Tag Archives: FAITH HOPE LOVE

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 8: The Work of Reconciliation

October 16, 2026 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Image: AI-generated using Gemini and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Work of Reconciliation” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

In the 2007 film Atonement, based on Ian McEwan’s novel, a thirteen-year-old girl named Briony Tallis makes an accusation that changes several lives forever. What begins as a terrible misunderstanding becomes something far more consequential, and the damage cannot simply be undone.

Spoiler warning: The following discussion reveals the film’s central mystery and ending.

Briony witnesses interactions between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, a young man with whom Cecilia is developing a romantic relationship. Briony misunderstands what she sees, interpreting Robbie’s behavior through the imagination and assumptions of a child who believes she understands far more than she does.

Later, when her cousin Lola is sexually assaulted, Briony identifies Robbie as the attacker, despite not having clearly seen the perpetrator. Robbie is innocent. The actual attacker is Paul Marshall, a wealthy acquaintance of the family.

Briony’s accusation results in Robbie’s imprisonment and separates him from Cecilia. Years later, Robbie serves in the British military during World War II, while Cecilia has become estranged from her family.

As Briony grows older, she recognizes the enormity of what she has done. She becomes a nurse, struggles with her guilt, and eventually writes a novel attempting to confront the consequences of her accusation.

But the film’s final revelation is devastating.

The reconciliation Briony depicts between herself, Robbie, and Cecilia never happened. Robbie died during the evacuation of Dunkirk, and Cecilia was killed during the Blitz. Briony has given them, through fiction, the future they never lived.

She can rewrite their story. She cannot restore their lives.

And therein lies one of the most difficult truths about reconciliation: sometimes the damage we have done, or the damage done to us, cannot be repaired through an apology, however sincere.

The apostle Paul writes that God has reconciled us through Christ and entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation. He declares that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone, and a new life has begun.

But notice the order of Paul’s proclamation.

God initiates. We participate.

Reconciliation begins not with our ability to repair everything we have broken, but with God’s grace reaching into a world already fractured by sin, injustice, estrangement, and suffering.

Paul goes even further. God was reconciling the world through Christ, no longer counting people’s sins against them.

The world. Not merely those who have successfully repaired every relationship, made every apology, or satisfied every religious expectation.

That does not mean wrongdoing becomes inconsequential. Nor does it mean that forgiveness eliminates accountability. If anything, becoming a new creation demands that we confront the truth about ourselves, including the harm we have caused.

Jesus tells his followers that if they remember someone has something against them, they should seek reconciliation before returning to worship. There is urgency in that command. We cannot claim devotion to God while treating the wounds we have inflicted upon others as unimportant.

Yet we must be careful not to turn that command into another means of causing harm.

Sometimes someone genuinely repents, but the person they harmed refuses reconciliation. Sometimes the person responsible for the injury refuses accountability, continues harmful behavior, or has died. And sometimes a person has truly changed, but attempting contact would reopen wounds and inflict further suffering upon the one they injured.

In such circumstances, reconciliation cannot responsibly mean forcing an encounter, demanding forgiveness, or insisting that a relationship be restored.

A sincere apology does not grant us the right to enter someone else’s life again.

Likewise, forgiveness does not obligate someone to return to an unsafe relationship. The church has sometimes confused reconciliation with restoration at any cost, pressuring wounded people to make peace while allowing those responsible for their suffering to avoid the discomfort of accountability.

That is not the ministry of reconciliation Paul describes.

Our calling is to participate faithfully in God’s transforming work, not to control its outcome.

And what happens when reconciliation with another person is impossible?

Perhaps this is where we must consider reconciliation within ourselves: acknowledging what happened, accepting responsibility where responsibility belongs, releasing guilt that was never ours to carry, and allowing God’s grace to lead us toward healing.

For someone who has caused harm, that may mean living a genuinely changed life without ever receiving forgiveness from the person they injured. For someone who has suffered harm, it may mean establishing boundaries, grieving what cannot be restored, and discovering that their future need not remain captive to another person’s wrongdoing.

