interested. He's not asking you to control what you can't control. He's asking you to make sure that if the peace fails, it isn't because you were the one who slammed the door.

And then comes the verse that tends to make everyone shift a little in their seat: never avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.

I love the honesty buried in that image, because it admits something we don't often say out loud in church: even our kindness to enemies can carry a little edge to it. There's something almost satisfying about the coals metaphor — like Paul is saying, "yes, fine, if you want your enemy to feel something, try relentless generosity. It'll do more damage to their conscience than your anger ever could." Kindness as a strategy, not just a virtue. Paul's not asking you to pretend you don't notice the wrong done to you. He's asking you to respond to it with a weapon evil doesn't know how to defend against.

The chapter closes with the line that ties the whole thing together: do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

That's really the argument of this whole passage, isn't it. Evil is contagious — it wants to multiply itself, turn your anger into their excuse, turn one wrong into two. Paul's entire strategy here is refusing to let that chain reaction happen through you. Somebody has to break the cycle, and Paul says: let it be you, let it be love, let it be genuine enough that it doesn't run out when it gets inconvenient.None of this is easy. Paul isn't describing a personality type some people are lucky enough to have. He's describing a way of living that has to be chosen, often daily, sometimes through gritted teeth, especially with the people who make it least convenient. But that's exactly why it matters — a love that only shows up when it's easy was never really the love Paul was describing in the first place.

PRAYER: Lord, teach us to love without pretending, to bless instead of curse, and to overcome evil with good even when it costs us something, in Jesus' strong name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Pick one person today who's difficult to love, and do one concrete, practical kindness for them before the day ends.

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 showing genuine love to all people in real ways.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Cross Before the Crown

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

21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. 28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:21-28 NIV)

Happy Monday, Friend! I pray the joy of the Lord is your strength! A joyful strength is what the world needs! With that strength we can face all things and make life better for many. Use joy in your prayers as we pray for one another, even those we don't know. God knows all people and so when we lift up a name, God knows exactly who that is! Love all people and seek to bless other with loving acts of kindness.

I've said it many times before and I still believe that Peter is the man. He reminds me of me that many times he and I rushed into things and many times spoke before reflecting, and this passage reinforces that. Let's look deeply at this passage and what it may say to you and me.

Here's the thing about Peter — you have to love him, even when he's getting it spectacularly wrong, because he gets it wrong in the most relatable way possible. Just a few verses earlier he had the finest moment of his life: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus praised him, gave him the keys of the kingdom, told him that flesh and blood hadn't revealed this but the Father Himself. Peter was on top of the world. The ink was barely dry on his greatest theological achievement when Jesus begins to explain what being the Messiah actually means — suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection — and Peter pulls Jesus aside and begins to rebuke Him. The same Peter. The same conversation. The same afternoon.

"Never, Lord! This shall never happen to You!" It's said with complete sincerity and obvious love and total confidence, which makes what Jesus says next both necessary and a little startling: "Get behind me, Satan!" Now, before we feel too sorry for Peter, it's worth noting that this is the second time in the Gospels that Jesus has said those words — the first was to the actual devil in the wilderness. Peter has managed to land himself in some very uncomfortable company through the simple act of trying to protect Jesus from the cross. His heart was in the right place. His theology was not. He was so focused on a Messiah who would win without suffering that he couldn't hear the one standing in front of him explaining that the winning would come through the suffering.

And isn't that one of the most human things in all of Scripture? We all have a version of Peter's speech somewhere inside us — the part that wants the crown without the cross, the resurrection without the dying, the transformation without the process that produces it. We want the outcome but we'd like to negotiate the path, please, and perhaps remove the parts that are uncomfortable and time-consuming and don't fit our preferred timeline. Jesus looks at that tendency in all of us with the same gentle, firm directness He aimed at Peter: you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of humans.

But then — and this is where the passage opens into something genuinely beautiful — Jesus doesn't stop at the correction. He turns to the disciples and issues an invitation that is both a warning and one of the most liberating things He ever said: "Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me." Not "you must" in the sense of reluctant obligation. "Whoever wants" — it's an open door, a willing choice, an invitation extended to anyone who is actually interested in what following Jesus produces. The cross is not something He sneaks up on you with after you've already committed. He puts it right in the front of the brochure.

