by Sal Huckel
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Read Matthew 3:1–12
Today’s passage invites us to the banks of the Jordan, where John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry. His humble lifestyle and calls to repentance were already bringing the people to respond to their sins and be baptised by John in the river. Not surprisingly, also came the conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
John’s reprimand and call to repentance is stark. We might feel that it was well deserved. After all, we do know much about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and their apparent hypocrisy. Paul himself was a Pharisee. While the Pharisees and Sadducees had doctrinal disagreements, they were united in their efforts against Jesus. Here, John’s warning is for them all.
What can we learn here today? We can study the baptism John was bringing, how Jesus’ baptism is the one we need and the meaning it has for us now to be baptised into Jesus’ baptism. We can also ponder what it means to ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’. How does that look? What do we need to repent of? We sometimes hear that Jesus simplified the Ten Commandments and that we don’t need to worry about all of those anymore; we are not ‘under the law’. However, Jesus said he did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil them (Matthew 5:17).
Unless we understand God’s law, we cannot properly repent. We may feel the law is less prescriptive and onerous ‘since Jesus’, but if we begin to unpack the Ten Commandments and look at Martin Luther’s explanations – the Small Catechism is very helpful on this – we will see that they go further than we might expect. It’s a misleading idea that ‘Jesus replaced them’. Helpfully, rather like the ways in which it is best to teach children, Luther offers positive instruction to further expand on the negatives.
Start today with commandment number one: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ We don’t have to look very far to see the things that compete for our attention, love and trust. How can you fear, love and trust God above all things today? To produce fruit in keeping with repentance, we need to follow through with this.
Father God, help me to more fully understand the law written in our hearts (Romans 2:15) and produce fruit in keeping with repentance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sal is married to Pastor Matthew Huckel, and they live in Victoria with their six children, enjoying their ministry with Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church. Their two eldest children are excited to study at undergraduate and postgraduate levels during term time in Sydney. Theology, music, philosophy, literature and history are passions the family shares and explores together. Sal loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at every opportunity.
Your will
by Reid Matthias
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer (Isaiah 53:10a).
Read Isaiah 53:6–10
Chapter 53 is the most often quoted prophecy as evidence that Jesus was the chosen Messiah. From the first verse to the last, Christians throughout history have pointed to all these things that came to fruition in Jesus’s life, passion, death and resurrection.
I must have read this text a dozen times before, but it’s never hit me how difficult this was for the Father. To have one’s only child burdened with all the guilt of history and the future … Why, if this happened in contemporary times, if blame were placed on my innocent child, I, as a father, would be marching straight up to the real culprits and giving them a piece of my mind.
In this chapter, though, not only is Jesus silent about his innocence (verse 7), but it seems as if the Father purposely did this.
‘It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer …’
Countless times, students have asked me this question: ‘Why would an all-loving God do something so incredibly un-loving?’
Perhaps this is the epitome of the difference between human thinking and the eternal perspective of God. It was because he was all-loving for us, his children, that he chose for his Son to be crushed and to suffer. In doing this, in leaving himself open to human finger-pointing and questioning, God took all the world’s sin and destroyed it in one, horrifically beautiful and self-sacrificial act.
Then the question arises: If God’s will can be for Jesus to suffer, is it God’s will for me to suffer? Is suffering a result of God’s wrath? Or is suffering natural to earthly life for which the only antidote is the blood of his Son, Jesus?
I believe that the suffering we encounter in this lifetime, though not willed by God, is endured by God with us through Jesus. That was the point of naming Jesus ‘Emmanuel’. This means that ‘God is with us’ through every moment of life, and by believing in his Son, Jesus, we are promised eternal life, free from that earthly suffering.
Praise God for his Son Jesus.
Heavenly Father, God with us, thank you for your willingness to save us. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, I am assured that even in my own pain and suffering, you will be with me. Amen.
Reid Matthias is the school pastor at St Andrews Lutheran College in Tallebudgera, Queensland. Reid is married to Christine, and together with their three incredible daughters, Elsa, Josephine and Greta, they have created a Spotify channel (A 13) where they have recorded music. Reid has recently published his seventh novel, A Miserable Antagonist. You can find all of his novels and music links at www.reidmatthias.com
Stronghold
by Reid Matthias
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1)
Read Psalm 27:1,4–9
Where is your stronghold?
I’m not talking about your home, your castle or the house in which you keep your belongings, but the place you go to feel safe from fear.
