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GOD REIGNS OVER ALL
God Reigns Over All Saturday, January 21, 2023 TEXT: Genesis 1:2-3 - The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. As God reigned over the darkness at creation, so He still reigns, hovering over the darkness that sin has brought into this world. The Word that God speaks over our chaotic world is nothing less than His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the eternal Word of God. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:1-5). Jesus Christ is God's Word of light sent into the chaos of our world. Jesus died so that our corrupted human nature could be restored to holiness and purity. That's why St. Paul says, "For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). When you believe that, you start to trust the Bible when it tells you that there's a new day coming for you. In fact, God in His goodness is moving everything toward a new day. The corrupted world of nature will also be set free from its bondage to sin. Paul writes in Romans: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now" (Romans 8:19-22). So, when you begin to

Encourage and strengthen your faith and the faith of your family and friends in 2023! 🥰🙏 . Lutheran Hour Ministries offers apps that gives you access to The Lutheran Hour Podcast, LHM Daily Devotions and Project Connect booklets for FREE! 🙌 . DM or email [email protected] for links to these apps! . . . . #Sermonsonline #podcast #Christianpodcast #TheLutheranHour #dailydevotions #canadianradio #lutheranpodcast #christianpodcast #Lutheran #Christianity #faith #encourage #LutheranLaymensLeagueCanada #LutheranHourMinistriesCanada

In the hustle and bustle of this Christmas season, it can feel like we are chasing happy moments - without time to enjoy them. 🎄🎁😊 . The good news? Jesus came to bring you Joy. 🥰 Joy is far more than a happy moment. Joy is infused with comfort and wrapped in Peace! . We invite you to your local Lutheran church this Christmas! Here you can meet God who acknowledges your greatest fears, sees the deepest desires of your ❤️ and sent His Son as a little baby to save you! . DM for details on your local Lutheran church. . . . . #seeyouinchurch #Sundaysareforworship #goodnews #Christmas #Advent #community #wearebettertogether #Lutheran #LutheranChurchCanada #CanLutheran #OurLCC #LutheranHourMinistriesCanada #LutheranLaymensLeagueCanada

GETTING READY
Getting Ready Wednesday, November 23, 2022 TEXT: Romans 13:11-14 - Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Thirty years ago when I was planning my wedding, I drove my family crazy. My mother and sister kept wanting to talk about colors and wedding favors—what ideas did I have? None, really, besides a mild preference for peach. I didn’t care much about what we ate, or what the cake looked like. My sister had that look on her face—“She’s mooning about her fiancé again!” But there were some preparations I took extremely seriously. Getting the marriage license—oh, yes. I wasn’t going to have that go wrong. Making sure our honeymoon reservations were lined up. Asking our professor to do the wedding, since our home pastor had taken a call. Making sure we had an apartment to live in as newlyweds. In today’s passage, Paul is encouraging us to get ready for the day of salvation—the day when Jesus returns and all evil is gone. That will be a celebration better than any wedding—the day we see our Savior face to face. It will be a day of absolute happiness and joy for us. And so we want to be ready! How dreadful it would be to get there and not be ready—to be still living like people who never knew Jesus, to face the embarrassment of being caught in our old dirty clothes instead of wedding clothes. Nobody wants that. So Paul urges us to look to the future—the date is coming; it is almost here! What a joy to get ready for the One who loves us so much He suffered and died to make us H

THE DAY IS SURELY DRAWING NEAR
“The Day Is Surely Drawing Near” Sunday, November 20, 2022 “May Christ our Intercessor be, And through His blood and merit, Read from His book that we are free, With all who life inherit. Then we shall see Him face to face, With all His saints in that blest place, Which He has purchased for us. “O Jesus Christ, do not delay, But hasten our salvation; We often tremble on our way, In fear and tribulation. O hear and grant our fervent plea: Come, mighty Judge, and set us free, From death and ev’ry evil.” While many people like to share their daily experiences on social media, there are those who prefer a more traditional record of events and keep a written journal of their thoughts and the events in their lives. Even if we don’t keep a daily diary, our lives are on record, written by the Lord’s hand before we were even born. The psalmist expresses the wonder of God’s all-knowing care: “In Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16b). It is comforting to know that our lives are held so closely in God’s hand. He knows our days before we experience them. But would we like to be judged according to our detailed diaries? In a vision of the Day of Judgment, the apostle John sees the nations summoned to stand before Jesus, the Judge and King. John writes, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened” (Revelation 20:12a). The dead are judged according to what is written in the books. It is a vision that inspires more terror than comfort, but those books are not the only written record to be opened on that day. John writes, “Then another book was opened, which is the book of life” (Revelation 20:12b). Jesus our Judge has another book, His own book, the Lamb’s Book of Life. The names of all who trust in Jesus for salvation are written in His book and, by God’s grace, our names were recorded in that boo