Neither journey requires pretending the past never happened.

Paul’s promise of new creation does not erase history. It declares that history does not possess the final word over who we may become.

Briony could not bring Robbie and Cecilia back. Her fictional ending could not accomplish what reality made impossible. But her story confronts us with a question that reaches beyond the film: What do we do when we cannot make things right?

We tell the truth. We accept responsibility. We seek repair where possible and safe. We respect the boundaries of those we have harmed. We refuse to demand that others heal according to our timetable. And we remain open to the transforming grace of God.

Because reconciliation is not ultimately our achievement.

God initiates. We participate.

And even when a broken relationship cannot be restored, God’s work of making us new can continue.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God initiates reconciliation. We participate through truth, accountability, grace, and love, even when restoration is impossible.

PRAYER
Reconciling God, give us courage to acknowledge our wrongs, grace to respect others’ boundaries, and wisdom to accept what cannot be restored. Heal our wounds and guide us toward new life in Christ. Amen.

Devotional, Series

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 7: The Foolishness of Power

October 15, 2026 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read 1 Corinthians 1:18–31

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8 NLT)

A solemn medieval Knights Templar stands in a shadowy stone courtyard, wearing chainmail and a weathered white mantle bearing a red cross. His hands rest upon the hilt of a downward-pointing sword. Behind him, a large wooden cross casts a long shadow across the cobblestones, symbolizing the tension between Christ's self-giving love and the pursuit of worldly power. Life-Giving Water Devotions branding appears along the bottom. — Image: AI-generated using Gemini and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 7: The Foolishness of Power” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

In October of 312 CE, Constantine marched toward the Milvian Bridge outside Rome, preparing to confront his rival, Maxentius. According to accounts written by Christian historians, Constantine experienced a vision or divine sign associated with Christ before the battle. The details differ between the surviving accounts, but the outcome is unmistakable: Constantine won, and the relationship between Christianity and imperial power would never be the same.

For nearly three centuries, Christians had lived under an empire that could imprison, torture, and execute them. Now, the emperor himself was embracing the Christian religion, though whether he was wholly faithful to Christ is another question. The cross, an instrument of Roman execution, was becoming associated with Roman victory.

For many Christians, this must have seemed extraordinary. Persecution was giving way to imperial favor. But not everyone welcomed the increasingly intimate relationship between church and empire. Some Christians questioned the emperor’s involvement in church affairs, while others resisted the privileges and compromises that accompanied imperial Christianity.

Looking back, we can understand why.

The danger was not simply that Christianity had gained influence. It was that the church might begin confusing the authority of Christ with the authority of Rome.

And history offers a troubling illustration of where that confusion can lead.

Centuries later, the Knights Templar emerged as a religious military order during the Crusades. These were men who professed devotion to Christ while carrying swords into battle. They took religious vows, protected pilgrims, accumulated considerable wealth, and became deeply entangled in the political and financial affairs of medieval Europe.

The cross was no longer merely a reminder of Christ’s suffering. It was displayed upon the clothing of armed warriors.

Then came Friday, October 13, 1307.

King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the Templars throughout his kingdom. Accused of heresy and other offenses, many were imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured. Some died in captivity or under torture, while others were executed, including dozens burned at the stake. Among those eventually executed was Jacques de Molay, the order’s last Grand Master, who was burned in Paris in March 1314. Confessions were extracted under coercion, and the order was formally suppressed in 1312.

The historical irony is brutal.

An order that had accumulated military, political, and financial influence under the banner of Christ found itself crushed by the ambitions of a king.

Power had turned upon power.

And somewhere beneath these centuries of Christian history stands the apostle Paul, insisting that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but the power of God to those being saved.

Consider how extraordinary that claim would have sounded in the first century.

Rome used crucifixion to demonstrate the consequences of defying imperial authority. The cross was designed to humiliate, terrorize, and destroy. It announced that Rome possessed the power to determine who lived and who died.

Yet Paul identifies the crucified Christ as the revelation of God’s wisdom and power.