And then He says the thing that sounds paradoxical until you actually try it, and then it sounds like the truest sentence you've ever heard: "Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it." This is the great inversion at the heart of the gospel — the life that is clutched and managed and protected and optimized for maximum self-preservation turns out to be the life that empties itself of everything worth having. And the life that is released, offered, poured out in the following of Jesus turns out to be the only life that actually fills up. This is not a threat. It is the most practical piece of life advice in the New Testament, confirmed by every person who has ever genuinely tried it.

Jesus closes with a question that deserves to be written somewhere you'll see it regularly: "What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" The whole world. Every achievement, every accumulation, every successful grab at security and status and comfort — if it comes at the cost of the thing that makes you actually you, the deepest and most essential you that God made and loves and is calling home, what exactly have you won? And the good news tucked right inside that searching question is this: your soul is worth more than the whole world to the One who made it. You are not being asked to deny yourself because you don't matter. You are being asked to deny yourself because you matter so much that God wants more for you than the world can offer.

Take up the cross. Lose the life that was never really working anyway. Follow the one who is going somewhere worth going — and who has already paid, in full, the price that makes the journey possible.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, give us the courage to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow You into the life that only surrender can produce. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one specific thing you have been holding onto for self-protection that Jesus might be inviting you to release today, and take one step toward opening your hand and following Him.

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!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

paypal.me/eradiovalverde

If God Had Not Been On Our Side

Hear and view the devo:https://bit.ly/4xc8tUj

1 If the Lord had not been on our side— let Israel say— 2 if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us, 3 they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us; 4 the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, 5 the raging waters would have swept us away.

6 Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. 7 We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 124 NIV)

Dear FRIEND, Happy Thursday! Sorry about the multiple emails I sent yesterday. I thought I had added the audio and video component to the devotional and I hadn't. I sent the email without realizing that I hadn't attached it. It may have been that all of yesterday I spent in completing the major exam to continue selling Medicare Advantage plans; the AHIP, an exam that requires a 90 or higher in order to continue to pass. There are modules to explain each of the 5 components and then an exam on each; then the actual major exam. The process is mentally exhausting and thank God I passed and I am almost ready for the Annual Enrollment Period (Oct 15-Dec 7) if I get re-certified in each of the insurance carriers that I represent. And this morning (Wednesday) I did a required Anti-Money Laundering course required by most life insurance companies. I also took an exam for one (1) hour of Continuing Education credit required for my license as an agent in Texas. My good friend Ricardo Gonzalez has shared this Prayer Request: "Dear Church Family, please pray for me and my wife Maridol as we travel to San Antonio tomorrow. I am scheduled for a spinal injection on Friday morning. Please pray for safety on the road, wisdom for the physicians, and a smooth, successful procedure that brings healing and long lasting strength. Thank you for your continued support and prayers. God Bless." May the Lord bless the Gonzalez' with all they need for this trip to be a success and a blessing to Ricardo and Maridol. In Jesus' name, amen!

Remember in the olden days when for fun you would find yourself waiting to be chosen to play a particular sport and once you were on a side the coach would decide which team would be shirts and which side would be skins. Skins means no shirt. The pain was the doubt that some teams might not want you or the humiliation that we might be picked last; but all that aside, once you were on a side, that was your side and you played and fought hard to win. This psalm is about sides and the side God takes.

David opens this psalm with a thought experiment that is equal parts sobering and clarifying — "If the Lord had not been on our side" — and then immediately repeats it, as if once isn't enough to really let the weight of it land. If the Lord had not been on our side. Say it slowly. Think about whatever it is you've come through — the thing that could have swallowed you, the thing that nearly did — and then ask yourself honestly: how did that actually turn out the way it did? Because David is suggesting that if you trace it back carefully enough, you'll find a presence at work that has nothing to do with your own sufficiency.

The imagery he reaches for is vivid and almost cinematic. If God had not been there, he says, the flood would have engulfed them, the torrent would have swept over them, the raging waters would have swallowed them whole. He's not being poetic for the sake of it — the people of Israel had faced genuine existential threats, the kind that should have ended them by any reasonable calculation. The Egyptians at the Red Sea. The wilderness that should have been a graveyard. The enemies on every side who were bigger, better armed, and considerably less anxious about the outcome than Israel was. And David looks back at the whole catalogue of should-have-ended-us moments and draws the only conclusion that fits the evidence: we are here because God was there.

