Tag Archives: Life-Giving Water Devotions

Devotional

Thirteen Reasons Why—One Reason Why Not

Leave a comment

Read Luke 12:22–34

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’” (Romans 8:15 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Thirteen Reasons Why—One Reason Why Not” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Whenever Friday the 13th rolls around, my first thought is usually Jason, or his mommy dearest. I love the Friday the 13th films, and right now I’m watching Crystal Lake, the prequel series filmed in and around Blairstown, New Jersey, where the original movie was filmed. There’s something fun about watching a horror story unfold on streets you recognize. And for all the dread the date is supposed to inspire, Friday the 13th has always been a bit of a lucky day for me. I always look forward to it.

So how did an ordinary square on the calendar get such a reputation? Friday and the number thirteen each had older associations with bad luck. Some Christian explanations point to the Last Supper, with Jesus and the twelve disciples at the table, and to the crucifixion on Friday. Then there’s the lore about the Knights Templar. On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV had Templars arrested across France. Years later, as their grand master Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake, legend has it that he cursed the king and the pope from the flames. In one telling, those arrests are how Friday the 13th got its unlucky reputation.

Fast-forward six hundred years. In 1907, American novelist Thomas W. Lawson used the date as the title of his novel Friday, the Thirteenth. Then, in 1980, the original Friday the 13th gave the date a place in horror cinema. The title was already doing some of the work of scaring us before anyone set foot in the woods.

A good scare is part of what I love about horror. I can spend an evening waiting for something terrible to come out of the woods and enjoy every minute of it. But there’s a different kind of fear in wondering whether I should change my plans because of a date on the calendar. A black cat crosses the street. A mirror breaks. We say something hopeful or negative and then knock on wood. It can be a harmless habit, even a joke we share. But when we start to feel responsible for what might happen if we skip the ritual, the superstition has found something to prey on. Most of us would like a little more control over what happens next.

Jesus speaks to that desire in Luke. He asks his disciples to consider the ravens and the lilies as he talks about food and clothing. Those are real needs. Anyone who has stood in a grocery aisle doing the math before putting something in the cart knows why a person might worry about tomorrow. Jesus points to creatures that live within God’s care and reminds his disciples that God already knows what they need. Then he calls them his little flock and tells them they needn’t be afraid. God delights in giving them the Kingdom.

Notice what Jesus asks of them next. He tells them to give to those in need. The people worrying about having enough are invited to look around and see who else needs something. That takes trust. It’s hard to open your hands when you’re busy trying to hold on to everything that might keep you safe.

Paul puts it in the language of family. In Romans 8, he tells us that the Spirit we received brings us into God’s family, where we can cry out to God as beloved children. Scripture comes back to this reassurance again and again. Jesus calls us a little flock. Paul calls us adopted children. In both passages, the reason we can face what scares us is that we belong to God. We can bring our fear into that relationship, even on the days when we can hardly get the words out.

So how do we move from fear to faith when the thing we’re afraid of could really happen? We can begin by telling God what we’re afraid of. Sometimes that prayer is as plain as, “God, I’m scared I won’t have enough to get through the week.” That’s a prayer we can offer while we’re still standing in the grocery aisle. Paul says the Spirit gives us a place in God’s family, and from that place we can cry out. Even that frightened prayer is an act of faith.

Then we can ask what trusting God makes possible today. Maybe it means telling someone we need help instead of carrying the worry alone. Maybe it means sharing a meal with someone else who is wondering how they’ll get through the week. Jesus gives his disciples something they can do while tomorrow is still uncertain. They can care for one another. And when we let someone care for us, we may find that God’s provision comes through hands other than our own.

So enjoy the day and/or the movie if you’re into that sort of thing. I certainly will. And the next time a broken mirror or an unlucky date makes you hesitate, give yourself a moment to ask what you’re afraid might happen. You might discover that beneath the little ritual is a real worry you can name and bring to God. You might even find that the time you would have spent looking for signs of trouble can be spent checking in on someone who could use a little company.

What would you pray today if you trusted that God wanted to hear exactly what scares you? Start there. Then take the next step you can take in love, even if your hands are still shaking.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
When fear makes us reach for something we can control, Christ reminds us that we already belong to God.