Not because suffering is inherently holy. Not because weakness is a virtue to be imposed upon the vulnerable. And certainly not because God desires people to submit to abuse.

Rather, the cross exposes the limitations of power built upon domination.

In Philippians, Paul describes Christ as one who did not exploit divine status for personal advantage, but embraced humility and obedience, even to death upon a cross.

That does not mean authority itself is wrong.

Paul exercised apostolic authority, sometimes with considerable force. John Wesley’s charge to Methodist ministers to take authority likewise reflects an understanding that Christian leadership carries genuine responsibility.

But neither Paul nor Wesley understood faithful spiritual authority as permission to dominate.

Christian authority is entrusted for stewardship, shepherding, and guiding others toward faithfulness to Christ. It is not ownership of the people entrusted to our care.

And here is where the history becomes uncomfortably contemporary.

The church has repeatedly proclaimed the crucified Christ while seeking the very forms of worldly power that crucified him. We have used the cross to justify conquest, enforce conformity, defend institutions, uphold capital punishment, and sanctify ambitions that bear little resemblance to the self-giving love of Jesus.

We can still do so whenever we confuse protecting the faith with controlling people, defending the church with preserving privilege, or exercising authority with demanding submission.

The temptation reaches beyond emperors, kings, and religious institutions. It appears whenever we use our position, influence, knowledge, or authority to secure our own importance at someone else’s expense.

The problem is not that Christians possess power. It is that we can become so enamored with possessing it that we forget whom it is supposed to serve.

Constantine’s victory and the Templars’ downfall remind us how readily the cross can become entangled with human ambition. Paul’s proclamation confronts us with something far more difficult: a crucified Lord whose power cannot be measured by conquest, wealth, prestige, or control.

Perhaps the greatest foolishness is not believing that God’s power was revealed through a crucified man.

Perhaps it is believing that we can follow that man while making his cross serve our own ambitions.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The cross reveals God’s power through self-giving love, not our ability to dominate others.

PRAYER
God of grace, forgive us when we confuse authority with ownership and faithfulness with control. Free us from the desire to make Christ’s cross serve our ambitions. Teach us to exercise whatever authority we have with humility, courage, and love, remembering that those entrusted to our care belong to you. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 5: The Merit of Grace

October 8, 2026 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Romans 3:21–31

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die. (Galatians 2:21 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Merit of Grace” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Charlie Bucket deserves the chocolate factory.

That is part of what makes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so satisfying. Five children receive golden tickets and enter Wonka’s strange, wonderful world, and one by one, four of them fail. Augustus cannot control his appetite. Violet refuses to listen. Veruca demands whatever she wants. Mike ignores every warning because he is convinced he knows better.

And then there is Charlie. He is poor, humble, and devoted to his family. He makes mistakes, but when the final test comes, he returns what does not belong to him. He does the right thing when there appears to be nothing left to gain from doing it. Wonka rewards him because Charlie has proven himself worthy of the factory. It is a wonderful story, and it works because we believe Charlie deserves what he receives.

It is also not grace.

We understand Wonka’s system instinctively because most of us have spent our lives inside systems of deservingness. Work hard and you deserve success. Make good choices and you deserve good consequences. Contribute enough and you deserve assistance when you need it. Follow the rules and you deserve respect. Prove yourself useful and you deserve a place at the table. We call it meritocracy, and there is something appealing about it because actions, work, and responsibility really do matter.

The problem comes when achievement becomes a measurement of human worth. Then the person who succeeds must somehow be better than the person who struggles. Poverty becomes evidence of irresponsibility. Wealth becomes evidence of virtue. Productivity becomes worthiness and need becomes failure. We begin sorting people into those who have earned what they have and those who deserve whatever happens to them.

Society does this constantly.

But so does the church.

Churches measure things: attendance, giving, baptisms, professions of faith, new members, small groups, mission participation, worship growth. We collect statistics, study trends, and talk about vitality. Some of that is necessary. Numbers can tell us things we need to know. They can expose problems we might rather ignore and help us understand whether our ministries are actually reaching people.

