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Fill the rooms

  John 12:1-9 Listen to today’s devotional A family member once gave me an entire box of cologne that I forgot in the trunk of my car. After a while, the box took on one too many turns, and the bottles inside came out. I knew immediately when one of the bottles finally broke. The smell quickly covered the entire car. And there was no hiding or containing the smell for weeks. In John 12, Mary breaks open a jar of expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus’ feet. John tells us the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Not only was it costly and excessive, but the smell was also unmistakable. I imagine it lingered for a while, too. I'll offer to you today that that is what happens when we do not contain our love for God. Of course, Judas made a stink about it. From his distance, Mary's devotion looks wasteful. It doesn’t make sense to pour out something so valuable in a single moment. But Jesus doesn’t feel the same way. He corrected Judas and received her gift. Because...
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Invite them yourself!

 It's not too late to invite someone to church for Easter.  Stay blessed...john
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The door's open

  Job 13:13-19 Listen to today’s devotional Job cannot pretend, and there's nothing for Job to remain calm about. So, there's no composure in his voice, only desperation. He wants an audience with God. Here's the wisdom in that desire. He doesn't want to talk with God because he's got things figured out. No, the opposite is true. He doesn't know what's going on because his understanding of the world cannot explain what is happening to him. If he could just stand before God, he thinks, and say out loud what's in his heart, everything would change. He's convinced this is what he needs, even if it costs him everything. We're supposed to hear Job's desperation. At the same time, it's a bold kind of faith. Not the kind that avoids hard questions. Job believes God can handle his anguish. So, he brings it. Thankfully, what Job longed for, we are told we already have. We don't risk life and death like he felt he had to. The book of Hebrews te...
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Obvious choices

  1 Samuel 16:11-13 Listen to today’s devotional It's a meaningful question to ask a congregation after communion: "Has everyone been served?" Our first inclination might be to assume that, yes, everyone has been served. After all, we've seen everyone walk down and receive the bread and cup. The music has stopped, and the pastor has put everything back into place. It seems complete. But the question reaches further than the sanctuary. It stretches beyond those of us seated in the pews and into the lives of people we haven't noticed, the people we haven't named or invited to the table yet. When Samuel came to anoint a new king in 1 Samuel 16, Jesse presented his sons one by one. They were strong and capable. Obvious choices for a new king. And yet, something was missing. "Are all your sons here?" Samuel asked. That sense of incompleteness stirred the question for him. Of course, there was still one more. David. The one left in the field. The one forgo...
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Listening without hearing

  Matthew 22:23-33 Listen to today’s devotional Some conversations aren't really conversations. You can tell when someone has already made up their mind. Not just because they have an opinion, but because of everything that's shaped it. The podcasts they've listened to. The voices they trust. The arguments they've rehearsed. By the time they ask a question, it's not coming from openness or a desire to know someone else better. It's coming from layers of influence that have already settled the answer. In Matthew 22, a group of Sadducees asks Jesus a question that almost sounds thoughtful. There's a sense, though, that they aren't asking to engage in resurrection talk, but to ridicule the idea completely. Jesus doesn't play along because he knows they're not exploring truth. They're simply defending a position they've already decided is right. Now, Jesus responds, but he doesn't chase their argument. Instead, he shows that they've f...
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Walking paths

  Ephesians 2:1-10 Listen to today’s devotional It doesn't take long to see where people really walk. I've seen plenty of new or redone public paths that you can tell people put a lot of work into. Still, the concrete and foliage don't keep pedestrians from creating their own worn paths that go where they really want to be. Yes, developers should look at those paths first to establish more useful walkways. But doesn't that show us something about who we are? We want to go where we want to go. The thing about those worn paths, though, is that not everyone who walks them created them. Sometimes, you just step into what's already there. Someone else cut through the grass first. Enough people followed, and now it feels like the obvious way to go. The apostle Paul says something similar about our lives. We were "dead in our transgressions," following the ways of the world just like everyone else. Not always because we were choosing disobedience, but because we ...
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Tired people

  Acts 20:7-12 Listen to today’s devotional How many times have you fallen asleep in church? Younger me would've taken that personally or wondered why someone wasn't more committed to Jesus. Now, I've learned there are many reasons people nod off. Maybe it's been a long week. Maybe their medication is kicking in. Maybe the sermon and music aren't helping either. But what if it was just a late night? In the early days of the church, most people weren't wealthy. There was no middle class, just regular people working long hours to get by. It's not hard to imagine that by the time they gathered to hear Paul in Acts 20, they were already exhausted. Add a long message, a crowded room, and all those candles, and suddenly you wonder how it was that only one person dozed off. This short story is fun to tell. But it also highlights something deeper about the life of the church. There was time for long, meaningful conversations about faith. Not just surface-level stuff...
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