Then the image shifts from water to a trap — a snare that has been broken, and the bird that was caught in it is now free. This is a different kind of threat than the flood. The flood is overwhelming and obvious; you can see it coming. The snare is subtle, concealed, designed to catch you before you know it's there. And yet both of them have the same result when God is on your side — the flood doesn't swallow you, and the snare doesn't hold you. The bird has escaped, and the point is not how clever the bird was or how carefully it navigated the trap. The point is that the trap is broken. Something outside the bird's own capabilities did the breaking.

There's something wonderfully democratic about this psalm. David doesn't say only the especially faithful will be saved from the flood, or only the particularly discerning will escape the snare. He speaks in the first person plural — we, us, our — because the help he's describing is not a reward for the best performers but the character of a God who has consistently, persistently, sometimes inexplicably been on the side of a people who had done nothing to deserve it. The snare was broken not because the bird was exceptional but because the Lord is who He is. Our help, the psalm concludes, is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Not in our strategies. Not in our resources. Not even in our faith, though faith matters. In His name. In who He is.

This is the testimony that runs through the entire biblical story, and it reaches its fullest expression in a garden tomb that couldn't hold what was placed in it. The ultimate flood — death itself — should have been the end of everything. The ultimate snare — the cross — should have held its captive. And the ultimate testimony of the Christian faith is that the flood was turned back and the snare was broken and the bird flew free on Easter morning, because the Maker of heaven and earth was on our side in a way that not even death could contain. The help that Israel needed from their enemies is the same help that every human being needs from the enemy of death, and it came in the person of Jesus, who walked into the worst the flood and the snare could do and walked out the other side carrying the keys.

So when we say "our help is in the name of the Lord," we're not being vaguely optimistic or reciting a religious phrase that sounds good on a Sunday morning. We're making a claim about something that actually happened, in history, in a body, with empty grave clothes left behind as evidence. The snare is broken. The bird has flown. And the same God who was on Israel's side in the wilderness is on your side in whatever flood you're navigating and whatever snare you're trying not to step in right now.

If the Lord had not been on our side. Finish the sentence with your own story. And then let the second half of the psalm be your response — the exhale of a bird that just realized the trap isn't holding anymore.

PRAYER: Lord, make us a people who remember clearly enough that You have been on our side to praise You loudly enough that the world around us hears it. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! Make it such for those around you, too! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Tell one person today about a specific time when the Lord was on your side in a way that should not have worked out — and let your testimony be the psalm you sing this week.

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.

Living Sacrifice

Hear and view devo: https://bit.ly/4xh72Uk 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:1-8 ESV)

As a child I loved to read comic books. And I also loved the ads! My favorite was the one by Charles Atlas whose body-building course appealed to me. Being a child that enjoyed too much flour and sugar, well, you understand. The ad's price was never shown and I was smart enough even then to know I probably could not afford the course. I later found out that his name was not even Charles Atlas! It was Angelo Siciliano born in Italy in 1892 and immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, as a child. As a young man, he was determined to transform himself from what he described as a skinny, weak youth into a muscular and confident adult. He developed a system of exercises that later became known as "Dynamic Tension." The ads featured a skinny boy having sand kicked in his face which motivated Angelo to become Charles Atlas. I was in junior high when I made a good friend who owned the courses and he gave them to me! I really believed that at 14 I was the strongest I had ever been in my life. I still do. But with no telephone books around I can't prove that any longer. Heck, I have trouble opening a Frito's bag!

Paul has spent eleven chapters of Romans building the most comprehensive theological argument in the New Testament — justification, grace, the sovereignty of God, the mystery of Israel, the mercy that swallows everything (Just why this epistle is called The Gospel According to Paul!) — and now, in chapter 12, he arrives at the practical implications, and he starts with the body. Not the soul. Not the spirit. The body. Could we call Paul the "Charles Atlas of the Faith?" He writes, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." If you were expecting Paul to spiritualize everything he's just said into a series of interior attitudes, he's about to disappoint you in the best possible way. The gospel has an address, and that address is your actual physical life — the one with the schedule and the habits and the Monday morning and the recurring temptations and the things you do when nobody's watching.

