We keep chasing what looks impressive—the success the world promises—forgetting it all carries an expiration date, like a freshly cut tree that soon dries out and becomes trash. Samuel falls into the same trap sizing up Jesse’s sons in 1 Samuel 16, until the Lord stops him cold.
When a mess lands in our lap—whether it’s the fallen world’s doing or our own—the natural move is to grab control and start fixing, doubling down on whatever we think will work. In Genesis 28, two sons of the same broken family face that same moment, and the difference between how they respond reaches right into the choices we face today.
We can say all the right things about Jesus and still expect the wrong things from him. In Luke 19, the crowd welcomes its King with praise, peace, and glory—but what happens when the Savior we celebrate does not pursue the earthly victory, security, or power we wanted?
We’ve all got a part of ourselves we refuse to hand over—the place that says, You don’t get this, Lord. Heading toward Jerusalem, Jesus told a parable about a nobleman whose citizens hated him and sent word: We do not want this man to reign over us. The question is whether that refusal still has the last word.
Most of us are quicker to panic over a dying phone battery than over a dying spiritual one—we coast along, confident we’re fine, while the indicator drops lower than we’d ever admit. As Jesus calls a written-off man in Jericho, He challenges all of us on this: “Do we know how much we need Him?”
There’s a blind man sitting by the road outside Jericho in Luke 18, and the crowd wants him to be quiet—he’s an embarrassment, a distraction from something more important. He cries out anyway: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Whatever it is that makes you feel like the person everyone else wants to go away, this passage is for you.
There’s always one thing we’d rather not put on the table when God asks us to give something up—and we usually know exactly what it is. In Luke 18, a rich man walks away from Jesus grieving because that one thing is precisely what Jesus names, and the disciples’ stunned question in response—”then who can be saved?”—turns out to be our question too.
It’s easy to look across the room and thank God we’re not like that person—the failure, the compromiser, the obvious sinner. In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable to confront such self-righteousness in us.
Problems pile on until life feels more like a grave than renewed life, and we wonder where God is. The Book of Ruth opens with Naomi back from Moab empty and bitter, renaming herself Mara because the Almighty has dealt harshly with her—still certain God is King, yet unable to see whether that King still loves her. Is there hope when we find ourselves feeling the same way?
We often treat sin as a handful of inconsequential debts, so asking God for forgiveness—or forgiving someone else—can feel unnecessary. In Matthew 6:12, Jesus places both debts before us in a single petition: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Do we understand the balance we have run up?