Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour of Saint Louis, Missouri, United States "Setting the Captive Free" for Friday, 22 May 2015
Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD: that He looked down from His holy height; from heaven the LORD looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die.[Psalm 102:18-20]
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
The salvation story of Jesus Christ reaches around the world. So that the readers of our Daily Devotion may see the power of the Savior on a global scale, we have asked the volunteers of our International Ministry Centers to write our Friday devotions. We pray that the Spirit may touch your day through their words.
In Christ, I remain, His servant and yours,
Kenneth R. Klaus
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour
The common people of Kazakhstan have a rather pessimistic expression which says, "Beggary and prison are ills from which none can be safe."
Tragically, that was true for Yevgeniya Poverina.
Ms. Poverina had grown up as an obedient girl who was good in her studies. Then she reached that so-called "awkward age." During her teens Poverina was transformed into a rebellious, ungovernable teenager who refused to obey her mother or the family's Jehovah Witness morality.
Like many others in her generation, Poverina dropped out of school, associated with a bad crowd, and ended up in prison. There she spent her days blaming everyone for her situation ... everyone other than herself.
The prisons of Kazakhstan are not nice places. There are too many times when, rather than being reformed, the convicted learn from other, more seasoned, criminals. It doesn't take too much for a person to become bitter and lost.
But thanks be to God, the Holy Spirit can find the Lord's lost sheep, even in places like a Kazakhstan prison.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ found Poverina in her place of imprisonment. He was revealed to her as the immeasurably loving and forgiving Lord and Savior. She was delighted to be brought to faith in the Redeemer, who forgave her for being a sinner, who forgave her for being a criminal. By God's calling she was glad to know the Savior, who was unjustly imprisoned and murdered so all who believe might be freed from sin's consequences.
Eventually, Poverina was given her freedom.
That doesn't, however, mean her life became easy. An unbelieving husband, who had a quick-trigger temper and an unloving character, made things difficult. The only comfort she found were in her little son, whom she loved very much, and the strength she continued to receive from the newest member of her family: the living Lord Jesus Christ!
Jesus' love and forgiveness helped Poverina to love and forgive her husband.
Every day was spent in prayer as she asked the Lord to show her husband that his family was composed of four members, not three.
Our Lutheran Hour Ministries office was pleased that we could help Poverina in her spiritual walk by providing her with Bible Correspondence Courses. Living in the home she did, you can easily understand how she welcomed and appreciated the Scriptures -- and our office -- which provides her with spiritual and prayer support.
THE PRAYER: Lord Jesus, Your love and forgiveness have no limits, nor conditions! We thank You that You go and find those who have trespassed every law of God and man. Help us always remember that we are sinners, worthy of the hardest judgment and the harshest sentence. May Your love, forgiveness and mercy, which has been won for us by Jesus, always inspire and direct our earthly paths. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
Biography of Author: Today's international devotion was authored by the Lutheran Hour Ministries office in Kazakhstan. Every year that office receives thousands of responses from people who wish to learn more about Christ. Currently, the office produces a topical radio program and a 25-minute weekly TV program, which airs in all the major cities. The office publishes booklets, sends out medical team volunteers, and has developed youth programs called "Love is Kind" and "Labyrinth." Both programs use Scripture to encourage young people to lead a God-pleasing lifestyle. The ministry center in Kazakhstan has also developed and distributes Bible Correspondence Courses (BCC) for all ages.
In Kazakhstan the Gospel is shared effectively through the Internet, where YouTube videos and social media sites reach a largely unchurched audience. Youth outreach is a strong focus of this ministry center, with videos produced monthly for its "In Focus" series. Ongoing Scriptural training is done through LHM-Kazakhstan's BCCprogram, which benefits adults and children in their faith-walk. It also offers Equipping the Saints (ETS) workshops that foster outreach and help develop stronger connections among believers.
Read about LHM-Kazakhstan's efforts doing youth outreach in the town of Tonkeris by clicking here.
To learn more about our International Ministries, click here or visit www.lhm.org/international.
In Christ I remain His servant and yours,
Pastor Ken Klaus
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour®
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Through the Bible in a Year
Today Read:
Psalms 7: (0) A shiggayon of David, which he sang to Adonai because of Kush the Ben-Y’mini:
2 (1) Adonai my God, in you I take refuge.
Save me from all my pursuers, and rescue me;
3 (2) otherwise, they will maul me like a lion
and tear me apart, with no rescuer present.
4 (3) Adonai my God, if I have caused this,
if there is guilt on my hands,
5 (4) if I paid back evil to him who was at peace with me,
when I even spared those who opposed me without cause;
6 (5) then let the enemy pursue me
until he overtakes me
and tramples my life down into the earth;
yes, let him lay my honor in the dust. (Selah)
7 (6) Rise up, Adonai, in your anger!