A living sacrifice is, when you think about it, a genuinely unusual concept. In the ancient world, the whole point of a sacrifice was that it stopped living. The animals was offered to God to take the burden of sin in the human. The animal didn't get to wander off the altar. But Paul is describing something different — a sacrifice that stays on the altar not because it can't get off, but because it chooses to remain there. Which means the challenge isn't getting on the altar once; it's staying on it when everything in you wants to climb back down and run the show yourself. Every morning is essentially a new opportunity to either present your body again as a living sacrifice or slide quietly off the altar before breakfast and resume the management of your own life. Most of us know which one tends to win before the coffee is ready. Be honest!

Then Paul says the line that has probably been quoted more times than almost any other in Romans: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Conformed is a passive word — it describes something that happens to you when you stop paying attention, when you simply absorb the shape of whatever surrounds you long enough. Water takes the shape of its container. Christians who stop actively resisting conformity will take the shape of the culture around them — not dramatically, not all at once, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, the way a river slowly changes the landscape. The transformation Paul calls for is the active alternative — the daily, Spirit-enabled renewal of the mind that changes not just what you do but how you think, what you value, what you notice, what you desire.

And here is where the gifts come in, and Paul's tone shifts to something almost playful in its matter-of-factness. He says we are all one body in Christ, each of us members of one another — and then he just starts listing gifts. In Ephesus, on our tour of the Holy Land, we saw an ancient museum from Paul's time, that featured different model of the parts of the body; hands, feet, head, etc. And it is believed that as Paul toured it, he got the inspiration for this belief. Prophecy. Ministry. Teaching. Exhortation. Giving. Leading. Compassion. He lists them without ranking them, without suggesting that some are more important or more spiritual than others, without building any kind of hierarchy. The person who gives generously and the person who leads and the person who shows compassion with cheerfulness are all in the same list, treated with the same weight. There is no hint that any of these gifts is the point — the body is the point, and the gifts are what make the body function the way it's supposed to.

This is where the renewed mind becomes visible. When you stop being conformed to the world's way of measuring worth — by status, by visibility, by how many people are watching when you do the thing — and start thinking with a renewed mind, you discover that showing compassion cheerfully and giving generously and teaching faithfully are not lesser gifts being offered on a lesser altar. They are the body doing exactly what the head, who is Christ, designed it to do. The gift you have is not accidental and it is not optional. It was given by the Spirit, for the body, for the moment you are living in.

The Pentecost connection runs right through the middle of this passage. The Spirit poured out in that Upper Room came not to give everyone the same gift but to give each person what was needed for the whole body to function — which is exactly what Paul is describing here. The diversity of gifts is not a design flaw in the church; it is the design. A body that was all eyes or all ears would be, as Paul says elsewhere, a very odd body. What you bring to the community of faith is not redundant. It is necessary. And the renewed mind that the Spirit cultivates is what allows you to offer it without comparing it to someone else's gift, without wishing you were the eye when you're the ear, without sliding off the altar because nobody seems to be noticing what the ear does.

Stay on the altar. Keep showing up with the gift you've been given. The body needs what you carry more than you probably know. That will mean praying for those you don't even know; sharing with the needy when you used to say no way and "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!" Give because it was given to you.

PRAYER: Lord, renew our minds by Your Spirit so that we offer our bodies and our gifts as living sacrifices — cheerfully, faithfully, and free from the conformity that would make us something less than You designed us to be. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! And make it the same for those around you! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify the specific gift Paul would put on his list that best describes how God has wired you, and find one concrete way to use it in the body of Christ this week — without comparing it to anyone else's.

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

Let's win the world for Jesus!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

Hear and View this devo: https://bit.ly/4xNvRY8

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. (Matthew 16:13-20 NIV)

Friend, can you visit a doctor's office or make a telephone call asking for help or stay at a hotel without getting a text or email with a survey attached? Try calling the federal Medicare help line and guess what? "You've been selected to participate in a short survey about our service! Press 1 for the worst service you've ever had in the world to 5 which is the greatest service the world has ever seen." Okay, I stretch it a bit, but you get what I am saying. Today's passage has a question that some may say is a survey question that Jesus asks about Himself.

Jesus asks the disciples a question that sounds almost like He's conducting a public opinion survey, which is a little amusing when you think about it — the Son of God, checking His approval ratings. "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" The disciples, apparently having kept up with the local gossip, have a ready answer: some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah or one of the prophets. The crowd, in other words, has Jesus in the category of "significant religious figure, possibly with a connection to someone who came before." High praise by any ordinary standard. Not even close to sufficient.

