WELS Daily Devotions

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261110dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion [Jesus said] Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. Matthew 25:13 Keep Watch Jesus told stories called parables to teach important spiritual truths. At the beginning of Matthew chapter 25, he told a story about ten bridesmaids waiting for the start of the wedding banquet. The five wise ones brought extra oil for their lamps. They were thinking ahead. The five foolish, unprepared ones did not. They were living for the moment and were unprepared for the future, so their lamps burnt out. Five were ready when the banquet started, and the other five were not, so they missed out on the wedding celebration. The moral of the story is simple: “keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” In the Bible, heaven is pictured as a wedding banquet—the best party you’ve ever been to! A party you don’t want to miss! Why do some miss out? The one who is ready and waiting to meet Jesus at this life’s end, or when he returns, is simply the one who believes in him and his complete work of salvation. Sadly, the faith of some may grow dim and burn out. It’s easy to live for the moment and put off the reality of the future. Instead, Jesus teaches us to think ahead. Be ready now and be ready when he returns or calls us out of this world. But how are we ready? Where can we find oil for our lamps? When we feel like we’re running on fumes, where do we find gas for our tanks? The Lord provides all we need to grant faith and to keep it burning bright. To keep watch for Jesus means to keep watching Jesus. Fix your faith and attention on him every day, trusting that he alone is your hope and salvation. Watch out for things that steal your heart away from him. Hear his words recorded in the Bible. There you find his promises of forgiveness and unconditional love. This supplies all we need. It refreshes us. It renews us. It keeps us ready and eagerly waiting to meet our Savior face to face and spend an eternity with him at the best party ever! Prayer: Lord, give me wisdom and patience that looks forward to the awesome day you return or call me home to heaven. Amen   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261109dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion Awake, awake, Zion, clothe yourself with strength! Put on your garments of splendor, Jerusalem, the holy city. Isaiah 52:1 Rise and Shine! Wake-up calls aren’t always pleasant, but they are necessary. The sound of the early morning alarm can be a shock to your system when you’re sleeping peacefully. However, it’s even more unpleasant when you miss the alarm and realize you’re late. You missed your flight, or you’re late for work. God gives plenty of wake-up calls in the Bible. They may not sound pleasant, but they are necessary. God seeks to wake us up from indifference or ignorance concerning the problem of sin. We can’t just sleep it off and think it will go away. Missing these wake-up calls would be eternally devastating. We must be woken up to our greatest need that only God can meet. Other times, waking up can bring relief. When you wake from a nightmare, you are relieved. When a child is troubled in the middle of the night and afraid of the dark, what a relief when morning comes and they see the sun. Once we shake off the sleep and see the bright new day, we face that day with excitement. This is the goal of God’s wake-up calls. He seeks to wake us up not only so we can see the reality of sin, but ultimately so we can see his forgiveness and the new life he gives. Today’s Bible verse from Isaiah is not the thunderous voice of an angry God. It’s the voice of the compassionate Father calling his children to wake up to a bright new day. He has come to set people free and rescue them from the bondage of sin and death. He has come to give new and eternal life. The Lord awakens souls from spiritual slumber by his powerful word so they can rise and shine. He scatters the darkness and sets sinners free from guilt. He clothes his children in the clean garments of his Son’s perfection. He covers them with his gracious and compassionate love through his Son, Jesus Christ, so they can face this day and this life with the greatest confidence. Rise and shine each day to the voice and promises of the compassionate Father! Prayer: Lord, as I hear your Word, keep me awake and alert to your compassion so that I may rise and shine for you. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261108dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion Let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. 