MONDAY, OCTOBER 19
PSALM 80:14-19
DEUTERONOMY 18:1-22
MATTHEW 14:22-36
Well, after traveling to Detroit and back over the weekend and getting stuck in three traffic jams on the way out Saturday, it is nice to be back in the routine and sleeping in my own bed. But it also means getting back to meetings and just being busy in general.
The picture language here in the Psalm is interesting. “Have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted.” Obviously this reminds us of the “vine and the branches” language Jesus used in the Gospels. But, it would remind the reader that God planted us and cares for us. So much so in fact, that in the very next line, he refers to us as “the son who you made strong for yourself.” He wants to focus on the close relationship between the father and the son. If the Lord is going to “turn again” and take us back, it is going to be based on that relationship.
The problem is, “they have burned it with fire; they have cut it down,” so the vine has taken on some damage and the Lord is going to have to make repairs. “Let your hand be on the man of your right hand.” The right hand is the hand of power (which us left handed people aren’t happy with). My study Bible stays that these phrases speak about the king of Israel from David’s line, pointing toward the coming of the Messiah. Jesus is the “son of man” who sits at the right hand of God.
In Deuteronomy we get a glimpse into the life of God’s professional church workers in Israel. Every one of the twelve tribes of Israel were given land when they took over the promise land except for the tribe of Levi. The Levites were to be the priests. So they would be spread over the whole nation, serving in the Synagogues and some in the temple. Since they didn’t have land, they couldn’t plant crops or raise sheep or goats, so they depended on the offerings that the Israelites for their sustenance. They were allowed to eat certain parts of the offerings as their life support. It was God’s plan. It was actually a pretty good plan as long as the nation did what God asked.
In our Gospel lesson we see Jesus staying behind after the feeding of the 5000 to pray. Before and after many big events like that, Jesus spent extra time alone with His Father. He was a good Son and needed and loved that time with God. Finally, by the third watch (between 3 and 6am) He heads back out to catch up with the disciples who were trying to cross the lake in a boat, but with the wind against them and twelve people in the boat, they weren’t making much progress. So Jesus walks on the water. Peter briefly walks on the water. And our Lord responds with “O you of little faith.” Yeah, waves and wind have that affect on us. We take our focus of what’s important and get scared.
We don’t have to worry about wind and waves today. Our Lord has given us a great day. Let see how we can serve Him on this great day…
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20
PSALM 138
DEUTERONOMY 19:1-20
MATTHEW 15:1-20
I was very surprised at how warm it was this morning while I was out for my walk. I even took off my sweatshirt half way through. I’m not complaining, just surprised. Watch, tomorrow morning, it will be snowing.
Have you ever noticed or caught yourself just casually thanking God, maybe out of habit, just going through the paces, not really feeling it deep down inside? Maybe you and the family sat down at dinner and raced through grace and then someone in the family asks, “Did we say grace yet?” and no one is sure if you did.
Well, King David may have done that once or twice, but not on the occasion of the Psalm for today. “I give you thanks, O Lord, with my WHOLE HEART.” His whole heart is into it. He’s putting his heart and soul into thanking God. As we prepare for Thanksgiving in a few weeks, let’s not forget that we aren’t just giving thanks. But we are giving thanks to God for what He does in our lives each day. What are you thankful for today?
The LCMS has a volunteer program to help women in crisis pregnancy situations called Place of Refuge. It is based on this concept from Deuteronomy that if you accidently hurt or harmed or even killed someone, you could go to a City of Refuge and me safe there. Obviously, if you had murdered someone (murder includes malice aforethought) then you would be dragged out of the City of Refuge (kicking and screaming) and be stoned. Place of Refuge does a lot of great work. They help so many women in crisis with the Law and Gospel. It is a great blessing, a light if you will, to help with this very dark problem.
Lutherans are big on tradition. So were the scribes and Pharisees. But they were legalistic, not caring why the law was made, but just making sure that they and everyone else followed the law. The disciples weren’t washing their hands before they ate. Now, we aren’t talking about our moms reminding us to go in the bathroom, turn on the water, running our hands under the water, picking up and using a bar of soap, then rinsing and drying our hands with a towel. No, what the scribes and Pharisees were complaining about were the disciples not holding their hands over a bowl and having water sprinkled over their hands and then dried. Does that help with cleanliness? I don’t think so. It was a ritual. That’s all.
But our Lord reminds us that it’s not what we eat that defiles us, it’s what comes from our heart that defiles us. To defile is to make impure or unclean. Sure, eating spaghetti might get our shirt dirty, but it’s not going to make us unclean. Letting loose with a string of impure words however, oh that is going to defile is in a New York minute. It’s what is in our heart that counts.
