Month: November 2025

It is the darkest period of World War II…

“Not one stone will be left on another.”…

Listen to Devotion

[God will] give relief to you who are troubled.
2 Thessalonians 1:7

Relief

Relief is big business. Walk up and down the aisles of your local pharmacy and read the labels. Relief from back pain. Relief from knee pain. Cold and flu relief. Relief from a toothache. Itch relief. Psoriasis relief. Earache relief. Headache relief. Sunburn relief. Foot pain relief. Relief from overworked muscles. All these types of relief are wonderful blessings from a gracious God.

But in our Bible reading today, the apostle Paul speaks to us about a kind of relief that’s on an entirely different plane. It is the relief that the Lord promises to give to us on the Last Day, the day of judgment. As our Savior-God watches over us, he never forgets that every moment of every day you, and I are laboring under the weight of living in a sinful, fallen creation. Day by day, we do battle. We battle Satan—both his temptations and his accusations. We battle temptations and distractions from the world. And we do battle with our own sinful selves.

All this he sees. All this he understands. And to encourage us to keep fighting the good fight of the faith, he promises to bring us sweet relief on the Last Day—a relief from all the troubles of this world, a relief beyond description.

Author J.R. Tolkien was a Christian, and he once remarked that there are Christian themes in his great work, The Lord of the Rings. In a closing scene to the 2003 film based on Tolkien’s book, we see two individuals. The first is Frodo, a person who has just finished an exhausting, perilous journey to help defeat a great evil. As Frodo awakens from a long, deep sleep, he sees Gandalf, an old, dear friend he’d thought was long dead. Frodo and Gandalf look at each other, smile, and begin to laugh. And laugh. And laugh some more. The laughter is not only of joy and reunion. It is the laughter of indescribable relief.

Such relief is what awaits us. And it’s the kind of relief that will never end.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, because of you, a great, eternal relief awaits me. Move me never to forget this. Amen.

 

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Listen to Devotion

“But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.”
Malachi 4:2

Healing

How many wounds do you carry? As you read or listen to this devotion, perhaps you can feel the physical ache of an old injury. Perhaps there’s a serious accident in your past that your body has never fully recovered from. Perhaps the discomfort from an old physical hurt continues to vex you.

And then there are the other wounds, the wounds not of the body. “Some old wounds never truly heal and bleed again at the slightest word,” says the author J.R.R. Martin. “The wounds that never heal can only be mourned alone,” says writer James Frey. And Rose Kennedy once said, “In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers [certain wounds] with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”

Let’s acknowledge this reality. You and I live in a broken world; a world broken by sin—yours and mine. Because we do, the likelihood for serious wounds is overwhelming—wounds we receive from others, wounds we inflict on others, wounds we inflict on ourselves. Some of those wounds may heal slowly. Other of these wounds may heal at a pace that seems glacial. Still others may grow scar tissue that remains tender, ready to “bleed again at the slightest word.”

Jesus knows this. On our behalf, he entered this broken world. He became one of us. He knows all about such wounds. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, it was Jesus who was “wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.” For this reason, the Son of God understands how such wounds feel.

But because Christ Jesus bore our sins in our place, he does far more than sympathize with the pain of our wounds. He brings healing. Whole, entire, absolute, complete healing. He brings that healing balm to us now through the gospel in Word and sacrament. And one day you and I will experience that healing from old wounds in full, when there will be “no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.”

On that day, you and I will bask in the healing warmth of the sun of righteousness. The old will be gone. The new will have come.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, you have secured my complete healing from my old wounds. Thank you. Amen.

 

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Listen to Devotion

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace…” says the LORD Almighty.
Malachi 4:1

A Furnace

You are walking along a beach on the northeastern corner of the Sea of Galilee. As you do, you come across a small set of ancient ruins not far from shore. The ruins have been around for a long time; they go back to around the days of King David. You wander through them to investigate. And it is there that you spot a well-preserved remnant from the past. It’s a common furnace. You can easily picture people in David’s time using it. They’d place fuel at the bottom and light it. The design of the furnace is such that it would channel oxygen straight into the flames. The result is that there would soon be a hot, intense blaze waiting to consume everything it receives.

Envision this furnace working at full capacity. Feel the waves of heat radiating from its core. Smell the smoke. Taste the soot. Peer inside to see the raging fire. All this came to mind for the Old Testament prophet Malachi when the Lord spoke of the final judgment of the world. All that is evil, all that is arrogant, all that is defiant before the perfect goodness of God—all this the Lord will consume on the day of judgment. As Malachi later recorded, “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.”

On the other hand, this is a sobering thing. It reminds me that my every sinful failure, my every sinful thought, my every self-absorbed impulse is worthy of God’s righteous judgment, God’s consuming fire.

