Thursday after the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on October 20, 2022 by under
Scripture: 3 John 2-8 (NKJV)
2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. 3 For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
5 Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, 6 who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well, 7 because they went forth for His name’s sake, taking nothing from the Gentiles. 8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we may become fellow workers for the truth.
Devotion
It is a great joy for a pastor to see those in his care prospering! When your profession of the faith is praised, he rejoices to glorify God. He prays that you may be blessed even more in body and soul, so that you may have the opportunity to be faithful with even more. While a pastor is called to be faithful without regard to the result, when God so blesses his preaching and teaching, your confession echoing back to him also strengthens him. It is like the encouragement you give to all in the parish when you are gathered to receive the body and blood of Christ, proclaiming by your attendance at the altar that you, too, are a sinner in need, and that in His Supper Jesus feeds and strengthens you by the forgiveness He there brings.
By walking in what you confess, by living out what you confessed at Baptism and continue to voice in Confession and Absolution and in the Creed, through your actions toward both your brethren in Christ and for strangers, you bring joy to your pastor and glory to God. Especially in John’s view is your reception of and giving aid to those who proclaim the Gospel both far and near. (He is addressing a congregation in which some spurned pure preachers of the Word.) When you pray for the pastors of our fellowship and seek to uphold them in their needs because you see the need for God’s Word to be taught purely to future generations, you are doing exactly what St. John here commends.
Prayer: O God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee: Mercifully grant, that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