PRAYER
God, you know what we fear and what we need. Help us bring our worries to you and trust your care when we can’t see what’s coming. Give us the courage to open our hands to someone who needs us today. Amen.

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

Devotional

Who Gets to Pass By?

Leave a comment

Read Luke 10:25–37

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:33–34 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Who Gets to Pass By?” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Now that Election Day has passed, think about the first conversation you had about the results. Who came to mind? Maybe you thought of someone who had been waiting anxiously for the outcome. Maybe you thought of a candidate you hoped would win, or a leader you were relieved to see lose. Now think about someone whose life will be affected by the decisions made after the election. Did the same person come to mind?

From its founding, the United States has wrestled with the place of faith in public life. The government was to have no established national religion, and people were to be free to practice their faith without government interference.

Somewhere along the way, many of us came to hear freedom of religion as a demand for freedom from religion in the public square. Part of that comes from a genuine concern. Our neighbors have their own faiths, convictions, and experiences. Some have felt the weight of Christians assuming that because we have a voice in public life, we should get to decide what everyone else believes or how everyone else worships. We ought to take that concern seriously. The freedom we cherish for ourselves is a freedom we should defend for our neighbors, too.

What would it look like to honor that freedom in an actual conversation? We can listen when a neighbor tells us what their faith asks of them, and we can speak honestly about what following Jesus asks of us. When we speak up for a family being mistreated, we can say that Jesus taught us to see that family as our neighbors. The person beside us may speak up for the same family out of a different conviction. We can hear each other and work together while speaking openly about what brought each of us there.

The gospel has always met a mixed reception. We have martyrs, and we have cathedrals. We can expect people to respond differently when we bring our faith into public life. What we can answer for is how we bring it. Do we listen with the same care we hope to receive? Do we speak with grace when people disagree? And when a neighbor is being harmed, are we willing to say out loud what our faith calls us to do?

But Christians themselves have had a hand in making faith a private affair. Sometimes we keep quiet because we want the approval of people around us. But churches have also taught people to keep quiet by making it costly to speak. A person can ask aloud whether the church is living what it preaches and find that people who once welcomed them now keep their distance. They can be shunned, pushed out of the community, or even formally excommunicated. After a while, people learn which convictions they can share in church and which ones they had better keep to themselves.

And now some people are, in effect, excommunicating themselves. They are turning their backs on institutions that lorded their power over them. Some walk away still carrying the very convictions about Jesus that led them to speak up in the first place. When that happens, the church has to ask what its own use of power had to do with their leaving. What did we do when someone took the gospel seriously enough to ask whether we were living it?

That question follows us into public life after an election. If we want Christians to exercise their freedom of religion faithfully and graciously, our churches ought to make room for people to say what following Jesus asks of them, even when it challenges a leader we voted for. And we ought to be willing to hear it when the leader they’re challenging is one of us.

In Luke, an expert in religious law asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. The conversation leads to loving God and loving one’s neighbor. Then the expert asks who his neighbor is. Jesus tells him about a man who is robbed, beaten, and left beside the road. A priest passes by. So does a Levite. Finally, a Samaritan sees the man, tends his wounds, takes him to an inn, and pays for his care. He even promises to cover any further expense when he returns.

Jesus ends by asking which of the three acted as a neighbor. The expert can easily answer by looking at what each person did. So can we.

Leviticus presses that question into the life of an entire community. God tells Israel to treat foreigners living among them as they would treat native-born Israelites and to love them as themselves. Then God asks them to remember Egypt. They know what it is to live in a land where others have power over how they are treated. That memory is meant to shape what they do now that the power is theirs. It can shape what we do, too, when a decision made at a public meeting will affect families who have little say in it.

Isaiah 58 brings the question closer to home. The people fast and wonder why God takes no notice, even as they mistreat their workers. Imagine praying for someone on Sunday and then having a say on Monday in whether that person gets paid fairly. Isaiah puts both days before God. And in Mark 10, when James and John ask for places of honor, Jesus speaks about rulers who lord their power over others and calls the disciples to serve. That word reaches anyone with authority, including those of us who exercise it in a church, a workplace, or a town hall.

