Month: May 2026

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PWTE Daily Devotion

Personal and Permanent

By Katy Mariotti

Jesus Is Forever

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”
Hebrews 13:8, English Standard Version

Sometimes things in life that feel like they should be forever turn out to be temporary.  I was thinking of this recently when taking my baby for one of his regular check-ups.  It was only the second time we’d seen this pediatrician.  She’s great, but I found myself missing our previous pediatrician, who had been our doctor since my daughter was born 11 years ago.  When you have a doctor that long, it feels personal.  We saw her in moments when we felt very vulnerable, emotional and worried.  And yet, when she exited the practice, we didn’t even know about it right away, and then received an impersonal letter from our insurance.  We didn’t get to say goodbye or find out where she was moving to.

I experienced this from the other side a bit when I was teaching.  I was always attached to my students and I still feel like they are my children too, in a way, even after all these years.  Yet I learned the hard lesson quickly that I was a temporary part of their lives.  I was there for them when they were my students and then they moved on.  At first I expected them to have the same kind of attachment to me as I had to them, and it felt hurtful that they seemed to leave me behind; but that’s the way it’s meant to be.  I was meant to be a temporary moment in their lives, and that’s okay.

The temporary-ness of life is painful.  Even the initials in this picture: we had the end of our driving repaved and I’ve always had a secret wish to draw in wet cement.  But I did not realize how quickly cement actually dries, and by the time we went to write in it we were barely able to scratch the surface and we couldn’t see the letters the next day.

Thankfully for us, the pain of life’s impermanence is not present in our Lord.  We have a God who is very personal and very permanent.  He loves us so much that He sent His Son to join us and die for us.  I don’t think it gets more personal than that.  And as is promised to us in Hebrews, Jesus Christ is the same forever.  I am so grateful for this promise in a temporary world!

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado

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PWTE Daily Devotion

Gaining and Losing

By Pastor Steve Nickodemus

Jesus is Everything to Me!

“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Philippians 3:7 English Standard Version 

We are so proud of our grandson, Noah, who just graduated from high school and is off to college in Florida!  He has achieved many honors and awards and is excited about his future plans of success in school and business.

Saint Paul had been very proud of his accomplishments as a renowned and successful Pharisee and Biblical scholar.  He was very proud of his accomplishments until he met Jesus.  When Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, Paul’s whole life and way of looking at success changed completely.  He had been focused on his good works and zealousness for obeying the Law.  After meeting Jesus all that success became worthless in his eyes!  To know Jesus meant everything to him!

To know Jesus as Lord, to know his grace and his mercy, his love and compassion, the peace in realizing that Jesus had paid for all his sins and had reconciled him with God, this completely eclipsed all that had gone on before in Paul’s life.  Now all that mattered to Paul was to follow Jesus, to know him intimately, and to bring others into relationship with him.  He considered all that had come before as worse than garbage in comparison to knowing Jesus!

What about you?  What is important in your life?  Do you consider your academic and social and financial success the most important matters in your life?  Or have you come to realize that to know Jesus, to know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, as the most important gains and riches and joy in life?  To know Jesus makes all other things seem insignificant.  Jesus is everything to me!

  • “I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold
  • I’d rather be his than have riches untold
  • I’d rather have Jesus than houses or land
  • I’d rather be led by his nail-pierced hand
  • Than to be the king of a vast domain
  • And be held in sin’s dread sway
  • I’d rather have Jesus than anything
  • This world affords today.”

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church Colorado Springs, Colorado

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PWTE Daily Devotion

Called to Be Unique

by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Different to Make a Difference

Sometimes it’s what we don’t see that tells a photograph’s story.

Welcome back to Wild Horse, Colorado, a mostly abandoned city on the eastern high plains, a community that has more in common with Kansas than the populated areas of Colorado.

The old Wild Horse school is well preserved and serves as a gathering place for those who call this area home. It is a place of activities and meetings, and from the look of the build and from the activities that happen here, you might believe that homes and businesses surround it.

What you don’t see in this photograph is that most of these buildings are decaying. They have no paint, roofs are collapsing, even some walls have fallen. There is a post office and at least one inhabited residence, but nothing else.

This beautiful school exists in world of decay.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:4-5 English Standard Version

There is an important relationship between looking different and being different. The church is called to be both. The church exists in a wasteland of sin and death. And in that wasteland, we hear Peter remind us that we are (by the mercy of God in Jesus) being formed into a spiritual house. Maybe even a living schoolhouse on the eastern high plains.

Because this is a work of God, we are different.

Because this is a work of God, we make a difference.

We are different and make a difference when we remember that we are a holy priesthood who serves others. We plead to God on behalf of his people.

We are different and make a difference when we remember that we are called to offer spiritual sacrifices, sacrifices of praise and love, through Jesus.

God’s grace makes us different. So, we can be confident that we WILL also make a difference until Jesus returns.

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado