19th Week, Tuesday: Deuteronomy 31:1-8;mt 18; 1-5, 10, 12-14
Moses continues his exhortation: "Fear not! The LORD marches with you."
In his book Angels, Billy Graham says his wife was born and raised in China. She still remembers when tigers used to roam the foothills of that country. One day, a Chinese mother and her two children were walking along. Suddenly, a tiger sprang upon the mother and sank its claws into her arms and shoulders. At that moment, the mother recalled something a missionary had told her years earlier: "Fear not! Jesus is always ready to help you in times of trouble." Immediately, she cried out, "Jesus, help me!" The tiger instantly turned and ran into the hills.***
Do we believe what Moses told Joshua, namely, that the Lord is always with his people, ready to help them in time of need?
"I will lead the blind on their journey; by paths unknown I will guide them. I will turn darkness into light before them, and make crooked ways straight. These things I do for them, and I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16
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Introduction: God promises that he will accompany his people when they enter the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua.
Gospel. For Jesus, a child counts, as God loves
what is little. They are the greatest in the kingdom of God, on account of
their simple wisdom, their lack of pretension, their spontaneity and their
humility. Sinners too are among the little ones, in another sense: low before
God – what have they given him? Yet none of them should be lost. In us too the
child should survive in the good sense. Are we not placing obstacles in the way
of the kingdom on account of our sophistication and pretenses?
Opening Prayer
Great and holy God, you stoop down to us, fallible and
limited people, and your preference goes to children and the humble. Give us
the heart of a child, unpretentious and receptive, trusting and believing, that
we may become wise with your wisdom and grow up to the full human size of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
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