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Devotional

SACRED SIGNS OF SUBVERSION, Part 21: Tree of Life

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Read Deuteronomy 21:22–23; Matthew 27:32–44

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.” (1 Peter 2:24 NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 21: Tree of Life” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 21: Tree (The Cross). Before the Cross ever hung in sanctuaries or appeared on necklaces, it was a tree—cut down, stripped, and reshaped into an instrument of terror. Rome didn’t use crosses for spiritual symbolism; they used them to maintain order. A crucified body was a message to the masses: This is what happens if you defy us. The Cross was state-sponsored intimidation—public, humiliating, and brutally effective.

But long before Rome weaponized wood, Israel cherished another sacred tree: the Tree of Life in Eden. In Jewish tradition, this tree represented more than immortality. It symbolized humanity’s unbroken relationship with God—wholeness, union, divine vitality. In Kabbalah, the Tree of Life becomes a map of divine presence flowing into creation, the sefirot expressing God’s wisdom, compassion, strength, and glory. The Tree of Life is not mythic decoration—it is the architecture of existence, the very structure through which God’s life nourishes the world.

And the first tragedy of Scripture is exile from that Tree. Not because God is petty or punitive, but because God grieves what humanity has chosen. Genesis shows us not an enraged deity forcing humanity out, but a God who laments what must happen. If humanity, fractured by sin, had reached out and eaten from the Tree of Life, we would have eternalized our brokenness. We would have lived forever in sin. God could not and would not permit that. So the exile becomes protection, not condemnation—divine grief wrapped in divine wisdom. God’s heart breaks, yet God acts to preserve the possibility of healing. And from that moment on, God begins preparing another path to life: a different Tree, a different Garden, a different way home. The banishment from Eden is not the end of the story; it is the beginning of redemption.

This sets the stage for the scandal of the Cross.Deuteronomy 21 says, “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” So when Jesus is nailed to that dead tree, many concluded He could not be the Messiah. The logic seemed airtight: if the Messiah is blessed and the Cross is a curse, then a crucified man cannot be the Messiah. Yet God interrupts that interpretation entirely. While the world points and says, “He hangs on a tree—He is cursed,” God effectively answers, “Who told you He was cursed? That is your conclusion, not Mine. This is not the curse of God. This is who I AM—entering your suffering, not abandoning it.”

And here is where the doctrinal waters often get stirred. Some have taken the temple-sacrifice metaphors of the New Testament and built an entire system around the idea that God demanded Jesus’ death to be satisfied. But the Cross is not divine punishment demanded by God—it is divine protest against the violence humanity directs at itself and at anyone who embodies God’s justice and compassion. God did not put Jesus on the Cross. Human sin did. Human fear did. Human cruelty did. The temple language is descriptive, not prescriptive; it uses the theological vocabulary available at the time to articulate a mystery far deeper than sacrifice-as-payment. Jesus does not die because God needs blood. Jesus dies because the world cannot tolerate love in its purest form—and God chooses to meet us there, not because God requires it, but because we do.

Jesus is not cursed by God; Jesus is God entering the very place humanity believes God refuses to go. And once that is seen, everything changes. The Cross is no longer the Tree of curse; it becomes the Tree of Life replanted. A living tree is cut down and turned into an instrument of death, yet God transforms that dead tree into the conduit of eternal life. Not because the wood itself has magic power, but because the One who hangs upon it is the Source of Life the first tree symbolized.

The early Church fathers recognized this transformation. They wrote of the Cross as the “Tree of Life whose fruit never decays,” the wood that heals the wound of the first tree, the branches that stretch across the world offering shelter. In Christ, the exile from Eden ends. The separation is bridged. The divine flow returns. The Cross doesn’t stand as a symbol of divine wrath but as a symbol of divine reclamation—God taking the worst thing humanity could do and turning it into the place where salvation blossoms.

This also means the Cross unmasks every system built on domination, fear, and cruelty. It confronts the powers—religious or political—that justify harm “for the greater good.” Jesus didn’t die on the Tree to reinforce the systems that killed Him. Jesus died on the Tree to liberate us from them. The Tree of Rome becomes the Tree of Life restored. The instrument of execution becomes the instrument of communion. The place of death becomes the place where the universe is stitched back together.

Resurrection is not an afterthought; it is the releafing of the Tree. The Cross blossoms. Life flows. The gates of the Garden open once more. The way home stands revealed—not through dominance or fear, but through the unfailing love of God.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The Cross is the dead tree God made live again—so the world could live again too.

