… for the week of March 30, 2025
Getting the Fat Calf
Whatever you think of, however you feel about this story, don’t fool yourself into believing that it is all about a party. Pie-in-the-sky piety skims the fat and squeezes the fruit out of the parable, reducing a teaching about what is wildly prodigal to a mere morality play.
Here’s the bulk of the story: abandonment, longing, waste, famine, then hunger, humiliation, and dishonor, dying in pig dirt, shame unto pleading, resentment, sore bitterness . . . loss in every direction. Loss and falling—from comfort and certainty, respectability and character; from pleasure into pain, well-being into misery. Jesus told this agonizing, heartbreaking, undignified, lowdown, vanished-hope story for a reason. Jesus knew what life can be like. He recognized the deep ravines of loss and the gullies into which we fall. It doesn’t look as if the story begins in those sad places, but it surely lands and sits there for a while, the kind of sedentary existence that is too much like an awful eternity.
A father, bereaved and insulted (Was he not the parent he hoped, thought, intended himself to be?), is left gazing into an empty distance. A child disappearing (Why such urgency to run from his birth home?) is left in disgrace. A child dutiful, hard at work, utterly dependable (How had he come to feel so cheated, denied of love?) is left mucking in thick refusal.
And while it is so . . . And though it is true . . .
Suddenly, or maybe it’s eventually, the story becomes larger. The story collides with gospel. The late preacher and theologian Frederick Buechner observed, “The gospel is bad news before it is good news.” Jesus knew how we fail the world and how the world fails us. Jesus was a truth-teller, the whole truth: rags and robes, pigpen and dance floor, defiance and embrace, but no pie-in-the-sky piety. Instead, a festive roast in the oven! That’s how grace behaves.
Devotional message based on the readings for March 30, 2025, reprinted from sundaysandseasons.com.
Copyright © 2023 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved.
… How God Loves Us – Devotion
In a world where love often feels conditional and fleeting, God’s love stands apart—unearned, unchanging, and undeserved. This short booklet explores what Scripture teaches about the depth, certainty, and reality of God’s love for sinners.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GtBkKm8DiATB71cEUqyK_ajxL_twqUVM/view?usp=sharing
… The Lord’s Prayer During Lent
The Lord’s Prayer During Lent explores the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer with reflections on faith, repentance, and God’s grace. Hopefully this booklet helps you meditate on the depth of God’s promises, strengthens your faith, and points you to the cross.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1slkXGPLXwmbXrasDRhaJW2pSl6rXqug_/view?usp=sharing
… Love like Jesus
By Rick Warren – 03/26/2025
“Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, ‘How can I help?’”
Romans 15:2 (MSG)
If you’re driving and get a flat tire, and a well-known celebrity drives by, nobody expects them to stop and help you. They’re likely too busy or too important to help you with your problems.
But those aren’t kingdom values—those are worldly values. Jesus said that, if you want to be great, you must be the servant of all. The more you give of yourself and serve other people, the greater you are in God’s kingdom.
A few years back, my wife had four major speaking engagements in a short time period. She got home from one trip and was totally wiped out. But she went immediately to the kitchen and started cooking a meal for neighbors who were going through a major struggle. She didn’t think she was too important. She put her exhaustion aside so she could help others. She has done this over and over again—because she wants to be like Jesus. She wants to serve.
What does it mean to love like Jesus? The Message paraphrase says, “Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, ‘How can I help?’” (Romans 15:2 MSG).
In fact, one way to serve like Jesus is by serving others as if you’re serving Jesus himself. Look for how Jesus might, in a way, be disguised as a hurting person in your neighborhood. He might be at the coffee station on Monday morning. He might be at the soccer game. He might be behind you in line at the grocery store. He might be the most unlovable person you know who is carrying a deep hurt. If you want to serve Jesus, then start by showing up for the hurting people around you.
The Living Bible paraphrase says, “When God’s children are in need, you be the one to help them out. And get into the habit of inviting guests home for dinner or, if they need lodging, for the night” (Romans 12:13).
Many people in your church, neighborhood, and even family are single parents working to put food on the table, widows who are lonely in their empty houses, or students who are overwhelmed.
How can you love them like Jesus loves them?
PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick >>
Talk It Over
- How did Jesus model what it means to be a servant?
- When has someone shown you Jesus’ love by serving you?
- Think of someone in your life who’s hurting. What’s one thing you can do today to love that person?
The post Love like Jesus appeared first on Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope.