Saint Louis, Missouri, United States - Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "He Comes in Peace" Friday, 18 July 2014

Saint Louis, Missouri, United States - Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "He Comes in Peace" Friday, 18 July 2014
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."(John 20:19)
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
Do you remember any time in your life when you were afraid of something?
Perhaps you remember a few moments from your childhood when you were in a dark room, alone, and heard a noise. What was your reaction and feeling at that moment? What did you think? You most likely remained silent, cowering, trembling and maybe thought hopefully no one bad will find me here.
Most of us will agree things changed; that is, we felt safe when our parents showed up. When your parents arrived, fear and doubt were dispelled, and you were sure you were safe and that no harm would come to you.
Fear and doubt.
These are words from the Gospel of John 20.19-31. What is stated there by the evangelist John had happened on the Sunday when Jesus rose. The disciples were sad and hopeless because of Jesus' death. Filled with fear of the Jews, they gathered in a small room and locked the doors.
Suddenly, Jesus appeared in their midst.
But how could that happen? Jesus had died and had been buried. How could He be among them? The disciples were terrified, confused, scared and, later, Thomas doubted. "Is this a ghost?" some thought. Jesus assured them He was quite real. He had risen and had come back to let them know they were not alone ... to tell them they would never again be alone.
This wonderful announcement Jesus makes with the words: "Peace be with you!"
Fear and doubt.
These feelings are part of our lives. On our own it is impossible to get rid of them. True, the fears and doubts we had as children may no longer trouble us, but other complications have arisen to take their place.
This is why we need Jesus. We need Someone who will offer us a hand, Someone who will protect us and give direction to our lives.
My friends, please note the loving way Jesus treated His disciples. Even with all their fears and doubts, Jesus protected them. The Master knew they were sinners and needed His love, His grace, and His peace.
In a similar way, Jesus deals with us. Especially at such times He comes to us, embraces us, and calms us down. This He does with those wonderfully simple words, "Peace be with you! Do not be afraid, I am with you!"
THE PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Son who can, if we will hear Him, calm our fears. May we always be grateful for the peace which is ours through our risen Redeemer. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
Biography of Author: Today's international devotion was written by Tiago Albrecht who, since 2011, has been pastor at Saint Mark Lutheran Church, in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. Earlier he served the church in Macapá, a large city in northern Brazil near the Amazon forest area. He is married to Aline Koller, the current vice president of Communications of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brasil (IELB), a sister-church with the LCMS. In this South American country of 200 million people, Lutheran Hour Ministries-Brazil operates as Cristo Para Todas as Nações (CPTN). Christian outreach programs include a daily radio program, Five Minutes with Jesus; a voice mail service, Messages of Hope; which is also distributed via e-mail; and a weekly "live" online Bible study. This ministry center also utilizes Equipping the Saints (ETS) workshops to train volunteers in sharing the Gospel. Another resource, Chaplaincy with Jesus, does coordinated work with various chaplaincy programs throughout Brazil, ministering to individuals in prisons and hospitals. To learn more about LHM's work in Brazil, you can visit its blog at lhmbrazil.wordpress.com.
To learn more about our International Ministries, click here or visit www.lhmint.org.
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:
2 Kings 19:1-3 When Hezekiah heard it all, he too ripped his robes apart and dressed himself in rough burlap. Then he went into The Temple of God. He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all of them dressed in rough burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They said to him, “A message from Hezekiah: ‘This is a black day, a terrible day—doomsday!
Babies poised to be born,
No strength to birth them.
4 “‘Maybe God, your God, has been listening to the blasphemous speech of the Rabshakeh who was sent by the king of Assyria, his master, to humiliate the living God; maybe God, your God, won’t let him get by with such talk; and you, maybe you will lift up prayers for what’s left of these people.’”
5 That’s the message King Hezekiah’s servants delivered to Isaiah.
6-7 Isaiah answered them, “Tell your master, ‘God’s word: Don’t be at all concerned about what you’ve heard from the king of Assyria’s bootlicking errand boys—these outrageous blasphemies. Here’s what I’m going to do: Afflict him with self-doubt. He’s going to hear a rumor and, frightened for his life, retreat to his own country. Once there, I’ll see to it that he gets killed.’”
8-13 The Rabshakeh left and found that the king of Assyria had pulled up stakes from Lachish and was now fighting against Libnah. Then Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Cush was on his way to fight against him. So he sent another envoy with orders to deliver this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: “Don’t let that god that you think so much of keep stringing you along with the line, ‘Jerusalem will never fall to the king of Assyria.’ That’s a barefaced lie. You know the track record of the kings of Assyria—country after country laid waste, devastated. And what makes you think you’ll be an exception? Take a good look at these wasted nations, destroyed by my ancestors; did their gods do them any good? Look at Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the people of Eden at Tel Assar. Ruins. And what’s left of the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of Sepharvaim, of Hena, of Ivvah? Bones.”