But measurements can quietly become merit. A growing congregation becomes a successful congregation, while a declining congregation becomes a failing one. A pastor whose numbers increase appears effective, while one whose numbers decrease becomes suspect. Churches with resources look worthy of investment while struggling churches begin to look like liabilities. Statistics that were supposed to help us understand ministry can become a scoreboard determining whose ministry matters.

We are measuring worth.

Paul tears straight through that system. In Romans 3, he asks what room remains for boasting after the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ. His answer is none. Righteousness is not the prize at the end of a spiritual competition. Nobody reaches God’s grace by outperforming everyone else. Nobody receives the kingdom because they survived the tour while Augustus fell into the chocolate river and Veruca went down the garbage chute. We receive grace because grace is gift.

Galatians makes the point even sharper. Paul insists that if we could make ourselves right with God through our ability to satisfy the system, then Christ died for nothing. Christians can proclaim salvation by grace while constructing communities organized around merit. We can preach that nobody earns God’s love and then spend the rest of the week deciding which people, pastors, congregations, and ministries have demonstrated enough value to deserve ours.

The cross will not let us do that comfortably. Christ crucified exposes what happens when human systems decide who matters, who succeeds, who fails, and whose life is expendable. Grace announces something those systems cannot tolerate:

Your worth was never theirs to calculate.

That does not mean faithfulness does not matter. It does not mean churches should ignore decline, leaders should avoid accountability, or Christians should stop asking whether our ministries bear fruit. It means fruit is not the same thing as worth. There are faithful churches with shrinking membership. There are flourishing ministries whose impact cannot be captured on a statistical report. There are people doing holy work that will never produce impressive numbers. And there are successful institutions whose statistics look wonderful while their witness looks nothing like Christ.

Charlie Bucket deserves the factory, and that is why Wonka gives it to him. But the kingdom of God is not a chocolate factory. There are no golden tickets and no scoreboard determining who has accumulated enough merit to belong. Grace does not gather the winners at the end of the tour and congratulate them for being better than everybody who disappeared along the way.

Grace gives us what none of us could ever claim to deserve.

Maybe the question is not whether we have done enough to deserve what God gives us, but what might happen if the church finally believed that nobody had to.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Grace stops being grace the moment we turn it into something anyone must deserve.

PRAYER
God of grace, free us from the need to measure our worth against the success or failure of others. Teach us to recognize the difference between faithful accountability and systems that turn achievement into value. Strip away our boasting, widen our mercy, and shape us into people who receive your grace as gift and extend it just as freely. Amen.

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

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FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 4: The Final Word

October 2, 2026 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Romans 10:9–13

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.” (Psalm 24:1 NLT)

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

When Ozzy Osbourne gave his farewell concert, many people saw a complicated life being honored.

They saw a musician whose career had shocked, moved, entertained, unsettled, and shaped generations. They saw someone who had struggled publicly, survived much, loved his family, and left behind a body of work that meant something to people far beyond the boundaries of church life.

Then some Christians began speaking.

Not all Christians, of course. But enough. Loudly enough.

They spoke as though they knew the final word over his soul. They declared where he was going. They dismissed the grief of those who loved him. They treated his life as a warning more than a human story. Some seemed almost eager to turn his death into proof that they were righteous, discerning, and safely on the right side of eternity.

That angered me.

Not because every part of his life needed defending. Not because public lives are beyond critique. Not because Christians should abandon discernment or pretend that nothing matters. It angered me because the speed of condemnation felt far too familiar.

The church has often been quick to identify devils outside itself while refusing to recognize the cruelty it has carried in the name of God. It has scapegoated artists, outsiders, doubters, rebels, queer people, grieving people, wounded people, and anyone who made religious respectability uncomfortable. It has too often sounded less like the body of Christ and more like the accuser.

So I spoke out.

I challenged the judgment. I challenged the certainty. I challenged the way Christians can claim the authority of Jesus while speaking about another person’s soul with contempt. I asked whether the church might need to look in the mirror before deciding who else belongs in hell.