Take a look inside your heart today. What’s there? Take a moment to thank God for His Son and be sure that your whole heart is into it. Have a blessed day.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21
PSALM 142
DEUTERONOMY 20:1-20
MATTHEW 15:21-39
Have you ever had one of those days when you thought no one was listening? Maybe that day turned into weeks and months where you were going through a rough stretch and it seemed as if no one was listening. You feel sad and alone and you just wanted to scream.
On the other side, are those people who when you ask how they are respond, “Oh, I can’t complain. No one would listen anyway.” My response is, “It’s my job to listen.”
And so, in our Psalm, we see David pouring out his heart to God. “With my voice I cry out to the Lord; with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.” No, maybe no one here is listening, we feel alone, but the Lord ALWAYS LISTENS. We may not be able to see Him, hear Him, touch Him, but HE IS LISTENING. This Psalm is all about crying out to the Lord. “Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low.” He always listens. His answers may not come right away. I’ve been waiting five months for the Lord to answer a situation in my life. He hasn’t fully given us an answer yet, BUT I CAN SEE HIM WORKING IN MY LIFE AND WHAT I SEE, I LIKE.
Can you imagine being in charge of 2 to 3 million people? That’s a fairly large city. Furthermore, those 2 to 3 million people don’t have homes and are just traveling here and there and they need food and water on a daily basis for them and their livestock. And now, they are going into a foreign country in order to take over their land and they need a strategy and that strategy is laid out here. To summarize, for the cities you are going past but who do not reside inside the boundaries of the Promised Land, try to make treaties, but if they don’t, kill the men and take the women and children and livestock as your servants. If they are inside the boundaries, kill them, lest they lead you astray. Now, God knew they were going to be led astray anyway, but He makes every attempt to keep it from happening. War is not pretty. But God had to fulfill His promise to Abraham sometime. The salvation of the world rests on it.
Have you ever argued with God? Have you ever been angry with God? I’ve told a few people who were angry with God that it’s fine to be angry with God. He has big shoulders. He can handle it. Sometimes we just need to get our anger out of our system.
In the Gospel lesson, we see the Canaanite woman arguing with Jesus. Was Jesus being mean? What He being stubborn? No, He knew that this little conversation would cement her faith in Him. Everything Jesus says and does is to bring about faith. So, resisting this woman’s request a bit solidified her faith.
Still waiting for a prayer to be answered? Maybe God is waiting so that your faith is strengthened. Maybe God is waiting for you to stop depending on yourself and put your full weight on Him. He works in crazy ways. He likes us to recognize His work in our lives. He does NOTHING by chance. It’s all by His design.
Thank you God for all that you do in my life.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22
PSALM 62
DEUTERONOMY 21:1-23
MATTHEW 16:1-12
Who ordered this rain? I couldn’t go walking this morning because it was raining. So I did what every tired boy would do, go back to sleep for 40 minutes.
Everyone once and a while, we need a rock in our lives. We need something solid and unmovable in our life because EVERYTHING else around us is going crazy. One phone call can change the course of the next three or four days. Everything seems in flux and normal life seems so far away.
But that’s where God comes in. He is our rock and our salvation. He is our fortress. While the world will knock and beat on the gate, our Lord will not let anyone in. He will keep us safe and sound and protected. We can stand inside our fortress without fear, sleeping comfortably in our bed trusting our Lord for protection.
Want proof that our Lord inspired the Old Testament and told Moses what to write? We see that here in Deuteronomy 21. What struggling people, embarking on a plan to move in and take over land owned by someone else would have thought long and hard enough to come up with an idea of what to do when a body was found dead and there were no witnesses and no evidence to point to the murderer or the cause of the accident? Who would care?
For our Lord, every life is sacred and He doesn’t want one soul to perish. He cares greatly about every life. In a world where thousands of souls die needlessly each day, just imagine our Lord’s sorrow and anger. There wouldn’t be a heifer left in our country if we had to sacrifice one for every abortion in our land. But then again, we could not say with the leaders of those cities, “Our hands did not shed blood, now did our eyes see it shed.” Our guilt remains.
And the Lord was not easy on rebellious children. Can you imagine taking your rebellious child to the elders and saying, I can’t deal with him and then watching and participating in his stoning to death? I would think that by the time you got half way to the city gate, that hopefully the child would straighten out and realize that this was serious. Heck, we can’t even spank children today. And we wonder why kids set other kids on fire and laugh about it.