JOY
Joy Tuesday, November 8, 2022 TEXT: Malachi 4:1-3 - “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My Name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.” I’m not a farm girl, but some of the best videos I’ve seen are the ones that show farm animals coming out of their barns in the spring for the first time. The calves jump and leap; they look like kids let out of school. They run on the new grass; so happy you can’t help but laugh to see them. This is the picture God gives us of how it will be when Jesus returns. Then, God says, “You who fear my Name … will go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act.” Wait a minute&; what’s all this about treading down the wicked? They’re going to be ashes; what? Suddenly we might not feel so happy anymore. But that’s a mistake in our perspective. As Christians, we are aware that we are sinners; we have the habit of self-evaluation. So when we think about God’s judgment, we automatically put ourselves in the position of the wicked. And we are afraid when we read passages like this one. Let’s try readjusting our viewpoint. Think of a time in your life when you were severely mistreated; not just once, but again and again, by someone who really had no excuse for what they did to you. (If you can’t think of such a time, give thanks to God!) Your life was a burden to you. You could see no end in sight. In fact, you were pretty sure you wouldn’t survive it. And then suddenly, mirac

Family Resemblance Wednesday, November 2, 2022 TEXT: 1 John 3:1-3 - See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure. When my son was born, we traced his features. The eyes were his Dad’s, no question. The mouth and chin came from my mother. The hair was mine. But the ears—where in the world did he get those unusual ears? It drove us crazy. Finally, an old photo of my husband’s father from Vietnam turned up. Yep, those were the ears! The resemblance question was solved. John tells us that Christians bear a family resemblance to God. We are children of God, and we know it, because Jesus has come into the world as our Savior, to live and to die and to rise again. Now everyone who trusts in Him will be reborn into God’s family. We have Jesus’ word on the subject, and we trust Him. We can even see the resemblance a little for ourselves. After all, we have seen Jesus in action in the Gospels and in our lives. “He is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15a), so we know what God the Trinity “looks like,” just by looking at Jesus. And we can look at other Christians and see how the Holy Spirit is working in them to make them grow, more and more, to resemble Jesus. But the rest of the world looks at us and has a problem. “Look at those strange people,” they say. “What is going on with them? They aren’t like us. Why did that guy take a homeless person into his house? Why did she spend hours doing paperwork for refugees who will never pay her back? Why did those kids work hard to raise money just to help hurting people they don’t even know?” God knows we often ge

“Salvation Unto Us Has Come” Sunday, October 30, 2022 “Since Christ has full atonement made and brought to us salvation, Each Christian therefore may be glad and build on this foundation. Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead, Your death is now my life indeed, For You have paid my ransom. “Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone and rests in Him unceasing; And by its fruits true faith is known, with love and hope increasing. For faith alone can justify; works serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living.” The foundation of a building is, for the most part, unseen. What draws our attention is the construction built on that foundation, perhaps an office building, a home, or a church. People build their lives on a variety of foundations, on work or family or wealth, things that are important to them. Others may build on less substantial but highly regarded things such as prestige, power, or popularity. These foundations are unseen, but become visible in the lives of those who have built on them. Thoughts, words, and actions reveal the supporting foundation. Foundations are important, but even the most critical could collapse at any time. A job might be lost, family relationships can be shattered, or popularity may fade. Our hymn declares that Christ Jesus has atoned for our sins and now we “build on this foundation.” Jesus is the Foundation, the Cornerstone of our lives, a foundation that can never crumble or collapse. When Jesus was born among us, He was considered inadequate or unworthy as a foundation by many of the people He came to save. Like a useless piece of stone thrown on a rubbish heap, Jesus was condemned to death and crucified. He took onto Himself the penalty of death for our sins. He was raised up from death and exalted in glory. The rejected stone had become the Cornerstone as the Scriptures foretold: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). By faith we cling “to