14-15 Hezekiah took the letter from the envoy and read it. He went to The Temple of God and spread it out before God. And Hezekiah prayed—oh, how he prayed!
God, God of Israel, seated
    in majesty on the cherubim-throne.
You are the one and only God,
    sovereign over all kingdoms on earth,
Maker of heaven,
    maker of earth.
16 Open your ears, God, and listen,
        open your eyes and look.
    Look at this letter Sennacherib has sent,
        a brazen insult to the living God!
17 The facts are true, O God: The kings of Assyria
    have laid waste countries and kingdoms.
18 Huge bonfires they made of their gods, their
    no-gods hand-made from wood and stone.
19 But now O God, our God,
        save us from raw Assyrian power;
    Make all the kingdoms on earth know
        that you are God, the one and only God.
20-21 It wasn’t long before Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah:
God’s word: You’ve prayed to me regarding Sennacherib king of Assyria; I’ve heard your prayer. This is my response to him:
The Virgin Daughter of Zion
    holds you in utter contempt;
Daughter Jerusalem
    thinks you’re nothing but scum.
22 Who do you think it is you’ve insulted?
        Who do you think you’ve been bad-mouthing?
    Before whom do you suppose you’ve been strutting?
        The Holy One of Israel, that’s who!
23 You dispatched your errand boys
        to humiliate the Master.
    You bragged, “With my army of chariots
        I’ve climbed the highest mountains,
        snow-peaked alpine Lebanon mountains!
    I’ve cut down its giant cedars,
        chopped down its prize pine trees.
    I’ve traveled the world,
        visited the finest forest retreats.
24 I’ve dug wells in faraway places
        and drunk their exotic waters;
    I’ve waded and splashed barefoot
        in the rivers of Egypt.”
25 Did it never occur to you
    that I’m behind all this?
Long, long ago I drew up the plans,
    and now I’ve gone into action,
Using you as a doomsday weapon,
    reducing proud cities to piles of rubble,
26 Leaving their people dispirited,
        slumped shoulders, limp souls.
    Useless as weeds, fragile as grass,
        insubstantial as wind-blown chaff.
27 I know when you sit down, when you come
        and when you go;
    And, yes, I’ve marked every one
        of your temper tantrums against me.
28 It’s because of your temper,
        your blasphemous foul temper,
    That I’m putting my hook in your nose
        and my bit in your mouth
    And turning you back
        to where you came from.
29 And this, Hezekiah, will be for you the confirming sign:
This year you’ll eat the gleanings, next year
    whatever you can beg, borrow, or steal;
But the third year you’ll sow and harvest,
    plant vineyards and eat grapes.
30 A remnant of the family of Judah yet again
    will sink down roots and raise up fruit.
31 The remnant will come from Jerusalem,
        the survivors from Mount Zion.
    The Zeal of God
        will make it happen.
32 To sum up, this is what God says regarding the king of Assyria:
He won’t enter this city,
    nor shoot so much as a single arrow there;
Won’t brandish a shield,
    won’t even begin to set siege;
33 He’ll go home by the same road he came;
    he won’t enter this city. God’s word!
34 I’ll shield this city, I’ll save this city,
    for my sake and for David’s sake.
35 And it so happened that that very night an angel of God came and massacred 185,000 Assyrians. When the people of Jerusalem got up next morning, there it was—a whole camp of corpses!
36-37 Sennacherib king of Assyria got out of there fast, headed straight home for Nineveh, and stayed put. One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered him and then escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became the next king.
20:1 Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz paid him a visit and said, “Put your affairs in order; you’re about to die—you haven’t long to live.”
2-3 Hezekiah turned from Isaiah and faced God, praying:
Remember, O God, who I am, what I’ve done!
I’ve lived an honest life before you,
My heart’s been true and steady,
I’ve lived to please you; lived for your approval.
And then the tears flowed. Hezekiah wept.
4-6 Isaiah, leaving, was not halfway across the courtyard when the word of God stopped him: “Go back and tell Hezekiah, prince of my people, ‘God’s word, Hezekiah! From the God of your ancestor David: I’ve listened to your prayer and I’ve observed your tears. I’m going to heal you. In three days you will walk on your own legs into The Temple of God. I’ve just added fifteen years to your life; I’m saving you from the king of Assyria, and I’m covering this city with my shield—for my sake and my servant David’s sake.’”
7 Isaiah then said, “Prepare a plaster of figs.”
They prepared the plaster, applied it to the boil, and Hezekiah was on his way to recovery.