If only the scribes and Pharisees would wake up and smell the coffee. Couldn’t they just see the signs and wonders Jesus did. They saw Jesus raise Lazarus and they respond by plotting Jesus’ death. Truly, our Lord wishes it were different. He wants everyone to repent and enjoy the splendor of heaven, where it will not rain and will not be cold and dreary. Where we will all be joyful and perfect and holy. We will be with God.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
PSALM 107:10-16
DEUTERONOMY 24:10-25:10
MATTHEW 16:13-28
Not every day is a good day. Some days are dark and filled with affliction. It’s amazing. In hospitals all over the world, families are gathered together, praying for a loved one who is at death’s door. The family doesn’t leave his side. They barely eat. They barely sleep. They are so concerned and look for any sign that he’s going to be okay. And yet, you look outside and the traffic continues to drive by, people going to work, people continue to fly out of town on vacation, eat out in restaurants, and go about every day business. People are walking in darkness and right outside people in the same town continue to walk in the light.
The choice is basically ours, following the Lord will keep us on the straight and narrow, but if we abandon the Lord, He will always take us back. He will always take us back.
We get a glimpse into Israelite culture in Deuteronomy today. At first, it’s the Israelite welfare system. If you lend money to a poor person, the pledge needs to be returned during the night and no pledge is received from a widow. When it comes to agriculture, once you have gone through your fields and reaped the harvest, anyone else can go through the field and glean what was left behind. That was to support them in tough times. Hence, we see Jesus and the disciples walking through a field picking the wheat heads and eating them because they were hungry and McDonald’s was closed. That was totally acceptable. Except when Jesus and the boys did it was on a Sabbath.
Finally, the Levirate Marriage law is explained. Can you imagine marrying your brother’s wife if your brother died without having any children? Seems strange to us, but the family name was important to the Israelites and they didn’t want the family name to die off. So, the younger brother was expected to take his brother’s wife and bear him a child. Strange but true.
In our Gospel lesson today we see the high point, the climax of Peter’s life. Being asked who he thought Jesus was Peter shouts out, “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God.” What a confession! What a day that had been. But it is right after this confession that Jesus begins to predict His death and resurrection, from that spiritual high, to the grim sad low. But it was necessary for the Lord to die for our salvation.
It is dark and wet outside, but the Lord continues to raise our soul. God’s blessings to each of you this day.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 19
PSALM 80:14-19
DEUTERONOMY 18:1-22
MATTHEW 14:22-36
Well, after traveling to Detroit and back over the weekend and getting stuck in three traffic jams on the way out Saturday, it is nice to be back in the routine and sleeping in my own bed. But it also means getting back to meetings and just being busy in general.
The picture language here in the Psalm is interesting. “Have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted.” Obviously this reminds us of the “vine and the branches” language Jesus used in the Gospels. But, it would remind the reader that God planted us and cares for us. So much so in fact, that in the very next line, he refers to us as “the son who you made strong for yourself.” He wants to focus on the close relationship between the father and the son. If the Lord is going to “turn again” and take us back, it is going to be based on that relationship.
The problem is, “they have burned it with fire; they have cut it down,” so the vine has taken on some damage and the Lord is going to have to make repairs. “Let your hand be on the man of your right hand.” The right hand is the hand of power (which us left handed people aren’t happy with). My study Bible stays that these phrases speak about the king of Israel from David’s line, pointing toward the coming of the Messiah. Jesus is the “son of man” who sits at the right hand of God.
In Deuteronomy we get a glimpse into the life of God’s professional church workers in Israel. Every one of the twelve tribes of Israel were given land when they took over the promise land except for the tribe of Levi. The Levites were to be the priests. So they would be spread over the whole nation, serving in the Synagogues and some in the temple. Since they didn’t have land, they couldn’t plant crops or raise sheep or goats, so they depended on the offerings that the Israelites for their sustenance. They were allowed to eat certain parts of the offerings as their life support. It was God’s plan. It was actually a pretty good plan as long as the nation did what God asked.
In our Gospel lesson we see Jesus staying behind after the feeding of the 5000 to pray. Before and after many big events like that, Jesus spent extra time alone with His Father. He was a good Son and needed and loved that time with God. Finally, by the third watch (between 3 and 6am) He heads back out to catch up with the disciples who were trying to cross the lake in a boat, but with the wind against them and twelve people in the boat, they weren’t making much progress. So Jesus walks on the water. Peter briefly walks on the water. And our Lord responds with “O you of little faith.” Yeah, waves and wind have that affect on us. We take our focus of what’s important and get scared.