And people got upset.

That is what happens sometimes when Jesus asks you to proclaim something people do not want to hear. The issue is not always whether your words were careful enough, gentle enough, or easy enough to receive. Sometimes people are angry because the question itself exposes something. How dare you challenge the church like that? How dare you suggest that our judgment might not be the same thing as God’s judgment? How dare you interrupt condemnation when we had already made it feel holy?

But that is exactly where Paul’s words matter.

In Romans, Paul says that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. That confession is not small. To say “Jesus is Lord” is to surrender every rival claim to ultimate authority.

Including our claim to the final word over another person’s soul.

Paul does not stop with confession. He widens the circle. There is no distinction, he says. The same Lord is Lord of all. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone.

That does not erase discernment. It does not mean every life is equally faithful, every action excusable, or every public witness holy. Paul is not asking us to stop telling the truth.

He is reminding us that the final word is not ours.

Psalm 24 presses the issue even further. The earth belongs to the Lord, and everything in it. Not just the sanctuaries. Not just the respectable lives. Not just the people who make religious communities comfortable. The earth. The world. All who live in it.

If that is true, then no person exists outside the claim of God.

No sinner. No saint. No artist. No outcast. No person whose life unsettles the church’s imagination.

To confess that Jesus is Lord is to give the final word back to Christ. Fear does not get it. Condemnation does not get it. Reputation does not get it. Religious arrogance does not get it. The church at its most anxious does not get it.

Christ does.

That should make us careful before we weaponize eternity against someone else. It should make us slower to damn and quicker to examine ourselves. It should make us ask whether our words sound like the gospel or merely like accusation dressed in religious language.

There will be times when faithfulness requires us to say, “Not so fast.” Not to excuse harm. Not to romanticize destruction. Not to pretend every life should be imitated. But to remind the church that judgment belongs to God, mercy belongs to God, and salvation is not a trophy Christians hand out to people they approve.

Jesus is Lord.

Not the loudest believer. Not the most offended crowd. Not the empire. Not the party. Not the church’s fear. Not even our own certainty.

Jesus.

The same Lord who is Lord of all.

And the final word belongs to him.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
To confess that Jesus is Lord is to surrender the final word over mercy, judgment, and belonging to Christ.

PRAYER
God of mercy, forgive us when we speak with certainty about what belongs to you alone. Free us from judgment that masquerades as faithfulness, and teach us to confess Jesus as Lord with humility, truth, and hope. Let your mercy unsettle our arrogance and widen our love. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 3: The Emptied Lord

September 30, 2026 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Philippians 2:5–11

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“ For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45 NLT)

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

There is a certain kind of strength we are taught to admire before we ever learn to question it.

It fills the room. It interrupts. It refuses to apologize. It knows how to turn uncertainty into weakness and disagreement into threat. It does not simply want to be heard; it wants to be obeyed. It mistakes volume for conviction, control for leadership, and domination for courage.

Sometimes, that kind of strength does not look obviously cruel. Sometimes it is polished, religious, respectable, and confident. Sometimes it quotes Scripture. Sometimes it claims to defend Jesus while showing very little interest in the way of Jesus.

That is where discernment becomes difficult.

Because Christians do not only face the temptation to reject Christ. We also face the temptation to use Christ. We can take his name, his authority, his cross, his church, and his language, and attach them to the very kinds of power he refused. We can confuse faithfulness with partisan loyalty. We can confuse courage with contempt. We can confuse truth with the permission to be unkind. We can confess Jesus as Lord while admiring leaders, movements, and habits of heart that look nothing like him.

Paul will not let that confusion stand.

In Philippians, Paul writes that Jesus, “though he was God,” did not treat equality with God as something to cling to or exploit. Instead, Christ emptied himself. He took the form of a servant. He humbled himself.

That is not a small detail in Paul’s theology. It is not a decorative piece of Christian poetry. It is Paul showing us what the lordship of Jesus actually looks like.