8 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “How do I know whether this is of God and not just the fig plaster? What confirming sign is there that God is healing me and that in three days I’ll walk into The Temple of God on my own legs?”
9 “This will be your sign from God,” said Isaiah, “that God is doing what he said he’d do: Do you want the shadow to advance ten degrees on the sundial or go back ten degrees? You choose.”
10 Hezekiah said, “It would be easy to make the sun’s shadow advance ten degrees. Make it go back ten degrees.”
11 So Isaiah called out in prayer to God, and the shadow went back ten degrees on Ahaz’s sundial.
12-13 Shortly after this, Merodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, having heard that the king was sick, sent a get-well card and a gift to Hezekiah. Hezekiah was pleased and showed the messengers around the place—silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, his stockpile of weapons—a guided tour of all his prized possessions. There wasn’t a thing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah didn’t show them.
14 And then Isaiah the prophet showed up: “And just what were these men doing here? Where did they come from and why?”
Hezekiah said, “They came from far away—from Babylon.”
15 “And what did they see in your palace?”
“Everything,” said Hezekiah. “There isn’t anything I didn’t show them—I gave them the grand tour.”
16-18 Then Isaiah spoke to Hezekiah, “Listen to what God has to say about this: The day is coming when everything you own and everything your ancestors have passed down to you, right down to the last cup and saucer, will be cleaned out of here—plundered and packed off to Babylon. God’s word! Worse yet, your sons, the progeny of sons you’ve begotten, will end up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
19 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “If God says it, it must be good.” But he was thinking to himself, “It won’t happen during my lifetime—I’ll enjoy peace and security as long as I live.”
20-21 The rest of the life and times of Hezekiah, along with his projects, especially the way he engineered the Upper Pool and brought water into the city, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Hezekiah died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Manasseh became the next king.
Manasseh of Judah
21:1-6 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. In God’s judgment he was a bad king—an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when God dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel. He rebuilt all the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and sex goddess Asherah, exactly what Ahaz king of Israel had done. He worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations. He even built these pagan altars in The Temple of God, the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by God’s decree (“in Jerusalem I place my Name”) to God’s Name. And he built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of God. He burned his own son in a sacrificial offering. He practiced black magic and fortunetelling. He held séances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil—in God’s judgment, a career in evil. And God was angry.
7-8 As a last straw he placed the carved image of the sex goddess Asherah in The Temple of God, a flagrant and provocative violation of God’s well-known statement to both David and Solomon, “In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name—exclusively and forever. Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I gave to their ancestors. But here’s the condition: They must keep everything I’ve commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them.”
9 But the people didn’t listen. Manasseh led them off the beaten path into practices of evil even exceeding the evil of the pagan nations that God had earlier destroyed.
10-12 God, thoroughly fed up, sent word through his servants the prophets: “Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these outrageous sins, eclipsing the sin-performance of the Amorites before him, setting new records in evil, using foul idols to debase Judah into a nation of sinners, this is my judgment, God’s verdict: I, the God of Israel, will visit catastrophe on Jerusalem and Judah, a doom so terrible that when people hear of it they’ll shake their heads in disbelief, saying, ‘I can’t believe it!’
13-15 “I’ll visit the fate of Samaria on Jerusalem, a rerun of Ahab’s doom. I’ll wipe out Jerusalem as you would wipe out a dish, wiping it out and turning it over to dry. I’ll get rid of what’s left of my inheritance, dumping them on their enemies. If their enemies can salvage anything from them, they’re welcome to it. They’ve been nothing but trouble to me from the day their ancestors left Egypt until now. They pushed me to my limit; I won’t put up with their evil any longer.”
16 The final word on Manasseh was that he was an indiscriminate murderer. He drenched Jerusalem with the innocent blood of his victims. That’s on top of all the sins in which he involved his people. As far as God was concerned, he’d turned them into a nation of sinners.
17-18 The rest of the life and times of Manasseh, everything he did and his sorry record of sin, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Manasseh died and joined his ancestors. He was buried in the palace garden, the Garden of Uzza. His son Amon became the next king.
Amon of Judah
19-22 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz. She was from Jotbah. In God’s opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh. He followed in the footsteps of his father, serving and worshiping the same foul gods his father had served. He totally deserted the God of his ancestors; he did not live God’s way.
23-24 Amon’s servants revolted and assassinated him, killing the king right in his own palace. But the people, in their turn, killed the conspirators against King Amon and then crowned Josiah, Amon’s son, as king.
25-26 The rest of the life and times of Amon is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. They buried Amon in his burial plot in the Garden of Uzza. His son Josiah became the next king.
Galatians 5: The Life of Freedom
1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.
4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
7-10 You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.
11-12 As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!
13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.
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