Lamentations 3:19-24| I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope – Lamentations 3:21

As a child, I remember older leaders praying each Sunday as worship began. Their prayers addressed “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” It would be years before I knew they were praying to the One who could be trusted because of His record of faithfulness. This phrase, “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” testified of the Promise Keeper, faithful to those biblical patriarchs. And He was faithful to their wives, including Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, and to everyone in their tribes. Faithful to the older leaders and the church communities.

Scripture shows God repeatedly calling the Israelites to remember. He who was faithful to Abraham is the same God who saw a mistreated Hagar as she wept in the desert (Genesis 16:7; 21:16). And who heard the Israelites as they cried out in bondage (Exodus 3:7). This is the same heavenly Father who sees and hears us. He invites us to remember, calling to mind His character, because our hope is restored through remembering.

Hope is our confident expectation that God will be faithful just as He always has been. Remembering builds our inner strength as we trust in His faithfulness to us before, after, and when He hears our cries. Whether in the midst of a personal or global crisis, even when life doesn’t make sense, if we can pause and remember the truth about God, we can have hope.—Joe Ella Darby

How has God been faithful to you? How does remembering God’s faithfulness restore your hope that God is still able and willing to work on our behalf? 

God, allow me to remember all the times when You have been faithful. As I remember, restore my hope and strengthen me.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/

Daniel 3:17-18 | If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. – Daniel 3:17

I’m finally 21. When I was younger, I craved being at this point in my life. Every kid wants to grow older and be free from the oversight of parents and other adults, but now that I’m here, I feel unprepared. I watch the news, text my friends, and contend with the fact that I feel alone in a world that seems to be crumbling around me; and it fills me with dread.

The heroes among the conquered Israelites could relate. While attempting to assimilate them into Babylonian culture, King Nebuchadnezzar built a massive idol and commanded all his subjects to worship it or face execution (Daniel 3). Young Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused. When Nebuchadnezzar confronted them, they responded by saying, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. . . . But even if he doesn’t . . . we will never . . . worship the gold statue you have set up” (vv. 17–18). God protected these three from the furnace, which caused Nebuchadnezzar to accept the power of God. Despite facing death, the trio trusted God, and He used them to protect His people.

In my life, there are plenty of fiery “furnaces”—instances that make me want to say “You know what, God, forget it.” But I refuse to reject God’s path because I know that there’s purpose in this pain. Knowing that, I can walk fearlessly into the future, certain that God is watching over me. —Anthony Jones

What areas in your life do you struggle with handing over to the Lord? How could giving God control over those areas potentially improve them?

Dear God, I ask that You keep me on the path You’ve drawn for my life. Give me the strength to walk it without doubt or fear.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/

Romans 2:5-16 | But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

For God does not show favoritism. – Romans 2:11

Anger. Pain. Frustration. Fear. Numbness. My Black compatriots and I listed our deep feelings about horrifying discrimination against Black people in the United States. Yet those feelings couldn’t deter our passionate efforts toward positive change. Protests that promote equal civil rights continue because so many people have felt the sting of racial hatred. It’s no secret. But Genesis 1:27 reminds us that God made all of us “in his image.” Black lives are created in God’s image—beautiful.

Our unique, colorful skin colors are only one expression of God’s image. God’s creativity for His divine purposes, however, doesn’t give preferential treatment to anyone based on a face in a mirror. What matters most to Him is the content of each person’s heart. He gives us each the opportunity and responsibility to bring His heavenly truth to Earth, to everyone we see. And to do good and love one another. In Romans 2:6–7, we see that God “will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.”

If God shows no favoritism, then why should we? The solution to racism begins with each of us taking a look at ourselves in the mirror and asking God, What can I do for the good of others? How can I love? Powerful change begins in our heart and affects the souls around us. —Justin Morris

What can I do to turn the tide toward justice today, and how do God and His wisdom fit into my plans?

God, help us to look into the Scriptures, understand that discrimination does not come from You, and love our neighbors, all created in Your image. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/

Matthew 13:10-15 | The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “ ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. – Matthew 13:13

As an artist, I’m fascinated by the way people see. Think of picture games that ask, What do you see? In one image, some see a lady with a hat on and others see a bird sitting in a tree. How is it two people can look at the same picture and see two different things?

Jesus’ disciples asked why He spoke in the spiritual illustrations known as parables (Matthew 13:10). Quoting the prophet Jeremiah, Jesus answered, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand” (v. 13). He added, “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them” (v. 15).

My hope is not in people seeing correctly. My hope is in the God who opens the eyes of our hearts to see what He wants us to see. Apart from His supernatural power to open our eyes, we remain blind, without understanding, and without hope.

Let’s pray to the God of our seeing that once He allows us to see and hear and understand with our heart we would turn to Him with all our heart. My hope is in His ability to help us to see, to sensitize our dull hearts, and to heal us. —Genie McGee

Do you need Jesus to open your eyes to anything today?

Father, we need You to give us supernatural sight. We don’t want to miss what You are doing in us and around us.

Celebrate Hope: Looking Back, Stepping Up is an invitation to find where God has been present with us in difficult days long past and where God is present with us now. Certainly God has been our help in ‘ages past,’ and God remains ‘our hope for years to come.’ Celebrate Hope provides us with this needed reminder and offers us the strength to carry on.
Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/

Luke 4:14-19 | Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free. – Luke 4:18

During my senior year of college, I participated in a service-learning trip to Ghana, West Africa. I visited and toured the Cape Coast Slave Castle, one of the key forts the Transatlantic Slave Trade facilitated for kidnapping, selling, and abusing many millions of Africans. Millions perished. One exhibit, Portraits of the Middle Passage, showcased sculptures reimagining slavery’s victims. I looked at my Black people’s traumatized faces and felt sick about the pain experienced within those prisons, aboard ships, and in foreigners’ hands. But I also know the enslaved dared to imagine a better future for their descendants, resisted oppression, and pursued freedom. My freedom.

Jesus Christ, who denounced corrupt religious, economic, and sociopolitical systems, including slavery—proclaiming the good news—pursued all people’s freedom in this world. He sacrificed His life so that we can be set free spiritually—eternally. Jesus declared God’s demands for justice, love, and righteousness as He repeated Isaiah’s prophecy (Luke 4:14–19). Standing in the synagogue at Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus determined to “set the oppressed free” (v. 1).

The gospel calls us to imagine and to press for freedom with both strong teaching and sacrificial acts of love. We love our God and our neighbor fully when we raise our voices, too, against oppression and proclaim God’s favor on all people. God has carried and will carry us through. —Kayla Jones

How does Jesus’ mission to release captives, give sight to the blind, and liberate the oppressed change our perspective of the gospel and the hope He brings?

Heavenly Father, we praise You for the faith, imagination, and resiliency of our ancestors. Thank You for being the God of deliverance. We will march, resist, sing, pray, and press on for our children’s futures. We believe You respond to injustice and know You have the power to heal, save, and deliver.

Celebrate Hope: Looking Back, Stepping Up is an invitation to find where God has been present with us in difficult days long past and where God is present with us now. Certainly God has been our help in ‘ages past,’ and God remains ‘our hope for years to come.’ Celebrate Hope provides us with this needed reminder and offers us the strength to carry on.
Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/