It also reminds me why God the Son came. He came to take my place. He came to be my substitute. He went to the cross to enter the furnace on my behalf. In doing so, he paid for my sins in full. Yours too.

All of which reminds us of one more thing. The evils of this broken world: horrors, abuse, injustice, hatred, atrocities, depravities, and lies—they do not have the last word. Jesus does. And eternal life in heaven awaits.

Prayer:

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for absorbing the judgment on my behalf. In difficult moments, remind me that the evils of this world do not have the final say. You do. Amen.

 

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Listen to Devotion

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
James 1:17-18

Equipped to Keep on Sharing

In today’s Bible reading, the apostle James says something remarkable. He says that God does not change. He is not like a shifting shadow—like the shadow of a windowpane moving slowly across the living room floor until it disappears as the sun goes down. In particular, with respect to giving his people good gifts, God does not change. He is like the sun when viewed from outer space. He keeps shining. He never sets. His generosity does not change. He still selects carefully just the right gifts and just the right number of gifts to give his people.

God’s greatest gift to us is the gift of spiritual life—a gift that the apostle James says God gave us through the word of truth. Through the words of the Bible, God points us to Jesus and convinces us that he is the Son of God, who became a human being to save us from our sin. He leads us to believe that someday we will live with him in heaven. When we reflect on God’s gracious gifts to us, especially the gift of spiritual life through Jesus, we are motivated to show generosity, consideration, kindness, forgiveness, patience, and caring for other people.

May it give you the motivation and strength to be as generous to others as he has been to you. God, who does not change, will answer your prayer.

Prayer:

Thank you, Lord, that you do not change. I know I can count on your blessings in the future just as in the past. Grant that your generosity to me makes me generous to those you bring into my life this day. Amen.

 

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Listen to Devotion

[Jesus said,] “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
Luke 20:38

Alive to God

Many people hope that, if God does exist, they will be able to live with him in heaven. Unfortunately for those who do not have faith in Jesus, this is a baseless hope that ends only in disaster. In contrast, Jesus helps us understand what it means to be alive to God. He also provides the assurance needed to know that we will live with him forever.

Jesus’ words appear to be challenging. He said, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” There are two implications. The first is how God views those who die. When this life comes to an end, people don’t simply fade into nothingness. God still recognizes and preserves the soul. This leads to a second, and greater implication. How does that soul remain alive to God?

The answer is found in only one place and with only one person. In the Bible, God reveals the person to whom we need to hold. It is through Jesus and his precious work that we find confidence and are alive to God. In Jesus, we escape the justice of disobedience and are set free from the condemnation of sin. In Jesus, we are released from the sentence of God’s eternal punishment and declared not guilty. Our confidence comes as the result of Jesus’ blessed assurance. He promised, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).

It is only because of Jesus’ precious work and his never-failing promise that we have this confidence: “I am alive to God, and I will live with him forever.”

Prayer:

O gracious God, Lord of life and death, bless me with the gift of faith which not only takes hold of eternal life, but which also holds on to the source of that life—my Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Listen to Devotion

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
Luke 19:10

Are You Lost?

Is it possible to get lost anymore? With GPS, Find My, and AirTag, it seems like no one should ever get lost. Some of us remember the days when all we had was a map to guide us. Getting lost was perhaps more common in those days. But dads especially refused to admit they were lost. We can perhaps still remember Dad saying, ‘I’m not lost, I know exactly where I am!’

That kind of thinking is common also in our spiritual lives. Few, if any of us, would admit that we are lost. We think we know exactly where we are in life, and we have it all figured out. Maybe we have taken a few bad turns in life, but we are generally going in the right direction. Perhaps a few bad choices detoured us a bit, but we’re in control and we know where we are going. Yet so many of us are wandering through life without a spiritual GPS. If heaven is the destination, we don’t have any sort of guide or direction.

The good news is that Jesus came to save the lost and to guide us home. But if we can’t admit that we are lost, then Jesus has nothing for us. If we believe we are all good on our own and don’t need to be saved, Jesus leaves us to find our own way home to heaven. Without him as our Savior, we can’t possibly find the way.

As hard as it is to admit, we are lost on our own and need Jesus to bring us home. And thankfully, he does just that. He is the only way to heaven. His life and death in our place paved the road to eternal life. He rose from the dead to guarantee that through faith in him, we will find the way through this life into heaven with him. Jesus came and saved us and now provides us with eternal life. Keep your eyes on Jesus, and he will lead you home.

Prayer:

Dear Jesus, thank you for coming to seek and save me. Help me to know that even though I was lost, now I am saved and on the way to heaven. Amen.

 

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.