For the week of February 6-10, I was asked to record radio devotions for KCMR, a Christian radio station out of Mason City, Iowa. You can find all their radio devotions here on Soundcloud.
This devotion aired on February 10, 2017, and is based on the Ash Wednesday reading from Joel 2.
Enjoy all five of this week’s devotions:
Monday, February 6, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Friday, February 10, 2017
This is Pastor Daniel Flucke from St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene, with today’s KCMR Inspiration 97.9 daily devotion.
Today, I want to talk to you about the three most hopeful words in the Bible. Those words are found in the second chapter of the prophet Joel, in verse twelve. These three most hopeful words in the Bible are, “Yet even now.”
Yet even now.
To understand why these three little words are so important, we need to look at the time the prophet Joel is writing in. Israel is in a tough time.
The specific issue at the moment Joel is writing is a plague of locusts destroying their crops and food supply, but Joel goes through this litany of everything that’s going wrong in their nation.
It’s a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, he writes. Israel has abandoned God, and they’re being punished for it. They’ve turned away from the Lord, and they’re sure God has abandoned them too, for good reason. The people have lost hope.
I’m sure we today could come up with a similar lament. We might not be plagued right now by armies of locusts, but we have more tragedies than we need to list. There is fighting around the world, people protesting in the streets in our own nation, fears over immigration and walls.
Closer to home, there are car accidents, friends and relatives in the hospital, and fears about losing jobs. It’s easy to wonder where God is, to wonder if God has abandoned us.
I know Jesus is our source of hope, and I know I should care about all these tragedies in the world, raising awareness, keeping them in prayer, but I get overwhelmed. I get distracted. Maybe you do too.
But in those times of feeling overwhelmed, in the middle of that fear, listen to what Joel says to the people of Israel.
Into this dark, fearful situation, when God has every right to give up on the people, the Lord says, “Yet even now, return to me with all your heart. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
Those three words are critical. Yet even now. No matter what we do, no matter how much we abandon God, the Lord says to us, yet even now, return to me, for I am gracious and merciful.
You can’t do anything to make God stop loving you. No matter how far you’ve run, God is looking for you, pleading for you to come back, even now.
One of my favorite verses in the Bible comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8. Paul writes, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
That’s the gospel. That’s the good news.
No matter what, you are loved by God, and God has not given up on you. Yet even now, whatever you’re going through, wherever you’ve gone, you are a precious child of God.
This has been Pastor Daniel Flucke from St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene.
Enjoy all five of this week’s devotions:
Monday, February 6, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Friday, February 10, 2017