Dial-a-Devotion -- January 2

In the name of Jesus our Savior, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church welcomes you to ‘Dial-a-Devotion’, this is Vicar Tom Schlund.  Our text for today is from Hebrews 13:7-9 which reads:

7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.

The first day of 2014 has come and gone.  Is the new year off to a good start for you? Maybe you’ve had the chance to spend some time with family to celebrate the beginning of this new year.  Sometimes, though, it seems like there is nothing new about the new year.  Waking up this morning didn’t seem much different than waking up yesterday morning or the day before that.  The days seem to be the same.  There’s not very much excitement in things that stay the same is there?  We get bored when things are the same over and over again. 

It seems like in our culture today it is even easier to get bored.  How is this possible? There are so many things that occupy our time.  There are TV programs, newspapers, books, games, the internet, and social activities that fill our calendar that it seems silly to say that it is easy for us to get bored.  But it is true, all of these activities have made it so that we always need to have something different occupying our attention and if we focus on one thing for too long then we get bored with it and want to move on.  This is unfortunate sometimes because we miss out on things because we move on too fast. 

There are some things that we want to stay the same.  Life would be difficult to live if our laws changed every day.  If the speed limit was different each day you went out to drive the chances of you getting pulled over would be a lot higher because you wouldn’t be sure what the speed limit was.  It is good that our laws stay the same. 

In our text for today we hear about something else that stays the same.  The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  It is good news to have a God and savior that doesn’t change.  He loves you and cares about you and has won for you forgiveness of your sins and eternal life through his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.  He’s promised to bring you to be with him at the end of your life or the end of the world, whichever comes first.  It is good that he doesn’t change because you can trust that this promise is true no matter what other things change in your life or in the world around you.  What great news!

 
Let us pray:

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for being our unchangeable God and for sending your son Jesus into the world to redeem us and to restore us to a right relationship with you. Help us to remember that you never change and that we can trust in you always. In Jesus name, Amen