PRAYER
Life-Giving God, You turn instruments of death into branches of healing. You uproot the curse we created and plant the Tree of Life in its place. Draw us into the flow of Your mercy. Heal our separation. Break our allegiance to every power that harms. Make us people of resurrection life. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Symbols of Subversion, Part 2: Cross

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By Rev. Todd R. Lattig

Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23 NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E (OpenAI) and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Cross” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 2: The Cross. The cross is no trinket. It is no harmless decoration. It was a grotesque, horrific instrument of capital punishment, designed not only to kill but to humiliate and terrorize. Crucifixion was slow, brutal, and deliberately public.

The condemned were tied or nailed naked to wooden beams, stripped of dignity as well as clothing, and left to suffocate under the weight of their own body. Each breath became harder than the last. The body’s weight pressed down on the lungs, so the victim had to push up on torn feet just to inhale, each movement scraping flesh against rough wood. Hours stretched into days.

Friends and family, if they dared to come near, could only watch in grief as their loved one slowly collapsed under the strain. Meanwhile, the scent of blood carried far, drawing insects to swarm the wounds and scavenger birds to circle overhead. Dogs or jackals sometimes prowled beneath the crosses, waiting for what Rome would not bother to bury. Crucifixion was not only execution; it was degradation, meant to erase humanity itself.

To put it in modern terms, it would be as if a faith today chose the electric chair, the noose, the firing squad, or the lethal injection needle as its central symbol. That’s how scandalous the cross was in the first century. And yet, Christians did exactly that. They lifted high what the world despised. They proclaimed Christ crucified. Paul admitted it sounded like foolishness—who builds a movement around a state execution?—but to those who believed, it became the very power of God.

Over time, though, the scandal faded. The cross was polished, gilded, carved into pulpits, worn as jewelry. It became safe, sentimental, even weaponized. Some hold it up as a symbol of cultural dominance or political power—ironically, the very thing it meant to the Romans who first used it. But here is the subversion: Christians inverted the meaning. Rome used the cross to proclaim its absolute power; the Church proclaimed the cross as the place where God’s love broke the empire’s grip. What began as a tool of terror became, in Christ, the sign of salvation.

This is one reason why I do not, under any circumstance, support the death penalty. Yes, there are passages of Scripture that seem to condone it. But I believe the Gospel itself must be our standard, and Jesus’ teachings must be our guide. Jesus was himself a victim of capital punishment, executed as an enemy of the state. To hold up the cross while endorsing modern executions feels, to me, like a contradiction too deep to reconcile. That is my position, one I live and teach true to. I do not judge those who struggle with it, because I have too. And I certainly do not condemn those who disagree. But I cannot escape the reality that the cross calls us to something different.

To take up the cross daily is not to wear a charm, but to embrace a costly way of life. It is to stand with the condemned, not condemn them further. It is to resist the cruelty of empire, not baptize it as righteous. It is to embody love, not vengeance—even in the face of death.

The cross still subverts every attempt to wrap violence in the language of virtue, every effort to sanctify exclusion, every excuse we make for injustice. It will not let us demonize LGBTQ people, scapegoat people of color, or silence women who cry out after being assaulted. It will not let us trample the marginalized while pretending to defend the faith.

Christ will not be hijacked by nationalists, culture warriors, or power-hungry voices who try to turn the Gospel into a weapon. Instead, the cross dares us to see Christ—broken, bleeding, condemned—and still confess: this is the One who saves us.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The cross is not a decoration but a defiant witness: Christ crucified, and Christ alone as Lord.

PRAYER
God of mercy, forgive us when we make the cross safe or sentimental. Teach us again to see it for what it is: the place where empire’s violence met your radical love. Help me to follow Christ with courage, standing with the suffering, rejecting vengeance, and living the way of costly grace. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 1: The Sign of the Cross

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Read Matthew 28:18-20

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16 NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E (OpenAI) and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Sign of the Cross” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 1: Sign of the Cross. From the earliest days of the Church, Christians marked themselves with the cross. Tracing forehead, chest, and shoulders was a prayer in motion—a way to remember baptism, to claim protection in Christ, and to show where their allegiance lay. To sign yourself with the cross in the Roman world was risky; it announced to all that you belonged not to Caesar but to Christ. In times of persecution, when even a whispered prayer could invite danger, the sign of the cross was a visible act of courage. It reminded believers that their lives were not their own—they had been bought with a price.