We don’t have to worry about wind and waves today. Our Lord has given us a great day. Let see how we can serve Him on this great day…
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20
PSALM 138
DEUTERONOMY 19:1-20
MATTHEW 15:1-20
I was very surprised at how warm it was this morning while I was out for my walk. I even took off my sweatshirt half way through. I’m not complaining, just surprised. Watch, tomorrow morning, it will be snowing.
Have you ever noticed or caught yourself just casually thanking God, maybe out of habit, just going through the paces, not really feeling it deep down inside? Maybe you and the family sat down at dinner and raced through grace and then someone in the family asks, “Did we say grace yet?” and no one is sure if you did.
Well, King David may have done that once or twice, but not on the occasion of the Psalm for today. “I give you thanks, O Lord, with my WHOLE HEART.” His whole heart is into it. He’s putting his heart and soul into thanking God. As we prepare for Thanksgiving in a few weeks, let’s not forget that we aren’t just giving thanks. But we are giving thanks to God for what He does in our lives each day. What are you thankful for today?
The LCMS has a volunteer program to help women in crisis pregnancy situations called Place of Refuge. It is based on this concept from Deuteronomy that if you accidently hurt or harmed or even killed someone, you could go to a City of Refuge and me safe there. Obviously, if you had murdered someone (murder includes malice aforethought) then you would be dragged out of the City of Refuge (kicking and screaming) and be stoned. Place of Refuge does a lot of great work. They help so many women in crisis with the Law and Gospel. It is a great blessing, a light if you will, to help with this very dark problem.
Lutherans are big on tradition. So were the scribes and Pharisees. But they were legalistic, not caring why the law was made, but just making sure that they and everyone else followed the law. The disciples weren’t washing their hands before they ate. Now, we aren’t talking about our moms reminding us to go in the bathroom, turn on the water, running our hands under the water, picking up and using a bar of soap, then rinsing and drying our hands with a towel. No, what the scribes and Pharisees were complaining about were the disciples not holding their hands over a bowl and having water sprinkled over their hands and then dried. Does that help with cleanliness? I don’t think so. It was a ritual. That’s all.
But our Lord reminds us that it’s not what we eat that defiles us, it’s what comes from our heart that defiles us. To defile is to make impure or unclean. Sure, eating spaghetti might get our shirt dirty, but it’s not going to make us unclean. Letting loose with a string of impure words however, oh that is going to defile is in a New York minute. It’s what is in our heart that counts.
Take a look inside your heart today. What’s there? Take a moment to thank God for His Son and be sure that your whole heart is into it. Have a blessed day.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21
PSALM 142
DEUTERONOMY 20:1-20
MATTHEW 15:21-39
Have you ever had one of those days when you thought no one was listening? Maybe that day turned into weeks and months where you were going through a rough stretch and it seemed as if no one was listening. You feel sad and alone and you just wanted to scream.
On the other side, are those people who when you ask how they are respond, “Oh, I can’t complain. No one would listen anyway.” My response is, “It’s my job to listen.”
And so, in our Psalm, we see David pouring out his heart to God. “With my voice I cry out to the Lord; with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.” No, maybe no one here is listening, we feel alone, but the Lord ALWAYS LISTENS. We may not be able to see Him, hear Him, touch Him, but HE IS LISTENING. This Psalm is all about crying out to the Lord. “Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low.” He always listens. His answers may not come right away. I’ve been waiting five months for the Lord to answer a situation in my life. He hasn’t fully given us an answer yet, BUT I CAN SEE HIM WORKING IN MY LIFE AND WHAT I SEE, I LIKE.
Can you imagine being in charge of 2 to 3 million people? That’s a fairly large city. Furthermore, those 2 to 3 million people don’t have homes and are just traveling here and there and they need food and water on a daily basis for them and their livestock. And now, they are going into a foreign country in order to take over their land and they need a strategy and that strategy is laid out here. To summarize, for the cities you are going past but who do not reside inside the boundaries of the Promised Land, try to make treaties, but if they don’t, kill the men and take the women and children and livestock as your servants. If they are inside the boundaries, kill them, lest they lead you astray. Now, God knew they were going to be led astray anyway, but He makes every attempt to keep it from happening. War is not pretty. But God had to fulfill His promise to Abraham sometime. The salvation of the world rests on it.
Have you ever argued with God? Have you ever been angry with God? I’ve told a few people who were angry with God that it’s fine to be angry with God. He has big shoulders. He can handle it. Sometimes we just need to get our anger out of our system.