1 Thessalonians 5:6 A Cure For Your Sleepiness Have you ever heard about a condition called sleep apnea? If you or a family member has this condition, you already know all about it. Here’s a quick description for the rest of us: A major symptom of sleep apnea is chronic sleepiness. You tend to feel sluggish and fatigued all the time, even when you’ve had plenty of sleep. And if you happen to sit down to watch a movie, attend a meeting, or even drive a car, chances are good that you will begin to doze off. The cause of sleep apnea is that body is not taking in enough oxygen while you sleep. The solution is more oxygen. Doctors prescribe a device that helps you take in more air during your sleeping hours. The results are dramatic. When sufferers of sleep apnea finally get the help they need, it’s not uncommon for them to say, “Only now do I realize how terribly sleepy I had been.” Christian, here’s a question: Are you suffering from spiritual sleep apnea? Have you gotten so sleepy in your walk with your Lord that your soul has trouble staying alert? Has your spirit gotten so sluggish that you end up drifting towards things that aren’t truly important? The solution is the kind of oxygen that only Jesus Christ can bring. In repentance, when we breathe deeply of his gospel, his forgiveness purchased at the cross, then our sleepiness will end. Our drowsiness will stop. And our eyes of faith, clear and bright, will once again see the things that are truly important in our lives. Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for giving me spiritual life through your Son. Forgive my spiritual drowsiness. By your gospel fill me with your Spirit. Make my eyes of faith clear and bright. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261107dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion [Jesus said] “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8 The Pure in Heart There is an important truth that Jesus brings to mind in this Bible verse. We can’t fool God. There is no covering for false notions or hidden deception. God looks right through the outward evidence and inspects the inner motivation. He is looking for the pure in heart. What is the measure for the kind of purity that Jesus talks about? The Bible doesn’t tell us to compare ourselves to others. It holds us up to God’s perfect and holy Law and measures us against it. If all we had to do were to come out looking better than someone else, then there are plenty of “evil people” in the world to make our sins look smaller than they are. But in the light of God’s holy will, our hearts have never been pure. From the moment of our conception, we have been stained with sin. Only God can produce inner purity within us. It is for that reason that we pray with David: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). In Jesus, God answers our prayer. Jesus had a perfectly pure heart. And he gives that pure heart to us as a gift. Through faith in Jesus, God sees us as if we had a pure heart. It’s why all of the followers of Jesus are, as he said, blessed. And now, his Holy Spirit works in our hearts to make them as pure as God sees them. The night before his death, Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). This sanctification is God’s work in our hearts to make us more and more like him. Jesus promises that the pure in heart will see God. The more we listen to his voice in his Word, the better we “see” him. And, one day, when we enter the heaven he won for us, we will literally see him face to face. What a day it will be! Prayer: Holy Spirit, purify my heart and fill me with the confident hope that when I die I will be glad to see God. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261106dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “the righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17 Good Enough for Heaven Are you good enough for God? Have you done enough good and avoided enough of the bad to be on God’s good side? How do you know for sure? Will all the good and kind things you have said and done be enough in the end? Talk about a stressful set of questions! There is a reason people like to put off thinking about this kind of stuff. It can make a person anxious, nervous, and stressed. Our answers to these questions can never provide confidence or assurance that we will be saved in the end. Going through life with all that in the back of our minds is exhausting. With these questions unanswered, we can find no rest for our souls. There is a better way. The Bible says, “The righteous will live by faith.” We actually don’t need to worry about these questions. The answer is, no, we aren’t good enough. But that’s not the main takeaway from this verse. We may not be good enough, but that does not matter because we have one who was good enough for us: Jesus. Jesus was good enough for me and you and the whole world. He lived a perfect life in our place and died to take all our sins away. Whether or not we make it to heaven in the end does not depend on our level of goodness. Rather, it depends on Jesus’ perfect level of goodness for us. He was perfect in our place. We are saved because of him. So rather than stressing about whether or not we are good enough, we are now free to live by faith, trusting in Jesus and his life and death for us. Prayer: Dear Jesus, I know that on my own I cannot ever be good enough. Thank you for removing that pressure from my life by being my perfect Savior. Enable me now to live my life for you. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.