There is also the sign a pastor or priest makes when blessing others, with three fingers pressed together to proclaim the Trinity and two bent down to confess Christ’s dual nature. That gesture is catechesis in motion—doctrine written into the very hand, tracing the cross outward as blessing. The Church used symbols like this not just for decoration but for teaching; the faithful learned the deepest truths of Christianity by what they could see and touch, even if they could not read. Both forms, whether made by the believer or bestowed by a minister, carried deep meaning: allegiance to Christ, confession of faith, and blessing in his name.

And yet, many of us—especially in Protestant traditions—abandoned these signs. We dismissed them as “too Catholic,” “superstitious,” or “empty ritual.” But that was ignorance. In casting them aside, we lost not only symbols that connect us to our baptismal identity, but also a gesture that taught the mystery of our faith in body and hand. What was once a radical embodied witness was reduced to a ritual caricature—or forgotten altogether. The loss has left our faith poorer, more disembodied, and less connected to the practices that once grounded everyday discipleship. Christianity became increasingly intellectualized, treated as a set of beliefs to agree with rather than a way of life to embody.

This is why the connection to Matthew 28 is so important. When Jesus sent his disciples out with the Great Commission, he commanded them to baptize “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The sign of the cross is, in many ways, a miniature act of that Great Commission. To trace the cross over yourself or others is to confess the Trinity, to remember your baptism, to place yourself under Christ’s authority, and to carry his promise—“I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” It is the Commission embodied in a single gesture.

That is why I have reclaimed the practice in my own life and ministry. I make the sign of the cross in worship, I trace it in blessing, and I use it in quiet moments of prayer. Each time, I am reminded that I am marked as Christ’s own, confessing both the mystery of the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ. Embodied practices matter because they root faith in daily life; they keep us from reducing Christianity to abstract ideas or empty slogans. When I trace the cross over someone during a blessing, I am not performing a quaint ritual. I am declaring that they, too, are beloved of God, sealed with Christ’s promise, and carried in the Spirit’s care.

In a world that constantly tries to claim us—through nationalism, consumerism, or ego—the sign of the cross is a small, defiant act of faith. It is a refusal to bow to lesser gods. It is a prayer that says my body, my spirit, and my future are not for sale. And it is a blessing that pushes back against fear, reminding us that Christ has already claimed the final word. What looks like a simple gesture becomes, in truth, a radical proclamation: Jesus Christ is Lord.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The sign of the cross—whether traced on yourself or offered in blessing—is a subversive act that reclaims your identity as Christ’s own.

PRAYER
Lord Jesus, you claimed me in baptism and sealed me with your Spirit. Help me to reclaim the sacred signs of faith, not as empty ritual but as radical witness. May my body, words, and life bear the mark of your cross, today and always. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional

REVISITED: Denial and the Cross

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Read  Mark 8:34-38

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

If you are Christian you have, no doubt, come across today’s scripture reading before. In one fashion, or another, you have heard that following Jesus means that we need to deny ourselves and pick up our cross. Part of the problem of being a Christian is that, all of these centuries later, we hear Jesus’ words in ways that I believe he never intendeded them. For instance, when we come across today’s Scirpture passage we often interpret it in ways that both trivialize the cross and demonize ourselves into something less than valuable in the eyes of God.

An unhealthy understanding of Bible passages such as these can lead to an unhealthy, and perhaps damning perception of self, of neighbor and, ultimately, of God. So let me begin by stressing what this passage is NOT saying. First, this passage is NOT saying you should hate yourself or deny yourself your basic needs. It is not saying that at all! God created you and God does not create junk or rubbish. God created you, and all, with a divine and holy purpose in mind. Thus, Jesus is not telling us that in order to be his disciple we need to hate ourselves, look down upon ourselves, or neglect to take care of ourselves. To do such would be sinful and would not be in line with God’s will for us. After all, God calls us to be good stewards of God’s creation (in which we are included) and to go against that would be to go against God’s call.

Second, this passage is not intended to trivialize the cross. There is a TobyMac song called Irene, in which TobyMac sings “Pick up your cross and where it everyday.” This is both a reference to Luke’s parallel passage (Luke 9:22-25) and to the trinket people often where on a necklace fastened around their necks. But this is not what the passage is referring to at all. It’s not referring to a necklace, nor is it referring to a lamented obligation, or a personal challenge one has been going through; rather, Jesus is referring to the instrument of capital punishment he would be affixed to as a means of painfully and humiliatingly exterminating his life.