After an election, it can be easier to talk about who won than to pay attention to who needs a neighbor. It can be harder still to speak when a decision we oppose comes from someone we helped elect. Yet the Samaritan lets the wounded man’s need interrupt his journey, and he takes responsibility for what happens after he leaves the roadside. As the people we elected prepare to begin making decisions, whose wounds are we willing to see, and what are we willing to do once we see them?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Our allegiance to Christ shapes how we use our freedom and whose needs we bring into public view.

PRAYER
God of mercy, open our eyes to the neighbors we pass by. Give us the courage to speak when silence is easier and the grace to serve when mercy costs us something. Keep our allegiance rooted in Christ as we make decisions that affect the lives of others. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

When Power Changes Us

Leave a comment

Read: Mark 10:35–45 (NLT)

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using ChatGPT and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “When Power Changes Us” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

When I heard that the Rev. Adam Hamilton was running for the United States Senate, I found myself holding admiration and concern together. I have respected his ministry for years. He has helped many people encounter Jesus, wrestle honestly with Scripture, and discover a thoughtful expression of United Methodist Christianity. As a fellow ordained elder, I recognize the calling we share, even though our ministries have unfolded on very different scales. Now he is the senator-elect from Kansas, and the questions I carried through his campaign have become considerably more urgent.

Watching NBC News, I saw Rahm Emanuel’s excitement as he discussed Hamilton’s victory. In the coverage I watched, the celebration centered on a Democrat winning in Kansas and what that meant for political power. I can appreciate the hope people see in his victory. Yet I also noticed the different expectations gathering around it. Hamilton may understand his next chapter as an expression of Christian service. The political world welcoming him has its own expectations of what his victory will deliver.

Hamilton has every right to seek public office, and I believe his desire to serve is sincere. Now, however, the campaigning gives way to a harder question: now what? What happens when Christian discipleship encounters the obligations, incentives, and competing loyalties of governing power?

That question belongs to every Christian. Hamilton’s pastoral role gives it particular weight because pastors help others understand what faithful witness looks like. But the concern reaches well beyond clergy. Whenever we seek influence, support a candidate, or celebrate a political victory, we should examine what we expect power to accomplish and what we are willing to accept along the way.

James and John approach Jesus seeking places beside him in glory. They have followed him, learned from him, and witnessed his ministry. Still, their expectations reflect a world in which greatness means occupying the seats nearest the center of power.

Jesus asks whether they can share his cup and baptism. They confidently say they can. But the road ahead leads through suffering and the cross. They are asking for positions whose meaning they do not yet understand.

When the other disciples become angry, Jesus gathers them all. He describes rulers who dominate others and leaders who wield authority over them. Then he insists that his followers must practice a different kind of leadership. Greatness among them takes the shape of service. Jesus grounds that teaching in his own life, given for others.

These disciples already love Jesus. Their devotion has not prevented them from misunderstanding power. That should unsettle those of us who assume sincere faith will keep our ambitions in check.

Christians have responsibilities within society. We should care about laws, public decisions, and the neighbors whose lives they affect. Voting, advocacy, and public service can express that care. Withdrawal can leave vulnerable people facing injustice without our help.

Yet responsible participation does not make acquiring political office the mission Jesus entrusted to his followers. His ministry proclaimed and embodied God’s reign, called people into discipleship, and led him into confrontation with powers that ultimately crucified him. The promise of resurrection places our hope beyond what those powers can grant.

Paul likewise calls believers to live faithfully within their circumstances, attending to how their conduct bears witness to Christ. That instruction does not establish a universal mandate to seek governing office. Neither does it establish a universal prohibition. It leaves us with the demanding work of discernment: will this pursuit help us embody Christ’s way, and what will happen when the role requires something our discipleship cannot permit?

We cannot answer merely by listing the good we hope to accomplish.

Government involves negotiation. An incomplete agreement can bring real relief to people who cannot wait for perfect conditions. But some compromises teach us to excuse what we once recognized as wrong. How do we distinguish patient service from surrendering our convictions? Whose suffering becomes acceptable when keeping influence takes priority?

A new senator will need guidance from people who understand the institution. Those relationships may provide wisdom. They may also teach a newcomer which questions to stop asking and which injustices to tolerate. Political allies can welcome someone’s faith while expecting loyalty when that faith becomes inconvenient.