Living Water Monday, October 24, 2022 TEXT: Psalm 46:4-5 - There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. River systems viewed from the air or drawn on a map look like a circulatory system, with smaller creeks and streams branching out in all directions, delivering life-giving water across the landscape. Rivers branch out through Holy Scripture, too, playing their part in the story of God’s work in the world as they weave their way through the story of our salvation. A river watered Eden and flowed out of the garden to divide into four rivers, two of which were the Tigris and Euphrates. From the land between those two rivers, God called Abraham to be the father of a chosen nation and an ancestor of the promised Messiah. Another great river, the Nile, carried the Hebrew infant Moses into a life among Egyptian royalty until God called him to lead Israel out of slavery and into the Promised Land. The Israelites finally reached the land God promised to them. God held back the flood of the Jordan River so that His chosen people could cross safely into their new home. Generations later, it was to that river, the Jordan, that Jesus the Messiah came to be baptized by His kinsman John. Those great rivers—the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile and the Jordan—still exist today, providing water for the people who depend on them. But the water in those rivers can only quench earthly thirst. Jesus Christ rose up from the Jordan to take up His path to the cross. Jesus alone promises, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37b-38). The gift of the Holy Spirit, like a river of living water, flows through the hearts of all who trust in Jesus for salvation. We have the thirst-quenching peace that come

Carried to Jesus Thursday, October 20, 2022 TEXT: Luke 18:15-17 - Now they were bringing even infants to Him [Jesus] that He might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to Him, saying, “Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” That last verse is a difficult one: “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” What does Jesus mean exactly? How do children receive the kingdom of God—and what does that mean about how we should receive it, too? Maybe I’m being too literal, but when I looked back at the beginning of the story, I found this: “Now they were bringing even infants to Him that He might touch them.” How do you bring infants to Jesus? You carry them, of course! They can’t walk or drive or ride a bicycle. They can’t even crawl. They need to be carried. For them, receiving the Kingdom—coming to Jesus—is something that happens to them. Somebody else does the work, and they get the blessing. This is true for us too, isn’t it? Oh, as adults we can walk and drive and go pretty much wherever we want to. But when it comes to trusting in Jesus, we can’t make that happen by our own decisions and choices. We need the Holy Spirit to carry us to Jesus, like the spiritual babies we are. And when He puts faith in our hearts, we become part of God’s kingdom—all by the good gift of God. The Spirit does the work; we receive the blessing. WE PRAY: Dear Lord Holy Spirit, thank You for bringing me to Jesus! Amen. This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo. Reflection Questions: 1. When did you first become a Christian—if you know? 2. Who (humanly speaking) was instrumental in bringing you to Jesus? 3. Is the Holy Spirit working through you to bring others to Jesus? Whom?

Look at Me Friday, October 14, 2022 This devotion pairs with this weekend’s Lutheran Hour sermon, which can be found at lutheranhour.org. TEXT: Luke 18:1-8 - And Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ”And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to His elect, who cry to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them? I tell you, He will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” The other day we were at a playground. My friend’s seven-year-old daughter, Hazel, kept calling to him, “Hey daddy, look at me!” She’s swinging on a rope—“Daddy, look at me!” She’s climbing up a wall, “Daddy, daddy, look at me!” Her dad and I could barely get a few words into our conversation without Hazel pulling for his attention. And it reminded me how children thrive under the watchful favor of an engaged father and a mother. The story we heard from Jesus touches one of our deepest human needs—questions that everybody asks at some point: “Do you see me? Do I matter to you? Am I important?” The widow in the story does not have a supportive community for whom she matters. Instead, she has an adversary, someone who is harming her. She brings her case to the judge, hoping she will matter to him. When she discovers that she does not, she does the only thing she can do. She becomes the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, the interrupting child who won’t be ignored.