In our confounding 21st century, with the landscape of digital fortresses being used as ‘refuges’, we encounter a world that seems safe in the escape; however, all the monsters remain on the inside.
Whereas, in our psalm for today, David writes about the stronghold that keeps him secure. It’s not his castle or his palace. It’s the temple, which, for him, is the place of God’s presence. It is there in the temple, in the day of trouble, he will be kept safe and be set high upon a rock.
Set upon a Rock.
Hmm.
Not long ago, my wife and I went to Girraween National Park in southern Queensland. One of the primary reasons we went was to hike to the top of a spectacular rock called the Pyramid. For someone afraid of heights, the Pyramid would not be a first preference. Getting to the top along bolted chains, clambering up and over rocks, pulling oneself up to the very top – these things make arrival on top of the rock difficult.
But once there, as you gaze out over some of the most beautiful land in Australia, you get a true sense that there is nothing in the world that can hurt you. No sounds. No pressures. No news. Not that the Pyramid is the temple where we find God, but it symbolises a kind of place where we feel his majesty and power.
Perhaps this was, in part, what David was feeling about the temple. Like his, the journey is challenging and can be fraught with difficulty, but when we find ourselves on top of the rock, all fears melt away. It’s there that we are safe. It is there that we see the face of God – the Rock, which is Jesus.
Heavenly Father, bring me to the Rock that is your Son, Jesus the Saviour. Help me to put my trust in him. Please take my fears away. Amen.
Reid Matthias is the school pastor at St Andrews Lutheran College in Tallebudgera, Queensland. Reid is married to Christine, and together with their three incredible daughters, Elsa, Josephine and Greta, they have created a Spotify channel (A 13) where they have recorded music. Reid has recently published his seventh novel, A Miserable Antagonist. You can find all of his novels and music links at www.reidmatthias.com
Name the tune
by Reid Matthias
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
And they sang a new song (Revelation 5:9a).
Read Revelation 5:6–14
The Book of Revelation is generally seen from two different perspectives. On one hand, there are those who think about it as that ‘freaky book of prophecy at the end of the Bible – let’s avoid it’, and on the other hand, there are those who say, ‘The Book of Revelation is the most important in the Bible, and the interpretation of it will unlock everything we need to know about God and the future – let’s study only that one.’
Perhaps somewhere in the middle of these two perspectives is some fertile ground for conversation and devotion. Shall we have a go at it?
There is immense pageantry in this passage of what was revealed to John. He describes the throne room, the hub of heaven. Sitting on the grand chair is God, who has in his hand the scroll that unlocks the secrets of what is most important to him, and he’s looking for someone worthy to read it. None of the four creatures is worthy to open the scroll. The 24 elders are left wanting. In fact, there is no-one in heaven or on Earth who can be found worthy of opening it.
While many might have been wondering what was written, those in attendance at the majesty and pageantry are overwhelmed with awe – deep, intense wonder – at the ‘Lamb who was slain’, who appears at the centre of the throne room. The attendees fall to their knees. Suddenly, everything they might have worried about in the scroll melts away, and they can only see the Lamb of God.
Once they recover their senses, the 24 elders pick up their harps and begin to sing a new song, completely focused on Jesus and what he had done. We aren’t told what their old song was, but if it’s anything like our contemporary world, the song might have been something like this:
I am worthy.
I have been faithful.
I have done all this for you, Jesus.
I have earned my way to heaven.
But the new song sung by the elders, then joined by 10,000 times 10,000 angels, and finally every creature in heaven and on Earth (can you imagine it!), is:
To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power forever and ever!
And they all fell down and worshipped.
You see, faith has never been about us. It’s never been about our good deeds and our ‘thoughts and prayers’. No, it’s always been about Jesus. It’s the song that should continue to be sung from now through eternity.
Here is the core of the Book of Revelation. It’s not simply a glimpse into the End Times, but more a spotlight on the One who has, is and will always love the creation and will bring it back to himself someday in the future.
Now, what will your new song sound like?
To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, forever and ever. Amen.
Reid Matthias is the school pastor at St Andrews Lutheran College in Tallebudgera, Queensland. Reid is married to Christine, and together with their three incredible daughters, Elsa, Josephine and Greta, they have created a Spotify channel (A 13) where they have recorded music. Reid has recently published his seventh novel, A Miserable Antagonist. You can find all of his novels and music links at www.reidmatthias.com