In the Gospel lesson, we see the Canaanite woman arguing with Jesus. Was Jesus being mean? What He being stubborn? No, He knew that this little conversation would cement her faith in Him. Everything Jesus says and does is to bring about faith. So, resisting this woman’s request a bit solidified her faith.
Still waiting for a prayer to be answered? Maybe God is waiting so that your faith is strengthened. Maybe God is waiting for you to stop depending on yourself and put your full weight on Him. He works in crazy ways. He likes us to recognize His work in our lives. He does NOTHING by chance. It’s all by His design.
Thank you God for all that you do in my life.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22
PSALM 62
DEUTERONOMY 21:1-23
MATTHEW 16:1-12
Who ordered this rain? I couldn’t go walking this morning because it was raining. So I did what every tired boy would do, go back to sleep for 40 minutes.
Everyone once and a while, we need a rock in our lives. We need something solid and unmovable in our life because EVERYTHING else around us is going crazy. One phone call can change the course of the next three or four days. Everything seems in flux and normal life seems so far away.
But that’s where God comes in. He is our rock and our salvation. He is our fortress. While the world will knock and beat on the gate, our Lord will not let anyone in. He will keep us safe and sound and protected. We can stand inside our fortress without fear, sleeping comfortably in our bed trusting our Lord for protection.
Want proof that our Lord inspired the Old Testament and told Moses what to write? We see that here in Deuteronomy 21. What struggling people, embarking on a plan to move in and take over land owned by someone else would have thought long and hard enough to come up with an idea of what to do when a body was found dead and there were no witnesses and no evidence to point to the murderer or the cause of the accident? Who would care?
For our Lord, every life is sacred and He doesn’t want one soul to perish. He cares greatly about every life. In a world where thousands of souls die needlessly each day, just imagine our Lord’s sorrow and anger. There wouldn’t be a heifer left in our country if we had to sacrifice one for every abortion in our land. But then again, we could not say with the leaders of those cities, “Our hands did not shed blood, now did our eyes see it shed.” Our guilt remains.
And the Lord was not easy on rebellious children. Can you imagine taking your rebellious child to the elders and saying, I can’t deal with him and then watching and participating in his stoning to death? I would think that by the time you got half way to the city gate, that hopefully the child would straighten out and realize that this was serious. Heck, we can’t even spank children today. And we wonder why kids set other kids on fire and laugh about it.
If only the scribes and Pharisees would wake up and smell the coffee. Couldn’t they just see the signs and wonders Jesus did. They saw Jesus raise Lazarus and they respond by plotting Jesus’ death. Truly, our Lord wishes it were different. He wants everyone to repent and enjoy the splendor of heaven, where it will not rain and will not be cold and dreary. Where we will all be joyful and perfect and holy. We will be with God.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
PSALM 107:10-16
DEUTERONOMY 24:10-25:10
MATTHEW 16:13-28
Not every day is a good day. Some days are dark and filled with affliction. It’s amazing. In hospitals all over the world, families are gathered together, praying for a loved one who is at death’s door. The family doesn’t leave his side. They barely eat. They barely sleep. They are so concerned and look for any sign that he’s going to be okay. And yet, you look outside and the traffic continues to drive by, people going to work, people continue to fly out of town on vacation, eat out in restaurants, and go about every day business. People are walking in darkness and right outside people in the same town continue to walk in the light.
The choice is basically ours, following the Lord will keep us on the straight and narrow, but if we abandon the Lord, He will always take us back. He will always take us back.
We get a glimpse into Israelite culture in Deuteronomy today. At first, it’s the Israelite welfare system. If you lend money to a poor person, the pledge needs to be returned during the night and no pledge is received from a widow. When it comes to agriculture, once you have gone through your fields and reaped the harvest, anyone else can go through the field and glean what was left behind. That was to support them in tough times. Hence, we see Jesus and the disciples walking through a field picking the wheat heads and eating them because they were hungry and McDonald’s was closed. That was totally acceptable. Except when Jesus and the boys did it was on a Sabbath.
Finally, the Levirate Marriage law is explained. Can you imagine marrying your brother’s wife if your brother died without having any children? Seems strange to us, but the family name was important to the Israelites and they didn’t want the family name to die off. So, the younger brother was expected to take his brother’s wife and bear him a child. Strange but true.
In our Gospel lesson today we see the high point, the climax of Peter’s life. Being asked who he thought Jesus was Peter shouts out, “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God.” What a confession! What a day that had been. But it is right after this confession that Jesus begins to predict His death and resurrection, from that spiritual high, to the grim sad low. But it was necessary for the Lord to die for our salvation.
It is dark and wet outside, but the Lord continues to raise our soul. God’s blessings to each of you this day.