The rewards matter too. Salary, health coverage, retirement benefits, access, and public standing provide security while others struggle to afford groceries or medical care. Receiving compensation for service carries responsibility. It also gives us something personal to lose. Will we challenge arrangements that protect our comfort while leaving our neighbors exposed?

These questions reach those of us watching from home. Will we hold a politician we admire accountable? Will we excuse conduct from an ally that we condemn in an opponent? When someone bearing Christ’s name wins an election, do we begin treating their success as evidence that God approves their decisions?

Paul’s appeal in Romans 12 calls us toward continuing transformation. In response to God’s mercy, we offer our lives to God and resist conformity to the present age. Discernment requires renewed minds, humility, and a community in which we remain responsible to one another. An initial conviction that God called us somewhere cannot exempt our conduct there from examination.

Hamilton’s ministry helped establish the trust he now carries into public office. As a fellow elder, I care about what his example will teach. I hope he serves faithfully, protects vulnerable people, and remains open to correction. I also hope we resist making him carry expectations that no Christian politician can fulfill.

The same examination belongs in our congregations, workplaces, and homes. We can protect institutions at people’s expense. We can confuse security with faithfulness. We can become so invested in our ability to accomplish good that we stop examining what preserving that ability requires.

Human government can accomplish meaningful good. Our ultimate hope rests in God’s reign. Wherever we serve, people should encounter something of Jesus in how we treat them, especially when doing so costs us.

We may enter believing we will change the system. Who will help us recognize when the system is changing us? And when following Jesus puts our position at risk, will we still follow?

Those questions lead me to prayer. Adam Hamilton will have to walk a very fine line, and I do not imagine I could navigate it easily. Knowing myself, I suspect I would speak my convictions plainly and discover rather quickly how much influence that cost me. I recognize the difficulty of what he is undertaking, and I sincerely want him to remain faithful.

So I ask you to pray for Adam Hamilton. Pray that he serves his country faithfully while keeping his allegiance to Jesus Christ at the center of his life. Pray that he becomes a magnificent witness to Jesus through his decisions, his relationships, his treatment of vulnerable people, and his willingness to tell the truth when silence would be more convenient.

I believe that is possible through the grace of God. Without that grace, it is impossible. Neither a distinguished pastoral record nor strength of character can substitute for our continuing dependence on God. He will need grace to discern, grace to resist, grace to repent, and grace to surrender whatever faithfulness requires him to surrender.

May we pray for him with sincere hope, remain willing to hold him accountable, and receive the same searching grace in our own lives.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Faithful witness depends on God’s grace at every step, especially when power gives us reasons to stop following.

PRAYER
God, surround Adam Hamilton with your grace as he prepares to serve. Give him wisdom to serve his country faithfully, courage to remain loyal to Jesus, and humility to receive correction. May his life and work bear a magnificent witness to Christ. Keep all of us dependent on your grace and willing to follow wherever you lead. Amen.

Devotional, Series

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

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)

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

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).

Devotional, Series

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

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

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

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).

Devotional, Series

GOD BEGINNINGS, Part 16: Toward What Lies Ahead

Leave a comment

Read Philippians 3:12–14

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains.” (Acts 9:1–2 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Toward What Lies Ahead” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

I have always had an affinity for Paul.

Not the Paul polished by centuries of Christianity into a nearly untouchable saint. Nor the Paul some would rather reduce to a sinner, remembered primarily for the violence and persecution of his past. I am drawn to Paul the man—the complicated human being who somehow embodied both.

Because before Paul became one of Christianity’s most profound voices for the radical love and grace of Jesus Christ, he was Saul of Tarsus.

And Saul could be terrifying.

He was a Diaspora Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a Pharisee, educated in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, and fiercely committed to what he believed faithfulness to God required. He also moved within the wider Greco-Roman world and possessed Roman citizenship. Paul belonged to overlapping worlds, and those worlds would later profoundly shape his ministry.

But Saul wasn’t wandering around searching for meaning or wondering what he should do with his life. He believed he already knew. He was so certain of his righteousness that he participated in the persecution of people he believed were dangerously wrong.

