Daily Devotion for September 14, 2026
Prayers
Scripture
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
The wonderful Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir reminds us that, come what may, our lives are in good hands!
To Submit My Day to God
Almighty God, who has given me life and breath, and another day: I do not know what this day might bring. For men make plans, and their plans come to naught, as you will it. Thus I take this day out of my hands and submit it to your will. Make me this day your servant, that I might find my hand at the tasks you have meant for me to do, and might do them as well as I can. For there is nothing better than a person should rejoice in his work, to your glory and for the love of his neighbors, as you have commanded us through your Son. In His name, I pray, let my day be yours, and let it be filled with goodness and faith.
Prayer to Know the Living Christ
Lord Christ, time and again I have lost you in a bleak and desolate spiritual wasteland, believing my eyes: For I do not see you. Have you died? Is the tomb empty because your body has been stolen? I look for you and do not see you.
Yet, somehow, you find me. I knock and the door does not seem to open; but you are behind me all the time. I seek and do not think that I find; but I am found. I imagine you and force myself to believe that the image I create is you; yet you yourself are actually there, seeing me and calling me all the time.
I wander off like a lost sheep, my eyes front, and cannot find my way back; but a shepherd seeks me out and calls me, gently. Bless you, and bless you seven times seven, for you admit no failure in finding those who seek you, no matter how lost they may believe themselves. I pray that I may hear your voice, oh Lord, for I know you call, and my desperation is only my willful deafness.
Meditation
“You need to keep on patiently doing God’s will if you want Him to do for you all that He has promised.”
Blessing for the Day
Oh God, hold me in the palm of your hand. I pray that you will mold me into what you want me to be. May I joyfully fill the role you have given to me and feel your peace deep in my soul, today and always,
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Denis imagines Jesus as a boy, with three girls kneeling as he teaches. Check out the full-size painting; it depicts a happy childhood, with fun and beauty. Who do you think all the people are? What is everyone doing?
Psalm 22:30-31 (NKJV)
A posterity shall serve Him.
It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation,
They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born,
That He has done this.
Matthew 2:19-23 (J.B. Phillips NT)
Return to Israel
ut after Herod’s death an angel of the Lord again appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Now get up and take the infant and his mother with you and go into the land of Israel. For those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
So Joseph got up and took the little child and his mother with him and journeyed towards the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was now reigning as king of Judea in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to enter the country. Then he received warning in a dream to turn aside into the district of Galilee and came to live in a small town called Nazareth — thus fulfilling the old prophecy, that he should be called a Nazarene.
Notes on the Scripture
Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. His kingdom was divided into three parts, each ruled by another Herod (as client kings of Rome): Galilee to the north, Samaria towards the center, and Judea to the south. (See Map) We do not want to get into the terribly confusing matter of delineating all the kings named “Herod”, but there are two to remember. Herod the Great, ruling when Jesus was born, who slaughtered the infants, and his son Herod Antipater or Antipas, who ruled in Galilee after Herod the Great. This second ruler is called simply “Herod” throughout the rest of the New Testament.
Archelaus
Archelaus (also a Herod) has no further part to play. He was as terrible as his father, murdering three thousand potential opponents in the Temple soon after Herod the Great died. Joseph did well to avoid him.
And so, Jesus grew up in the Nazareth, a small town of poor reputation. It lay near a crossroads: North and south ran the Damascus-Egypt road, one of the great caravan routes of the world, which was used by Napoleon 1800 years later to invade Egypt. East and west ran “The East Road,” between Acre/Ptolemais (on the coast) to the Roman colonies and trading partners in Asia.
Such caravan towns, like commercial ports, saw a constant flow of all sorts of people from many nations. The people who make their living catering to such traffic become hard and morally flexible, which lent Nazareth its unsavory reputation. But there is also a sort of low sophistication that comes with the international trade; Jesus almost surely spoke some Greek, and he would have seen much of life that a shepherd boy would not.
We do not have any idea where Matthew came up with the apparent prophecy, “he should be called a Nazarene.” There is nothing even close to it in the Old Testament. It might be a prophecy from a lost Hebrew writing, or it might have been copied incorrectly. It might even be a sort of pun we no longer understand; for example, nezer in Hebrew means “branch”, and Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be a branch springing from the root of Jesse.
Jesus playing as a boy.
Joseph was probably born in Bethlehem, since that is where he went for the census, but Luke tells us that he lived in Nazareth before his betrothal to Mary. We do not hear much about Joseph; his last mention in the Bible is the incident in Luke 2:42-51, where twelve-year-old Jesus is left behind on His “Father‘s business.”
Matthew tells us nothing of Christ’s boyhood. One of his themes, remember, is to prove to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, and so the important point for Matthew is to dispel the notion that the Messiah would come from the City of David, Jerusalem. But as we know, now, Christ’s message and role will be very different from the powerful political and military ruler the Jews expected; and consistent with the unanticipated character of the Messiah is his unanticipated origin, as a humble blue-collar worker from a shabby little town on the fringe of Canaan.