And then Jesus pivots. The survey is over. He's not actually interested in the crowd's opinion — He's interested in theirs. "But what about you? Who do you say I am?" That little word "you" lands differently than the first question. The first question was about what's out there, what people are saying, what the general consensus is. This question is personal. Intimate. It's the difference between asking someone what the critics think of a movie and asking them what they thought of it. Jesus is not asking for a theological position paper. He's asking for a personal declaration.

Peter, being Peter, doesn't hesitate. While the others are presumably still formulating their responses, weighing their words, making sure they get this right, Peter is already talking. "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." It's complete. It's correct. And it comes with an immediacy that tells you something about Peter — he's not always right, but he's rarely slow. This happens to be one of his finest moments, and Jesus receives it as exactly what it is: not the conclusion of a careful theological argument but a revelation. "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." Nobody told Peter to say that. Nobody taught him to arrive at that conclusion through a series of logical steps. The Father opened something in him, and what came out was the truth.

And then Jesus says something that has shaped the church's understanding of itself for two thousand years: "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." There has been a great deal of debate over the centuries about exactly what the rock is — is it Peter personally, is it the confession Peter just made, is it Christ Himself as the foundation? Theologians have been cheerfully arguing about this since approximately the second century, and we will not resolve it here this morning. What is less debated, and what matters enormously for how we live, is what Jesus says the church will be able to do once it is built: not even the gates of Hades will overcome it.

Now, gates are defensive structures. Gates don't go anywhere — they stand and hold a position. Which means that the image Jesus is painting is not the church huddled behind its own gates hoping the enemy doesn't break through. It's the church advancing, moving forward, pressing against the gates of death and darkness and finding that those gates — however solid they appear — cannot hold against the authority that Jesus is about to hand to His people. "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Keys open things. Keys give access. Keys are given to people who are trusted with the household.

The church Jesus describes here is not a museum for people who have already figured everything out. It is a movement of people who have said — with Peter, with whatever degree of confidence and whatever remaining uncertainty we each carry — You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. That declaration is the foundation. Not a perfect life. Not a spotless record. Not a performance that earned the keys. A confession. And on that confession, the Spirit who was poured out at Pentecost came to inhabit and empower a community that would carry those keys into every place where the gates of darkness were still holding.

The gates are still standing in a lot of places. The darkness is still real in a lot of lives. But the church — the community of people who have answered the personal question with Peter's personal answer — has been given the keys. Not to keep them polished and hanging on the wall, but to use them. To open things. To loose what has been bound. To press against gates that look solid and discover that the one who promised has not overstated the case.

PRAYER: Lord, give us the courage of Peter's confession and the boldness to use the keys You have placed in our hands for the sake of a world where so many gates still need opening. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Answer Jesus's personal question for yourself today — not the crowd's answer, not the theologian's answer, but yours — and let that declaration be the foundation from which you press against one closed gate in your world this week.

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

Let's win the world for Jesus by our love,

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Irrevocable

Hear and View devo: https://bit.ly/4qh8J1J

11:1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: 29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. 30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. 32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 NIV)

Welcome to ConCafe (again) Friend! I pray this finds you well and enjoying this day! May the Lord show you the path you should take in all situations is my prayer for you. I spoke with Rev. Onweiler's daughter this morning and he is weaker today than yesterday but holding on. May we continue to pray for Harold and Roma and family. Prayers for Mr. Clay Pace's Kairos friend "Tim Acklin who is in the hospital where they are trying to find the source of his internal bleeding." May it be soon and complete. Pray for one another! Pray for our world and the need for peace in each heart especially those who lead.

I am convinced that the more I request to be unsubscribed from spam mail the moment I type in my email address so they know who's requesting it, they must enter it into 500 more spam email servers! God have mercy on us! I know these spammer feel no sense of rejection for they must know of their sins! In the early days of ConCafe I had the option on that alerted me to the people who unsubscribed from ConCafe, and being only human I feel pain in knowing that not only was I not reaching them they no longer wanted to be bothered with my emails. But we come a passage that addresses the question about God rejecting His people.