Jesus is Lord, but he does not define lordship the way the world does. He does not grasp for status. He does not protect himself through domination. He does not confuse being right with being righteous. He does not need to crush others in order to prove who he is.

The Lord of all becomes the servant of all.

That does not mean Jesus is weak. It means we have often misunderstood strength. The humility of Christ is not insecurity. The self-emptying of Christ is not self-hatred. The servanthood of Christ is not passivity in the face of evil. Jesus does not empty himself because he lacks power. He empties himself because God’s power is not anxious, greedy, or cruel.

That is the part we often resist.

Many of us would rather have a Lord who confirms our instincts. A Lord who blesses our side. A Lord who defeats our enemies without examining our hearts. A Lord who gives us spiritual language for the power we already wanted. A Lord who lets us stay certain, superior, and untouched.

But Philippians gives us the emptied Lord.

And the emptied Lord interrupts every false version of lordship, including the ones we have baptized.

This is why Mark’s Gospel belongs beside Paul’s words. When Jesus’ followers begin imagining greatness in the usual way, Jesus tells them that the rulers of the world lord power over others. Then he says it must not be that way among them. His own life becomes the pattern: not to be served, but to serve.

That word reaches beyond politics, though it certainly includes politics. It reaches into churches, families, workplaces, ministries, friendships, and private thoughts. It reaches every place where we grasp for control because we are afraid to trust love. It reaches every place where we perform strength because humility feels too vulnerable. It reaches every place where we would rather win than be changed.

To confess that Jesus is Lord is not merely to place a crown on his head in our imagination. It is to allow his life to reorder what we mean by power, authority, courage, and faithfulness.

The emptied Lord does not ask us to become small so others can remain comfortable. He does not ask us to tolerate injustice or call abuse holy. But he does call us away from the kind of power that can only feel secure when someone else is beneath it.

Christ’s lordship moves downward in love.

And if we follow him, then something in us must be emptied too: our grasping, our posturing, our need to dominate, our addiction to being right, our desire to make Jesus useful to whatever we already believe.

Jesus is Lord.

Not the loudest voice. Not the cruelest leader. Not the strongest brand. Not the party. Not the movement. Not the ego dressed up as conviction.

Jesus.

The one who emptied himself.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The lordship of Jesus does not bless our grasping; it remakes us in the shape of self-emptying love.

PRAYER
Christ our Lord, free us from every false strength that keeps us from your way. Empty us of pride, cruelty, fear, and the need to control. Teach us to recognize your lordship not in domination, but in humble love that serves, heals, and remakes the world. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 2: You Are Not Their Messiah

September 25, 2026 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Exodus 18:13–24

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:7 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “You Are Not Their Messiah” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

What may have begun as admiration has hardened into allegiance. Teachers have become banners. Relationships with respected leaders have become evidence of spiritual superiority. The congregation Paul helped establish is now dividing itself according to whose name carries the most authority.

Eventually, word of the conflict reaches Paul.

He could have enjoyed hearing that some believers had chosen his name. He founded the church in Corinth. He preached among them, worked beside them, and endured hardship for the sake of bringing them the gospel. If anyone could have made a case for his importance, Paul had plenty of evidence.

Instead, he refuses to let them turn him into something he is not.

“Who is Apollos?” he asks. “Who is Paul?”

They are servants through whom the Corinthians came to believe. Paul planted. Apollos watered. God made the seed grow.

Paul does not deny that his work matters. Planting matters. Watering matters. Teaching, leading, organizing, encouraging, correcting, and caring all matter. But none of those things creates life. Paul refuses to confuse his responsibility with God’s power.

He will love the Corinthians. He will serve them. He will not become their Messiah. That distinction is much harder to maintain than it sounds.

We usually do not wake up and consciously decide to become indispensable. It happens slowly. Someone needs help, so we help. A problem appears, so we solve it. Something is forgotten, so we remember it. Other people begin trusting us because we are reliable, compassionate, organized, or simply willing to show up.

Then concern becomes responsibility. Responsibility becomes expectation. Expectation becomes identity.

