Devotional thoughts for this day…

31 “ ‘Son,’he said to him, ‘you are always with me,l and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ” Luke 15:31-32 CSB

26 Those who heard this asked, “Then who can be saved?”
27 He replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” Luke 18:26-27 CSB

Gracious Lord, I wish to impose on Your Grace once more. A son was just born to me, and I am a father again. Please help the poor fellow get where he belongs

Today, for so many starts a new year of school, whether it is preschool or a new semester chasing a Ph.D. These are the children of our community, and our prayers need to rise on their behalf. And at the end of the day they need to know they are welcome home, here in our churches, and yes, in our homes.

We need to rejoice when any enters the church, no matter where they come from or what they’ve done, they are our brothers, or our beloeved children. It is possible and even should be expected that some will come from very unpleasant places where sin has broken them. No one is impossible, no one is beyond salvation.

God is bringing them here….

And we need to go let them know they are welcome.

We need to treat those in our community witht he same love a father would show to his son…. we need to be patient, loving, truly merciful – not hiding sin, but acknowledging ti to be what it is…but still calling them to the mercy of Christ.

Haven’t been doing that? Well – it is a new time of learning… let’s get to it!

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 54: Table Talk, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 54 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 184.