Arouse yourself against the fury of my foes.
Wake up for me; you commanded justice.
8 (7) May the assembly of the peoples surround you;
may you return to rule over them from on high.
9 (8) Adonai, who dispenses judgment to the peoples,
judge me, Adonai, according to my righteousness
and as my integrity deserves.
10 (9) Let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and establish the righteous;
since you, righteous God,
test hearts and minds.
11 (10) My shield is God,
who saves the upright in heart.
12 (11) God is a righteous judge,
a God whose anger is present every day.
13 (12) If a person will not repent,
he sharpens his sword.
He has bent his bow, made it ready;
14 (13) he has also prepared for him
weapons of death, his arrows,
which he has made into burning shafts.
15 (14) Look how the wicked is pregnant with evil;
he conceives trouble, gives birth to lies.
16 (15) He makes a pit, digs it deep,
and falls into the hole he made.
17 (16) His mischief will return onto his own head,
his violence will recoil onto his own skull.
18 (17) I thank Adonai for his righteousness
and sing praise to the name of Adonai ‘Elyon.
8: (0) For the leader. On the gittit. A psalm of David:
2 (1) Adonai! Our Lord! How glorious
is your name throughout the earth!
The fame of your majesty
spreads even above the heavens!
3 (2) From the mouths of babies and infants at the breast
you established strength because of your foes,
in order that you might silence
the enemy and the avenger.
4 (3) When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place —
5 (4) what are mere mortals, that you concern yourself with them;
humans, that you watch over them with such care?
6 (5) You made him but little lower than the angels,
you crowned him with glory and honor,
7 (6) you had him rule what your hands made,
you put everything under his feet —
8 (7) sheep and oxen, all of them,
also the animals in the wilds,
9 (8) the birds in the air, the fish in the sea,
whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
10 (9) Adonai! Our Lord! How glorious
is your name throughout the earth!
John 7:28 Whereupon Yeshua, continuing to teach in the Temple courts, cried out, “Indeed you do know me! And you know where I’m from! And I have not come on my own! The One who sent me is real. But him you don’t know! 29 I do know him, because I am with him, and he sent me!”
30 At this, they tried to arrest him; but no one laid a hand on him; because his time had not yet come. 31 However, many in the crowd put their trust in him and said, “When the Messiah comes, will he do more miracles than this man has done?”
32 The P’rushim heard the crowd whispering these things about Yeshua; so the head cohanim and the P’rushim sent some of the Temple guards to arrest him. 33 Yeshua said, “I will be with you only a little while longer; then I will go away to the One who sent me. 34 You will look for me and not find me; indeed, where I am, you cannot come.” 35 The Judeans said to themselves, “Where is this man about to go, that we won’t find him? Does he intend to go to the Greek Diaspora and teach the Greek-speaking Jews? 36 And when he says, ‘You will look for me and not find me; indeed, where I am, you cannot come’ — what does he mean?”
37 Now on the last day of the festival, Hoshana Rabbah, Yeshua stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him keep coming to me and drinking! 38 Whoever puts his trust in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being!” 39 (Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who trusted in him were to receive later — the Spirit had not yet been given, because Yeshua had not yet been glorified.)
40 On hearing his words, some people in the crowd said, “Surely this man is ‘the prophet’”; 41 others said, “This is the Messiah.” But others said, “How can the Messiah come from the Galil? 42 Doesn’t the Tanakh say that the Messiah is from the seed of David[a] and comes from Beit-Lechem,[b] the village where David lived?” 43 So the people were divided because of him. 44 Some wanted to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.
45 The guards came back to the head cohanim and the P’rushim, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” 46 The guards replied, “No one ever spoke the way this man speaks!” 47 “You mean you’ve been taken in as well?” the P’rushim retorted. 48 “Has any of the authorities trusted him? Or any of the P’rushim? No! 49 True, these ‘am-ha’aretz do, but they know nothing about the Torah, they are under a curse!”
50 Nakdimon, the man who had gone to Yeshua before and was one of them, said to them, 51 “Our Torah doesn’t condemn a man — does it? — until after hearing from him and finding out what he’s doing.” 52 They replied, “You aren’t from the Galil too, are you? Study the Tanakh, and see for yourself that no prophet comes from the Galil!” [c] 53 Then they all left, each one to his own home.[Footnotes:
John 7:42 2 Samuel 7:12
John 7:42 Micah 5:1(2)
John 7:52 Most scholars believe that 7:53–8:11 is not from the pen of Yochanan. Many are of the opinion that it is a true story about Yeshua written by another of his talmidim.]
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