Grace for All

Lamentations 3:22–23 (NIV)Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.Lamentations is exactly what the name promises — five chapters of grief over a city in ruins, a people in exile, a covenant that seemed, by every outward sign, to have failed. The writer describes himself as a man who has forgotten what happiness is, whose strength and hope have perished.And then, right in the middle of that wreckage, comes this turn: because of the Lord...

Joshua 1:9Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.Knowing what we value and being able to act and speak accordingly is something many of us strive for. However, consistently demonstrating beliefs that we say we hold every moment of every day is a challenge for all.Sometimes, I get to the end of a day, and I am discouraged by how much is left undone, by the words I did not share. Other days I have...

Psalm 121:1-2“I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”These words make up the first two stanzas of a Song of Ascents. The Songs of Ascents are a collection of 15 Psalms traditionally sung by Hebrew pilgrims as they journeyed to Jerusalem for worship during annual festivals. These psalms express themes of trust, hope, and spiritual ascent, reflecting the pilgrims’ journey from distress to divine joy and highlight the communal aspect of worship. Praise t...

Psalms 121:1-2I lift my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.Many of our Grace for All listeners have likely visited Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. It is where the Holston Annual Conference meets each year to conduct the business of the church and hear about all the good things that have occurred and will occur in the coming years. It is a beautiful place, with the lake and hills, the huge lighted cross on the hill above the building wh...

Proverbs 15:18 A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, while one who is patient calms a quarrel.When I read this verse, I immediately think about my grandmother, who was a master at using Southern phrases to get a point across. “ Stirring the pot” was one of her favorites and it took me a while as a child to figure out exactly what she meant when she said it. When you Google this phrase, it says in a social context it refers to intentionally creating or escalating conflict, drama, or tension, often to achieve a specific goal or o...

Matthew 22:34-4034 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment.39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”When I was working, we always had to submit a new bud...

You are listening to Grace for All, a daily devotional podcast produced by the people of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee.This is Scripture Saturday, a time when we pause and reflect on the scriptures we have read throughout the week. If you missed any of our devotionals on these passages, you can find them on our website at 1stChurch.org or wherever you get your podcasts.Now, we invite you to listen and receive Grace. Welcome and thank you for joining us.Grace for All is a daily...

Job 19:25For I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth.This may seem an odd verse popping up in the book of Job, which is probably best known for detailing Job’s disagreements, suffering, and, ultimately, his steadfast faith in the midst of his misfortunes.In the previous verses in Chapter 19, Job lists his woes: darkness covering his path, the loss of his honor and hope, feeling anger directed at him, estrangement from family and friends, and begging for pity, which falls on...

Matthew 13:3-9A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times wh...

Psalm 94:19 (NIV)When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.Psalm 94:19 (NLT)When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.Reading both translations makes this verse seem a bit clearer.In our world, anxiety is a constant voice, a big topic. At times, I find myself dealing with anxiety (traffic in downtown Atlanta comes to mind). It’s not that I don’t have faith, but some days doubt creeps in. Perhaps, the chaotic crowd of anxious thoughts swirling in my head...

Micah 5:2-5“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his grea...

Proverbs 11:17Those who are kind reward themselves, but the cruel do themselves harm. There is a popular quote, and I hope you’ll forgive me if the way I report it is not exactly how you have heard it. And I hope you’ll forgive me, too, if you know it to be from a particular source. You see, it’s actually attributed to many people — a quick Google search revealed attribution to everyone from Buddha to Saint Augustine to Christian author Joanna Weaver to Irish actor Malachy McCourt. In any case, the quote goes somethin...

Job 19:25 (CEB)I know that my redeemer is alive, and afterward, he’ll rise upon the dust. Job’s friends think they have God figured out.Job has lost almost everything, and they think they know why. Surely, he must have done something terrible. God rewards good people and punishes bad people, they reason, so if Job is suffering, Job must be guilty.Job knows they’re wrong. But he doesn’t understand what God is doing either. In fact, much of the book consists of Job demanding an explanation. At least he...

Welcome to the Saturday episode of the Grace for All podcast. Thank you for joining us today. Saturday is a special time when we take a few moments to review the scriptures that we have cited in the episodes this week. If you missed any of those episodes, you might want to consider listening to them today. And even if you heard them all, there may be one that you might want to listen to again. We hope that each of these scriptures and podcasts will bring you a full measure of joy, peace, and love. <...

Job 19:15 (NIV)“My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner; they look on me as on a stranger.”Psalm 69:8 (NIV)“I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own mother’s children.”Not too long ago I was reading a book by a Benedictine nun. As I read, she kept talking about “the other”. I pictured the other as someone terrible. It took a while, but finally I figured out that she was talking about me. The other was anyone who was not part of her Benedictin...

Romans 8:28We know that all things work together for good for all those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.Everyone has times in life when it seems things are not working together for good. We live in a time when we want the “good” right now, so when things are not going well, we may question God. “Why me, Lord?” is the question many of us ask when a job is lost, a family is torn apart by divorce, a loved one or oneself faces a medical crisis, any of the times wh...

Proverbs 3:5-7 (The Message Version)Trust God from the bottom of your heart;don’t try to figure out everything on your own.Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; God’s the one who will keep you on track.Don’t assume that you know it all.Run to God!When life feels easy and seems to present us with just what we need when we need it we are experiencing the energy called flow. We float along the path of least resistance. We are aware of all the...

Luke 24:5-6In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:When we read the gospel stories, we have both the benefit and the burden of knowing how the story of Jesus ends. “And on the third day he rose again.” We read verses like these where the women seem surprised by what they are being...

Isaiah 25:8“He will swallow up death forever. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.”Sometimes I think we make God too small. We try to fit God into the small box of our tiny human brain, our limited imagination, our earthly three-dimensional world, governed by our five senses. Due to this limited perspective, we probably don’t see things the way God does. How can we begin to imagine God swallowing up death forever; much less w...

Who's that in the mirror?Second Corinthians, chapter 3, verses 17 and 18 say, "The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom. All of us are looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."There's a famous painting by Norman Rockwell called Triple Self-Portrait. It shows the artist with his back turned to the...