What Jesus is ultimately saying in this passage is that, if anyone wishes to be his follower, we must deny any part of us that would hold us back from following him. Regardless of what those things are (e.g. our sins, our hangups, our fears, our desires, our hopes, our dreams, etc.) we must be willing to put them aside and be willing to pay all costs for being associated with Jesus. Even if the cost is our very lives, we must be willing to give it all to follow Christ. It has nothing to do with self-loathing, though. It has to do with one’s identity! If one truly identifies as a Christians, and sees him/herself as belonging to Christ, then that will be the most important thing to him/her over and above anything else, including his/her own life.

There are numerous examples of people who saw Christ as being at the core of their identity. This week it behooves us to look at the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was a disciple of Christ who denied the fears and things that held him back from following Christ. Dr. King certainly picked up his cross, the burden of fighting for equality and freedom for all people regardless of their skin color, and ended up paying the ultimate price for doing so. When we look at Dr. King we see a man who certainly denied himself, picked up his cross and followed Jesus.

The question for us today is this, will we let our fears and our desires keep us from accepting Christ as our Lord? Will we refuse to pick up our cross because of the possible consequences? Will we deny Christ, or deny the parts of ourselves that keep us from accepting Christ? Will we be ashamed of Christ, Christ’s message, and the way of the Cross because it is more convenient for us to do so? Or will we deny our own convenience for the sake of Christ, for the sake of others and for the sake of God’s Kingdom? The choice is ultimately yours and I pray that your response is one of affirmation rather than one of denial and embarrassment. The world could use more disciples of Christ and the hope, healing and wholeness that such disciples bring in Christ’s name.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society. – Jacqueline Novogratz
PRAYER
Lord, I give me the strength to deny the things that hold me back from you, to pick up my cross, and to follow you at all costs. Amen.

Devotional

A LOOK BACK: Denial and the Cross

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Read  Mark 8:34-38

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

If you are Christian you have, no doubt, come across today’s scripture reading before. In one fashion, or another, you have heard that following Jesus means that we need to deny ourselves and pick up our cross. Part of the problem of being a Christian is that, all of these centuries later, we hear Jesus’ words in ways that I believe he never intendeded them. For instance, when we come across today’s Scirpture passage we often interpret it in ways that both trivialize the cross and demonize ourselves into something less than valuable in the eyes of God.

An unhealthy understanding of Bible passages such as these can lead to an unhealthy, and perhaps damning perception of self, of neighbor and, ultimately, of God. So let me begin by stressing what this passage is NOT saying. First, this passage is NOT saying you should hate yourself or deny yourself your basic needs. It is not saying that at all! God created you and God does not create junk or rubbish. God created you, and all, with a divine and holy purpose in mind. Thus, Jesus is not telling us that in order to be his disciple we need to hate ourselves, look down upon ourselves, or neglect to take care of ourselves. To do such would be sinful and would not be in line with God’s will for us. After all, God calls us to be good stewards of God’s creation (in which we are included) and to go against that would be to go against God’s call.

Second, this passage is not intended to trivialize the cross. There is a TobyMac song called Irene, in which TobyMac sings “Pick up your cross and where it everyday.” This is both a reference to Luke’s parallel passage (Luke 9:22-25) and to the trinket people often where on a necklace fastened around their necks. But this is not what the passage is referring to at all. It’s not referring to a necklace, nor is it referring to a lamented obligation, or a personal challenge one has been going through; rather, Jesus is referring to the instrument of capital punishment he would be affixed to as a means of painfully and humiliatingly exterminating his life.

What Jesus is ultimately saying in this passage is that, if anyone wishes to be his follower, we must deny any part of us that would hold us back from following him. Regardless of what those things are (e.g. our sins, our hangups, our fears, our desires, our hopes, our dreams, etc.) we must be willing to put them aside and be willing to pay all costs for being associated with Jesus. Even if the cost is our very lives, we must be willing to give it all to follow Christ. It has nothing to do with self-loathing, though. It has to do with one’s identity! If one truly identifies as a Christians, and sees him/herself as belonging to Christ, then that will be the most important thing to him/her over and above anything else, including his/her own life.

There are numerous examples of people who saw Christ as being at the core of their identity. This week it behooves us to look at the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was a disciple of Christ who denied the fears and things that held him back from following Christ. Dr. King certainly picked up his cross, the burden of fighting for equality and freedom for all people regardless of their skin color, and ended up paying the ultimate price for doing so. When we look at Dr. King we see a man who certainly denied himself, picked up his cross and followed Jesus.

