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October 31 — A Life Offered to God

“Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” — Romans 12:1     For an entire month, we have considered what it means to be called to serve. We have thought about the gifts God gives us, the needs of people around us, the example of Jesus, the importance of generosity, the pursuit of justice and mercy, and the quiet faithfulness that makes a lifetime of service possible. On this final day, Paul brings all of those ideas together in one sweeping invitation: “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” In other words, offer God your life. The word “therefore” at the beginning of Romans 12 is important. Paul has spent the first eleven chapters of Romans describing the grace and mercy of God. He has written about sin and forgiveness, faith and justification, life in the Spirit, the love of God, and the astonishing mercy through which God welcomes us. Then P...
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October 30, 2026 — Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master!’” — Matthew 25:21     There are many things we might hope will be said about our lives. We may want to be remembered as successful, accomplished, generous, wise, loving, or influential. Yet for a follower of Jesus, few words could be more meaningful than these: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Jesus speaks these words in the Parable of the Talents. A master prepares to leave on a journey and entrusts his property to three servants. One receives five talents, another receives two, and another receives one. In the ancient world, a talent was a very large amount of money, so Jesus is describing significant responsibility. Each servant receives something entrusted by the master and must decide what to do with it. An important detail appears near the beginning of the story: the master gives “to each ...
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October 29 — Faith That Works, Love That Labors, Hope That Endures

“We always thank God for all of you, remembering you in our prayers and continually recalling before our God and Father your work of faith, your labor of love, and your enduring hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” — 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3     When Paul thought about the Christians in Thessalonica, he remembered three qualities. He remembered their faith, their love, and their hope. These words appear together repeatedly in the New Testament because they describe something essential about Christian life. But Paul does not speak about them as abstract beliefs or private feelings. Each one produces something visible. Faith works. Love labors. Hope endures. The Christians in Thessalonica were relatively new believers, and their circumstances were not easy. Paul later refers to the severe suffering in which they had received the gospel. Yet something had begun happening among them that Paul could see and remember with gratitude. Their relationship with Christ was changing the way they l...
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October 28 — The Grace of Generosity

“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not out of regret or compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” — 2 Corinthians 9:6-8     Giving reveals something about the heart. We can give because we feel pressured. We can give because we want others to notice. We can give reluctantly while wishing we could keep what we are sharing. Or we can give because gratitude and love have loosened our grip upon what God has entrusted to us. Paul invites us into that last kind of generosity. The setting of this passage is important. Paul was encouraging the Christians in Corinth to participate in a collection for believers in Jerusalem who were experiencing need. This was more than a financial campaign. C...
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October 27 — Compassion That Sends Us

“When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest.’” — Matthew 9:36-38     Jesus saw crowds differently from the way we sometimes do. A large group of people can easily become anonymous. We see numbers rather than individuals. We speak of populations, communities, statistics, trends, and needs. These descriptions can be useful, but they can also create distance between us and the actual people whose lives they represent. Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds, “He was moved with compassion for them.” Jesus saw more than a crowd. He saw people. He saw their weariness, confusion, vulnerability, and need for guidance. Matthew describes them as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus did not respond with irri...
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October 26 — Devoted to Doing Good

“This saying is trustworthy. And I want you to emphasize these things, so that those who have believed God will take care to devote themselves to good deeds. These things are excellent and profitable for the people.” — Titus 3:8     There is a difference between occasionally doing something good and becoming a person who is devoted to doing good. Most of us respond when an obvious need appears before us. Someone asks for help, a crisis occurs, or an opportunity arises, and we do what we can. Such responses matter. But Paul encourages something deeper: he wants believers to “devote themselves to good deeds.” The word devoted suggests intention. We do not merely wait for goodness to happen accidentally through us. We begin organizing our lives so that doing good becomes part of who we are. This instruction comes in a chapter saturated with grace. Just a few verses earlier, Paul reminds Titus that Christians themselves were once foolish, disobedient, and enslaved by various desi...
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October 25 — The Worship God Receives

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name. And do not neglect to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” — Hebrews 13:15-16     When we hear the word worship , we may immediately think of gathering with other believers, singing hymns, praying, hearing Scripture, listening to a sermon, or participating in the ordinances of the church. These are important expressions of Christian worship. They gather our attention around God and remind us who He is and who we are in relation to Him. Hebrews, however, invites us to understand worship even more broadly. The writer first speaks of offering God “a sacrifice of praise.” Under the old covenant, worship involved sacrifices brought to the altar. Hebrews has already explained that Jesus offered the decisive and sufficient sacrifice for sin. Because of Christ, God’s people no longer approach Him through repeated animal sacri...
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