Acts introduces him approving of Stephen’s execution. Soon afterward, Saul is entering homes and dragging followers of Jesus away to prison. Eventually, he heads toward Damascus carrying authority to arrest followers of the Way and bring them back to Jerusalem.

Then Christ meets him on the road, and everything changes.

But Saul does not simply disappear and some pristine Saint Paul take his place.

The man who becomes one of Christianity’s most profound voices for grace remains the same man who once participated in violent religious persecution. Paul carries that history with him. He remembers it. He writes about it. He knows both the terrifying damage religious certainty can cause and the astonishing grace of discovering that even the person who caused that damage is not beyond redemption.

That is the Paul who fascinates me. Not sinner or saint, but sinner and saint—a human being capable of terrible harm and extraordinary faithfulness. A violent persecutor transformed into a passionate proponent of the very Christ—and the very people—he once persecuted.

And Paul keeps moving.

The man who once traveled from place to place trying to stop the Jesus movement eventually travels throughout the Roman world proclaiming Christ, forming communities of faith, enduring opposition, suffering beatings and imprisonment, and continuing forward anyway.

By the time Paul writes to the Philippians, there is quite a lot behind him. He is writing from prison, although scholars continue to debate exactly which imprisonment. Rome has traditionally been the leading possibility, while Caesarea and Ephesus have also been proposed. What matters for Philippians is that Paul is confined, his future uncertain, and the possibility of death very real.

If ever there were a moment to look backward and declare the journey complete, this was it.

Paul could remember Damascus, churches planted, lives changed, miles traveled, friendships formed, some other friendships ended, suffering endured, and a life radically transformed by Christ. Yet Paul says he hasn’t arrived.

Instead, he writes: “I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead…”

Paul is not telling us to erase our histories. He spends plenty of time remembering his own. In this very chapter, he recounts who he was, what he once valued, and how encountering Christ changed his understanding of it all.

Paul remembers the past. He simply refuses to live there.

The past can teach us, shape us, wound us, humble us, and remind us of God’s faithfulness. It can show us how far we have come and warn us against becoming who we once were. But yesterday cannot be the place where faithfulness happens today.

Neither can tomorrow.

That can be easy to miss when Paul speaks so passionately about pressing toward what lies ahead. We can become so fixated on the future that we treat the present as little more than a waiting room. Someday I will serve. Someday I will forgive. Someday I will speak. Someday the church will change. Someday I will finally become who God wants me to be.

But Paul is not sitting in prison waiting for someday. He is writing, encouraging, teaching, praying, witnessing, and loving people now.

That may be the paradox at the heart of moving forward with God: we reach toward what lies ahead by living faithfully in the present.

Yesterday is beyond our reach. Tomorrow has not arrived. God has given us today.

That has been the movement beneath every God beginning we have explored in this series. God calls, accompanies, opens doors, closes others, creates something new, gathers unlikely people into one Body, and asks us to leave some things on the shore. But none of those beginnings was ever meant to become a place where we could settle permanently and announce that the work was finished.

Paul refuses to make that claim even after everything he has experienced. He has not arrived.

Neither have we.

That is not failure. It is discipleship.

A God beginning is not a finish line disguised as a starting point. It is an invitation into a life continually being transformed by Christ, and that transformation happens in the present. It happens in the conversation we choose to have, the person we decide to notice, the injustice we refuse to ignore, the forgiveness we offer, the truth we finally speak, the tradition we are willing to reconsider, the neighbor we welcome, and the work immediately before us.

We can honor yesterday without living there. We can hope for tomorrow without escaping into it. And we can live faithfully today while trusting that God is already preparing what lies ahead.

Sixteen devotions ago, we began talking about God beginnings. Now we have reached the end.

Except, of course, we haven’t.

Every ending eventually becomes part of what lies behind us, and every new beginning eventually becomes the present in which we are called to live.

Remember what God has done. Look toward what God may yet do. But live faithfully where God has placed you today, and from here, keep following Christ toward what lies ahead.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Faith remembers yesterday, hopes for tomorrow, and follows Christ today.

PRAYER
God of every beginning, keep me from becoming trapped in yesterday or lost in tomorrow. Teach me to live faithfully today, trusting you with whatever lies ahead. Amen.

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