The question for us today is this, will we let our fears and our desires keep us from accepting Christ as our Lord? Will we refuse to pick up our cross because of the possible consequences? Will we deny Christ, or deny the parts of ourselves that keep us from accepting Christ? Will we be ashamed of Christ, Christ’s message, and the way of the Cross because it is more convenient for us to do so? Or will we deny our own convenience for the sake of Christ, for the sake of others and for the sake of God’s Kingdom? The choice is ultimately yours and I pray that your response is one of affirmation rather than one of denial and embarrassment. The world could use more disciples of Christ and the hope, healing and wholeness that such disciples bring in Christ’s name.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society. – Jacqueline Novogratz
PRAYER
Lord, I give me the strength to deny the things that hold me back from you, to pick up my cross, and to follow you at all costs. Amen.

Devotional

The Power of Faith

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Read Hebrews 11

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”  (Matthew 17:20, NLT)

As you can see, I have been concentrating on horror movies throughout the month of October because that is Halloween month. For me, Halloween is not just a day, it’s an entire season. So, I spend at least October, if not parts of September and November watching horror films and listening to gothic and atmospheric music. This is a yearly ritual for me as Halloween is one of my favorite holidays…EVER.

One of my favorite vampire films from the 80s is one called, “Fright Night”, with William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall and Chris Sarandon (aka Susan Sarandon’s brother). I love the film because it brings back memories of being a kid in the 80s and watching that film and others during the Halloween season. There is something about horror films in the 80s, with their blend of camp and over the top special effects that just draw me right in.

Anyway, this film is about a boy named Charlie who notices strange goings on next door after it is purchased by a strange, enigmatic man. As it turns out, Charlie becomes aware that his neighbor is a vampire because he sees him biting a woman through the bedroom window. He also saw his neighbor and a helper carrying what looked like a coffin into the basement of the house.

At first he tries to tell his mom; however, she thinks he had a bad nightmare and doesn’t believe him. His friend and his girlfriend don’t believe him either and Charlie feels at wits end because the vampire made it clear that he knows Charlie is on to him. To make matters worse, the neighbor, whose name was Jerry Danridge, was invited over to his house by his mom, which means that Jerry could now enter the house anytime he wants and harm his family.

Out of desperation, Charlie sought out a movie actor who portrayed his favorite vampire slayer, Peter Vincent. Of course, Peter was not REALLY a vampire slayer, but just an actor; however, to make a long story short, Charlie did eventually convince Peter that his neighbor is a vampire and that he needed Peter’s help. There is one scene where Jerry approached Peter Vincent to attack him and he pulled out a cross to ward him off. To Peter and Charlie’s surprise, Jerry  laughed at them, grabbed the cross, and crumbled it in his hand. “You have to have faith,” the vampire mocked, “for this to work Mr. Vincent!”

As he bent down to bit Peter, Charlie, with a fire in his eyes, lifted his cross. You could see that HE DID BELIEVE and, as a result, Jerry hissed backwards and ran away. Charlie, because of his faith in the power of the cross…the power of Christ…was able to save his hero’s life. Charlie and Peter both learned a valuable lesson that day. There is great power in faith.

The Bible teaches us that “faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1, NLT). Charlie had hoped that by raising the cross he would be able to stop the vampire from doing harm to Peter. He had no evidence that it would work, and he couldn’t physically see how a cross could stop such evil; however, he believed that if he raised that cross, it WOULD WORK. He had faith and, because of that, he was able to overcome the evil that was attacking him and Peter Vincent.

While we live in the real world, where vampired don’t exist, we still are called to stand up against evil and oppression. Yet, how can we do that? How can we, who are sinful human beings, ever resist the forces of sin, evil, oppression and death? Christ calls us to have faith, to believe in HIS power to overcome such things through us. It’s not we who have the power, but HE who lives within us who can stop evil in it’s tracks and make it cower before the GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ as expressed both on the cross and in the empty tomb.

This should challenge us to grow in our faith and to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Like Charlie, not everyone will believe us, nor will they believe in what we believe in. Some may even mock us and most will not join us in our effort to do what is right despite the overwhelming odds. None of that matters if we keep our focus and our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. It is him who will lead us to rise up against and resist evil and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.” – D. Elton Trueblood

PRAYER
Lord, I do believe. Help me with my unbelief. Amen.

Devotional

A LOOK BACK: Denial and the Cross

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Writing the Life-Giving Water devotionals is not only an important ministry, but is a deeply rewarding spiritual discipline for me as well. This is the month of retreats for me, so as I am busy leading them, here is a LOOK BACK to a devotion I wrote in the past. Read it, reflect on it, be challenged by it. Who knows how God will speak to you through it and how it will bear relevance in your life today? May the Holy Spirit guide you as you read the suggested Scripture and subsequent devotion.