Safely Kept Monday, October 10, 2022 TEXT: Psalm 121:5-6 - The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. We are accustomed to describing God in terms from Scripture that are very familiar to us. We may call Him our King, Shepherd, Creator, or Savior, but the psalmist describes the Lord in terms that we do not often use. The Lord is our keeper and our shade. When God confronted Cain for the murder of his brother Abel, Cain asked in pretended innocence, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9b) What could he possibly know about his brother? Was he responsible for him? Cain was responsible; he was supposed to “keep” his brother, to care for him. Scripture speaks of people who were keepers of many kinds of things—livestock, prisons, gates, and vineyards. Abel, Cain’s brother and victim, was a keeper of sheep. To be a keeper of things or people was to have responsibility for them, to guard them and see to their care. God is our keeper. He created and redeemed us. In love and grace, He has made us His own through Christ Jesus. The Lord has taken responsibility for our care. He came among us to be our Shepherd, our keeper, to guard and guide His precious flock as the prophet Isaiah foretold: “He will tend His flock like a Shepherd; He will gather the lambs in His arms” (Isaiah 40:11). As a vinedresser keeps a vineyard, our Heavenly Father is the Vinedresser, the keeper who tends His carefully planted vines. Jesus said, “I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1-2). The psalmist also rejoices in God as the shade at our right hand. We may not often think about shade of any kind, except when seeking relief on a hot summer day. Yet for desert-dwelling people who must survive in a climate marked by

“The Will of God Is Always Best” Sunday, October 2, 2022 “The will of God is always best and shall be done forever; And they who trust in Him are blest, He will forsake them never. He helps indeed in time of need; He chastens with forbearing. They who depend on God, their friend, shall not be left despairing. “Lord, this I ask, O hear my plea, deny me not this favor: When Satan sorely troubles me, then do not let me waver. O guard me well, my fear dispel, fulfill Your faithful saying: All who believe by grace receive an answer to their praying.” “The will of God is always best.” We know that, but we may not always believe it as firmly as we might. Yet our Lord taught us to pray, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10b). Not only are we to pray that the Father’s will be done, we should also talk about His will in our daily speech, since we have no idea what the future may hold for us: “You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:15). We seek God’s will as we bring prayers before His heavenly throne. Yet at the same time we plead that our will would be done, that a tragedy might be prevented, a healing accomplished, or that timely help would arrive. Jesus Himself prayed that way as He drew near to the cross, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39b). Earthly fathers listen with love (and patience) to the reasonable—and sometimes unreasonable—requests of their children. Our Heavenly Father, listening with greater love (and greater patience), wants us to come to Him with all of our needs and petitions. The pleas “Your will be done” or “according to Your will” are not prayers of weakness or hopeless resignation, as if we are worried that God will not really hear and answer. His perfect will was accomplished when Jesus took up His cross for the sake of our salvation.

Spending time with God in His Word strengthens and encourages your faith as you do the same for others! 🥰 . LHM daily devotions will help you to focus on God and prayerfully seek direction and guidance from Him on issues in your life. 🙏 . DM for link to receive devotions daily in your email. 📲 . Follow our pages to enjoy them daily online in English and French! If you have any difficulty, please contact us at [email protected]! . . . . #dailydevotions #read #discuss #pray #share #sharingtheGospel #sharingyourfaith #faith #Faithconversations #faithformation #meditateonGodsword #Lutheran #christiansupport #spiritualhealth #spirituallyvibrant

Light for Us All Saturday, September 24, 2022 TEXT: Isaiah 60:1 - Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. In the Old Testament, the word "light" is associated with the Lord. In Psalm 27:1a we read, "The Lord is my light." In Isaiah 60:19b we read, "The Lord will be your everlasting light." Job said, "By His light, I walked through darkness" (Job 29:3b). And in Micah we read, "When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me" (Micah 7:8b). The same spirit of hope carries on in the New Testament. The Old Testament rabbis said the name of the Messiah was "light." When Jesus said, "I am the Light of the world,” He was proclaiming that He was the fulfillment of that glorious prophecy (John 8:12b). Jesus made the most divine statement He could have made. And as the drama of the New Testament unfolds, Jesus, the Light of the world, is also there. For example, when prior to his conversion, Saul was traveling to Damascus, "Suddenly," the Bible says, "a light from heaven flashed around him" (Acts 9:3b). This was the presence of God. And then, Saul (who would become the apostle Paul) heard the voice of His Savior speaking graciously unto him! The apostle John continues to build on Jesus and His message of light and hope when he writes, "This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:5-7). In Jesus Christ, and through God's gift of faith, your light has come. When Jesus lives in you by God's gift of faith, no power of the devil can destroy you. Let the promise of God spoken through John be your daily consolation and hope. "He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world

