Prepare for Easter

Friday, March 27, 2020

About My Father’s Business:

A Lenten Devotional Guide

Soon afterwards, He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.

Luke 8:1-3

This is one of my favorite Scriptures.

Wallace and I had a most unusual friendship at Western Kentucky University. He had been something of an agnostic, and we had a small part in his coming to Christ. He was a scholarly type, always studying or writing and about as liberal as anyone on campus. We, on the other hand, were rather atypical members of that campus and about as conservative as anyone there. Yet we were good friends. When I came across this Scripture above, I called our friend, read him the passage, and said, “Jesus is still doing the same thing today. He gathers about him the most unlikely people and then goes about telling others that this is what the Kingdom of God is like.”

No self-respecting Jew would have traveled about with a bunch of women. Ye he did. Those women would not have traveled with each other; some were high born; others were not. Yet they did. And to top it all, Jesus and the disciples let the women finance their ministry. Unheard of!

He’s still doing it. Look around you at the diversity in our congregation. Aren’t we an unlikely bunch for Christ to choose to build his church? Amazing God to choose the likes of us!

Father, I love your courage to choose the likes of us to build your church. Amen

About My Father’s Business:

A Lenten Devotional Guide
prepared for First United Methodist Church
of Homosassa, Florida
Spring 2010
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator