JULY 22, 2025

  “For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened," He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love.” 

― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

PSALM 36-37

 39The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble.

ACTS 23:1-11

6Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” 7When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8(The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)9There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” 10The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks.11The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

JOURNAL 

There are days...more than I’d care to admit, when I carry this low-grade ache that somehow, deep down, I’ve disappointed God. That I’ve fallen short too many times, that maybe I’ve missed my chance. But Scripture and the unrelenting grace of Christ says otherwise. It takes a daring kind of trust, a holy defiance even, to believe that Jesus loves me not in spite of my failures, but within them. His love does not flinch. It doesn’t grow cold. It doesn’t wait for me to get it right. He knew I would grow weary. He knew I’d lose heart. That’s why He said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened.” He wasn’t naïve about the cost. He knew love would hurt.

That’s what I saw in Paul today. He’s standing in front of the Sanhedrin, calm, clear, unshaken. He doesn’t manipulate. He doesn’t grovel. He simply tells the truth. And in that moment, all hell breaks loose around him. The crowd erupts. Threats fly. It looks like everything might come undone. But then God shows up, not in power, not in fire, but in presence. “Take courage,” Jesus says to him in the barracks. “As you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

What strikes me is not Paul’s brilliance, though he has plenty of that...it’s his steadiness. His settled confidence that his life belongs to God. And if that means prison? So be it. If that means testifying in chaos? He’s in. Paul knew something we often forget: that obedience and love are not safe but they are holy.

So what does that mean for me? I’m not standing in front of a council. I’m not staring down soldiers or crowds. My trial looks different, quieter, but no less real. It’s the temptation to coast. To call these days ordinary. To believe the lie that my life is mostly about comfort and survival. That my faith is just a personal benefit rather than a radical call.

But if I believe Scripture...really believe it, then there are no throwaway days. “The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; He is their stronghold in time of trouble” (Psalm 37:39). That means today matters. That I’m not just passing time, I’m participating in the Kingdom. Even on a Tuesday. Even in a traffic jam or a hard conversation or a weary prayer. Every small act of obedience, every decision to love when it costs, every moment of courage when fear would be easier, it all counts. These moments become habits. Those habits become a life. That life becomes a testimony.

God isn’t waiting for me to impress Him. He’s inviting me to walk with Him. To live like love actually matters. To trust that even when I don’t see fruit, He’s not wasting the planting.

And yes, following Him might lead to suffering. Scripture doesn’t hide that. Some were sawed in two. Some wandered in caves. “The world was not worthy of them.” But they were commended—not because they were rewarded in this life, but because they believed anyway. They acted in faith, and God called it beautiful.

So today, I will believe that a faithful, quiet life lived in love and obedience to Christ is not a consolation prize, it is the very center of purpose. And if I live that way, then my life...ordinary, broken, unspectacular, becomes an outpost of His Kingdom.

37They were put to death by stoning;^e they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

39These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

 HEBREWS 11:37-40