Before long, we are holding together relationships, families, ministries, workplaces, and communities that seem unable to function without us. We answer every message, anticipate every crisis, absorb every disappointment, and step into every gap.

We call it love. Sometimes it is love. Sometimes it is anxiety wearing love’s clothing.

Anxiety tells us that if we stop moving, something terrible will happen. If we say no, someone will be hurt. If we allow another person to struggle, we have abandoned them. If we are unavailable, we are unfaithful. Anxiety convinces us that vigilance is compassion and exhaustion is proof that we care.

Moses understands this temptation.

After leading the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses becomes the person everyone approaches with every dispute. From morning until evening, people stand around waiting for him. Every conflict, question, and disagreement must pass through Moses.

Perhaps Moses believes this is what faithful leadership requires. God called him. The people need him. The problems are real. Surely devotion means making himself available until everyone has received an answer.

Then Jethro watches the arrangement and says something startling:

“This is not good.”

Moses is helping people, but the system is not good. He is exhausting himself. He is keeping the community dependent upon his judgment. He is carrying work that others are capable of sharing. His good intentions have produced an unhealthy way of living.

Jethro does not tell Moses to stop caring. He tells Moses to stop acting as though care can flow only through him.

Choose capable people. Teach them. Trust them. Let them carry responsibility. Keep doing the work that is truly yours, but release the work that never belonged exclusively to you.

Delegation is not abandonment. Boundaries are not indifference. Allowing other people to contribute is not a failure of leadership. Sometimes it is the first time we have treated them as capable, gifted, and called.

Churches often struggle to believe this. We praise people who are endlessly available. We reward those who say yes to everything. We call them dedicated while quietly building ministries that depend upon their inability to rest. When they finally collapse, resign, or disappear, we mourn their absence without questioning the system that consumed them.

Families and workplaces can do the same thing. One person becomes the keeper of every schedule, emotion, emergency, and unfinished task. Everyone depends upon them, and they depend upon being needed. The arrangement exhausts them, but it can also make them feel secure. If everything depends upon you, then no one can overlook you.

That is where service can become control.The difficult question is not simply, “Am I doing too much?” It is, “What do I fear would happen if I were no longer necessary?”

Paul knew that the Corinthians did not belong to him. Moses had to learn that Israel’s future did not depend upon his constant availability. Both were called to serve faithfully without confusing themselves with the God they served.

You are responsible for your faithfulness. You are not responsible for producing every outcome. You can plant. You can water. You can teach what you know, offer what you have, and carry the portion that is yours. Then you must allow other people to carry theirs and trust God with the growth neither you nor they can create.

The people you love may need your presence.
They do not need you to be omnipresent.

They may need your wisdom.
They do not need you to be omniscient.

They may need your help.
They do not need you to be omipotent or to save them.

Accepting those limits is not an admission that your love is inadequate. It is an act of faith. It means trusting that God remains present when you are absent, that other people possess gifts you do not possess, and that grace continues working after you have done all you can faithfully do.

Paul placed the seed into the soil and released the growth to God. Moses shared the burden and discovered that the community did not collapse when others began to lead.

You are allowed that same freedom.

Do what love asks of you. Carry what is truly yours. Then stop where your humanity requires you to stop. Set down what belongs to someone else. Let other people rise. Let God remain God.

The work may continue without you. That does not mean you were unnecessary. It means you were never alone in doing it.

You are not their Messiah. You were never asked to be. You are loved, called, and human. That is enough.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
My limits do not prevent faithfulness; they make faithful love possible.

PRAYER
Faithful God, untangle my love from anxiety and my service from the need to be indispensable. Show me what is mine to carry, give me courage to release what is not, and teach me to trust you with the growth. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, Part 1: When Your Résumé Becomes a Mask

September 23, 2026 Rev. Todd R. Lattig 2 Comments

Read Luke 18:9–14

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Not that we are qualified of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our qualification is from God.” (2 Corinthians 3:5 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “When Your Résumé Becomes a Mask” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Faith, hope, and love are more than ideas Paul placed beside one another in a memorable verse. They describe a life continually reordered by the grace of Christ: faith loosening our grip on certainty, hope opening a future beyond what we can see, and love transforming how we understand ourselves and one another. In this series, we will follow that grace beneath religious appearances, inherited assumptions, and carefully defended identities until the gospel becomes visible in the lives we live.

The résumé rests on the desk between you.

Your education is there. Your experience. Your accomplishments. The positions you have held and the skills you have acquired. Every line has been carefully selected to present the strongest possible version of you.

Then the interviewer looks up.

“Tell me about yourself.”

For a moment, you wonder what remains to be said. The document already contains the person you came prepared to present. Still, you begin rehearsing its contents in complete sentences. You speak confidently about your strengths, your experience, and the value you would bring.

Then comes the question everyone knows is coming.

“What is your greatest weakness?”

You cannot say anything too honest. This is not the moment to mention the flaw that has damaged relationships, cost opportunities, or kept you awake at night. So you choose something safe. You care too much. You work too hard. You occasionally become so committed to excellence that you forget to rest.

The interviewer nods. You smile. Your weakness has successfully completed its transformation into another strength.

In the story Jesus tells, two people enter the temple to pray. The Pharisee arrives with a spiritual résumé. He has practiced his faith diligently. He fasts. He gives. He has avoided conduct his religious community condemns. None of those practices is inherently wrong. In fact, on their own, they are quite good.

The problem is what he has made them mean.

His résumé no longer describes his devotion. It proves his superiority. He stands before God listing his qualifications and then points toward the tax collector as evidence that he deserves a higher place. He does not simply believe that he knows where he stands with God. He assumes the authority to determine where someone else stands.

His prayer begins with God, but it never truly reaches beyond himself. In a way, it’s hard to see where he ends and God begins.

The tax collector has no impressive document to present. His position has allowed him to profit from an imperial system that extracts wealth from his own people. Perhaps he enjoys the money, power, and protection his role provides. Jesus does not tell us that he has resigned, repaid anyone, or repaired the damage he has helped cause.

The tax collector does not claim innocence. Neither does he announce that he is worthless, disgusting, or beyond redemption. He does not say, “God, I loathe myself.”

He simply tells the truth.

He knows his position has harmed people. He knows that no polished explanation can turn exploitation into righteousness. He knows he cannot stand before God pretending that his life has cost others nothing.

So he asks for mercy.

That is humility. Humility is not hating yourself. It is not shrinking until you disappear or treating your existence as an offense God reluctantly tolerates. Self-hatred can become another form of fixation upon the self—another form of idolatry.

Humility is seeing yourself truthfully before God, without inflation and without erasure.

Grace does not require you to discard your gifts, education, experience, or accomplishments. Grace does not erase the person you have become. It releases you from using those things to prove your worth. It removes the exhausting burden of persuading God, other people, and yourself that you deserve to be loved.

Churches do not always make that easy. We proclaim grace while rewarding the most polished spiritual résumés. We elevate people who appear certain, productive, respectable, and endlessly available. We can make usefulness look like holiness and visible success look like divine approval. Eventually, people learn to bring curated versions of themselves into worship while their frightened, wounded, complicated selves wait outside.

But God is not conducting an interview.

You are not competing against the person praying beside you. You do not need to disguise your wounds as strengths, list your good deeds, or prove that someone else is less deserving. God already sees beneath every carefully constructed answer.

The unsettling question is not whether your résumé is impressive.

The question is whether it has become a mask.

Who are you when you stop presenting evidence that you deserve to be loved?

You are the person God already knows.

You are the person grace is already reaching.

And you may finally discover that the self beneath the mask does not need to earn mercy, only receive it.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Humility is standing truthfully before God without making yourself either superior or worthless.

PRAYER
Merciful God, free me from the need to prove my worth or measure it against another person. Help me see myself honestly, receive grace without performance, and extend that same mercy to others. Amen.

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

A biweekly devotional