Faithful Households Saturday, September 17, 2022 TEXT: Galatians 5:22-23 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. There are a lot of qualities that make for a good family life, but the greatest of these is love. Without love, any attempt to shore up a crumbling family is sure to fail. Here, St. Paul reminds us in the above passage that love rules. It is to be put first in our lives and in our families (see 1 Corinthians 13). To accomplish the act of living in a healthy and productive way with others under one roof, love has to be shown and practiced daily. When love is evident in a home as a fruit of the Spirit of God, family members will grow in their concern for and service to one another. But love has to be practiced. It has to be our go-to choice, even when it is not what we want to do. In this the love of Jesus is our best guide. His patience, His longsuffering with people, His willingness to love us and even die for us is the best example we have. It is God’s example—shown to us in the life, death, and resurrection of His beloved Son who “came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10b). But showing love can be difficult, can’t it? And this is often true of how we live together as families. Like a healing balm, love has to be applied to the circumstances in our lives—many of which may test our ability to love or our desire to show love. Here again, Jesus is the One we are to follow. This is the way God wants it to be in our families. We all need the fresh renewal that comes from knowing Christ, from being close to Him, from seeking the truth that He alone has to give. The love and forgiveness God offers us through Jesus refreshes us and empowers us to demonstrate these traits toward others, beginning with those in our own family. Therefore, let Christ enter into your heart and fill your home. Remember that our Sa

“Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart” Sunday, September 11, 2022 “Lord, Thee I love with all my heart; I pray Thee, ne’er from me depart, With tender mercy cheer me. Earth has no pleasure I would share. Yea, heav’n itself were void and bare if Thou, Lord, wert not near me. And should my heart for sorrow break, my trust in Thee can nothing shake. Thou art the portion I have sought; Thy precious blood my soul has bought. Lord Jesus Christ, my God and Lord, my God and Lord, Forsake me not! I trust Thy Word.” Life without Jesus? The disciples could not imagine it. Jesus repeatedly told them that He would be killed and raised to life, but the disciples could not understand what He was saying. How could Jesus be taken from them? Peter even rebuked the Lord for saying such things and was, in turn, rebuked by Jesus for opposing the plans of God. Jesus told the disciples that He was returning to His Heavenly Father, and He would send the Holy Spirit to be with them. The disciples would be sad when Jesus left, but He would return and everything would change—forever: “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22). Life without Jesus? We cannot imagine that any more than the disciples could. In our hymn we plead with our Savior, “Ne’er from me depart!” Without Jesus, life on this earth would be without hope and would hold no pleasure for us. Without Jesus, heaven itself would not be at all heavenly. It would be “void and bare” if Jesus was not with us. Yet even when our hearts—like the hearts of the disciples—break for sorrow in suffering, grief, and loss, nothing can shake our trust in our crucified, risen and ascended Lord. Life without Jesus? Never! Jesus bought us for Himself, shedding His holy, precious blood on the cross. He is our portion, our inheritance. He rose from the dead, and in Him we have the promise of life and resurrection. The dis

Terrible Christians Tuesday, September 6, 2022 TEXT: Ezekiel 34:11, 17b-24 - “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I Myself will search for My sheep and will seek them out. … “Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? And must My sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet? “Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I Myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, I will rescue My flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep. And I will set up over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord; I have spoken.” The problem of terrible Christians is a serious one. There are people who call themselves by the name of Jesus who are harmful, abusive, or just plain evil. They do things that would be intolerable coming from anyone, Christian or not. And by their behavior, they bring shame upon the name of Christ. Such people are responsible for many non-Christians who turn away from Jesus. “Why should I believe,” they ask, “if Christianity produces people like that?” Christians who suffer under these people may also lose faith—or they may become bitter and resentful, because someone who should be a fellow brother or sister has instead made their lives a heavy burden. You may be suffering at the hands of such a person. If so, God is speaking to you! He says, “I will rescue My flock. They shall no longer be a prey. I will judge b