Devotional

But the Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous; you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers. Jeremiah 20:11-13 STORY Moric Mermelstein was born Sept. 25, 1926, in Mukachevo, a thriving Jewish community nestled in…

Idolatry I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love…

Compassion David Livingstone was one of the most famous Scottish missionaries to Africa, although he did more exploring than missionary work. He has been censured for gun-running, lying about his discoveries, and placing tribes at disadvantage by neglecting promises he made them. Nonetheless he did much to awaken the world to the horror of the Arab slave trade, which he called a “monster of iniquity brooding over Africa” and “this trade in hell.” Writing to his wife Mary Livingstone from Bashinge on March 20, 1855, he recounted an incident in the slave-trade he had seen that day. Referring to a slave-agent…

Compassion “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was…

Church When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Acts 2:1-4 I must first dispel the myth that the church was conceived on the Day of Pentecost. The church was birthed in the Upper…

Suffering Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. Now go, I…

Social Justice Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing clearly the light of the gospel of the glory…

Salvation 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15 Meditation Paul presents a theological discourse that is presented to us as a two-part story. If it were a play, we could consider it to be a play with two acts. Act One puts Adam on the stage before us and his disobedience. Act Two puts Jesus on the stage before us and his obedience. In Act One we see Adam on stage, who is instructed…

Christmas Homily The Christmas Truce that occurred on December 24, 1914, during the war to end all wars, is still, a hundred-years later, considered a miracle. Along two-thirds of the thirty-mile front guns fell silent. The first signs that something strange was happening occurred at 8:30 p.m. as an officer of the Royal Irish Rifles reported to headquarters: “Germans have illuminated their trenches, are singing songs and wishing us a Happy Xmas. Compliments are being exchanged but am nevertheless taking all military precautions.” Further along the line the two sides serenaded each other with carols, as the German sang Silent…

The message of Thanksgiving and the message of Christmas are always packaged into one message – so, on this Thursday, as Thanksgiving is always observed on Thursday… Homily Norman Rockwell longed to use his artistic abilities to support the war effort. It was his desire to display the “big idea,” summarizing the ideal for which Americans were fighting. Months passed without an inspiring thought. Suddenly at 3:00 AM on Thursday, July 16, 1942, Rockwell sat bolt upright in bed with the answer. President Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, pronounced “four essential human freedoms” that justified the nation’s…