Paul opens this passage with a question that sounds almost defensive, and knowing Paul, that's probably intentional: "Did God reject His people?" You can almost hear the sharp intake of breath from his Jewish readers. This is the question that everything he's said in the previous chapters seems to be building toward, the uncomfortable logical conclusion that some of his readers were quietly drawing: if Israel largely missed Jesus, if the covenant people stumbled over their own Messiah, does that mean God gave up on them? Does it mean the promises are cancelled, the relationship terminated, the whole covenant history of Abraham and Moses and David filed away under "didn't work out"?

Paul answers with the Greek equivalent of absolutely not, no way, perish the thought — and then, with what you have to imagine is at least a small smile, offers himself as exhibit A. "I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin." In other words: you want proof that God hasn't rejected Israel? You're reading a letter from the proof. The man who once held the coats of the people stoning Stephen and then spent years dragging Christians to prison is now the primary theologian of the movement he tried to destroy. If God's mercy can find Saul of Tarsus on a road to Damascus and turn him into Paul the Apostle, the argument that God has given up on anybody becomes considerably harder to sustain.

And then Paul moves to something that should slow every one of us down long enough to actually think about it: "for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable." Irrevocable. That's not a soft word. It means it cannot be called back, cannot be undone, cannot be revised in light of subsequent behavior. What God gives, He gives. What God calls, He calls. Not on a trial basis. Not subject to renewal pending performance review. The gifts and the call of God don't have an expiration date printed on the bottom, and they don't come with a return policy that God activates when we disappoint Him. This is, when you sit with it, one of the most stabilizing sentences in all of Scripture — not because it means behavior doesn't matter, but because it means the foundation of our relationship with God is not our grip on Him but His grip on us, and His grip doesn't slip.

What follows is one of the most gloriously counterintuitive statements in the whole letter: "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on all." Read that again slowly, because it sounds almost backwards. God allowed the disobedience — in Israel, in the Gentiles, in all of us — not as a punishment but as the setup for the mercy. The whole human story of going our own way, of missing the mark, of the stubborn self-direction that characterizes every person who has ever lived — all of it was allowed within the sovereign purposes of a God who intended, from before any of it started, to meet it with mercy. Not because He approves of disobedience. Not because sin doesn't matter. But because the mercy He wanted to show was always bigger than the problem it was answering, and the problem needed to be fully acknowledged before the mercy could be fully displayed.

This is, honestly, a little humbling if you think about it too hard. We would have preferred a story in which we were never disobedient and God was simply pleased with us. But that's not the story. The story is that we were all, in our various ways, bound over to our own stubbornness, and the mercy that met us there is the mercy that now defines us — not our disobedience but the grace that answered it. Paul is saying that the very thing that looks like the problem — the human capacity for going wrong — turned out to be the occasion for the most magnificent display of mercy in the history of the universe. The cross was not plan B. It was always the point.

This connects directly to Joseph's story that our series has been following. The brothers who sold Joseph intended disobedience. The Egyptians who imprisoned him were instruments of injustice. And God took all of it — every act of human wrongness in that long chain of events — and bent it toward mercy, toward the moment when Joseph could say to the very brothers who had betrayed him: you intended this for harm, but God intended it for good. The mercy was always larger than the wrong. It just needed the whole story to play out before you could see it clearly.

And that is where we live — in the middle of the story, where the disobedience is still very visible and the mercy is sometimes harder to see. But the promise of this passage is that the mercy is not losing. The gifts are irrevocable. The call stands. And the God who took human disobedience and turned it into the occasion for the cross is the God who is still taking our mess and working it toward something only He could have designed.

PRAYER: Loving Lord, thank You that Your gifts are irrevocable and Your mercy is always larger than our disobedience — hold us in that mercy today and let it make us people of generous grace toward others. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one person in your life you've mentally written off as beyond God's reach, and let the irrevocable mercy of this passage change how you pray for them this week.

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

Love your neighbor as yourself!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Please support this ministry with your prayers and gifts: paypal.me/eradiovalverde

When Crumbs Are Enough

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus doesn't answer her. Not a word.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

What is God Preparing for You?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Dreamer in the Pit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PRAYER: Loving Lord, remind us when we are in the pit that You are already in Egypt, preparing what we cannot yet see, working through what was meant for harm toward a redemption larger than our current suffering. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Tell God today about the pit you're in, and ask Him specifically to show you one sign that He is already at work ahead of you, turning what was meant for harm toward a purpose only He can see.

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

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

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.