Trinity Lutheran Church, Colby, Kansas

06/07/2026

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We speak about what it meant for Abraham and Sarah to hope against ...

06/05/2026

"Coming Close to Us"
June 4, 2026
As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.” And he rose and followed Him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when He heard it, He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:9-13)

I have to laugh at the poor Pharisees. Clearly they believe that Jesus is doing a bad thing. They are echoing the same ideas our parents probably taught us—“Don’t make friends with bad people, they’ll drag you into their problems and you’ll end up just like them.” The Pharisees are also feeling moral disgust—just the thought of sitting down with tax collectors and sinners makes them feel “icky.” (I believe that’s the technical word for it.)

But to Jesus, what they want Him to do makes no sense. Jesus came into this world to save sinners! How can He do that from a distance? It’s like telling the doctor to diagnose and treat someone from the other side of a football field. It’s like telling soap not to get anywhere near those dirty, stinky hands.

Of course the doctor is going to go where the sick people are. The soap will make the dirty hands clean. And Jesus will go where the sinners are, as close as close can be—and He will make them clean.

Jesus’ holiness is not fragile. It can survive becoming a human baby—growing up in a broken world—living among sinners—even being betrayed, flogged, and put to death naked on a cross. Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection don’t change the fact that He is the holy God.

What they change is us. Because Jesus comes so near us, He makes us clean, healthy, holy. He changes us to be like Him. Because He loves us and gave Himself for us, we come to reflect His glory in miniature. We trust in the Savior who has come so near us to save us, and so we become adopted children of God, just as Jesus Himself is the Son of God by nature.

WE PRAY: Lord, thank You for coming so near to me because You love me. Draw me even closer to You. Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.

06/02/2026

"Absolutely Certain"
June 2, 2026
[God says:] I will return again to My place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face, and in their distress earnestly seek Me. “Come, let us return to the Lord; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 5:15-6:3)

You can hear the frustration in God’s voice. What is He to do with His stubborn people?

He has sent them prophets, and the prophets have not been gentle; God uses words like “hewn” and “slain” to describe how painful their message to God’s people has been. And the people themselves use that kind of language, when they say, “Come, let us return to the Lord; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.”

That sounds painful! And yet, God’s message has succeeded, right? Because look at what else the people are saying! They say, “He has torn us, that He may heal us.” That means God’s whole purpose in tearing them was to heal them in the end. They say, “He will bind us up,” and “He will revive us … He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.” I don’t hear any uncertainty in those words. They are convinced that this God, their own God, whom they deserted, still loves them so much that He will do a miracle and restore them to life and health.

And they’re right. Even though they have deserted the Lord, even though they have gone after other gods and brought the Lord’s discipline upon them—even though they are driving Him nuts!—He still loves them, loves them dearly. He will do all the things that they say. He will heal them, He will raise them. And He will do the same for us.

Because we, too, sometimes fall into sin that we can’t get out of, and we worry what the Lord thinks of us—will He give up on us? Is this the last straw? Have we pushed Him too far?

And God makes it clear: He will take us back and restore us, no matter how far away we’ve been or what we’ve done. Even if we’ve fallen into the same sin a hundred million times, He will patiently and lovingly restore us and raise us from the dead, so that we may live before Him in peace and joy. This is why Jesus came—to bring us home to God, again and again and again, until that final day when He brings us home forever, and sin is nothing but an old, bad memory. He suffered, died, and rose again so that He could make you—you personally—His own forever. He’s not going to give up on you now.

WE PRAY: Dear Savior, strengthen my trust in You, especially when I’ve sinned and feel terrible. Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.

06/01/2026

"Better Than Gold"
June 1, 2026
It is good for me that I was afflicted that I might learn Your statutes. The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. (Psalm 119:71-72)

When we struggle with any kind of affliction—issues with physical health, anxiety, workplace or family trouble, spiritual concerns—it can be difficult, if not impossible, to see anything good about our circumstances. Inspired by the Spirit of God, the psalmist has clearer sight: “It is good for me that I was afflicted.” The psalmist sees beyond his immediate circumstances to the purpose of God. The affliction serves good purpose because through his suffering, the psalmist learns to rely on the teachings of God. The Word of the Lord is worth more than a fortune in silver and gold!

The psalmist is not the only biblical writer to see beyond affliction to the work of God. The apostle Paul suffered a “thorn” in his flesh, yet he saw divine purpose in that physical ailment. The thorn was a messenger of Satan, permitted by God to prevent the apostle from becoming conceited about the many revelations the Lord had given to him (see 2 Corinthians 12:7-9). The Lord did not remove the thorn, revealing to Paul that His grace was enough. The mighty power of Christ is made perfect in weakness and suffering, as it was at the cross. Paul also explains that in our afflictions we are comforted by our Heavenly Father “so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4b). We find peace and hope in the promises of God’s Word and then, in turn, share that peace and hope with others who suffer. Through the trials we experience, God conforms us to the image of His Son.

The psalmist recognized the good in his afflictions because the suffering led him to learn the teachings of the Lord. In days of trouble, we also turn to the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is at work in the Word to bring us forgiveness, peace, and hope. Joining with saints from the psalmist to Paul, we glorify God even through suffering. In our trials we may see more clearly the afflictions endured by our Savior Jesus Christ for the sake of our salvation. We rejoice in the glory of His victorious resurrection and long for the day when we will experience perfect peace and healing in His eternal presence. It is never easy to endure the trouble we face. Yet in that suffering, in the midst of our afflictions, we recognize the truth of the psalmist’s words. The hope and peace to be found in the promises of God’s Word are better than gold and silver.

WE PRAY: Spirit of God, when I endure trials, lead me to turn to the comfort of Your holy Word. Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Carol Geisler.

05/30/2026

"That Which Matters Most"
May 30, 2026
[Jesus said] “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal.” Then they said to Him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6:27-29)

What is the food that perishes? How much time do we spend chasing after it? Working for perishable items in this life is natural—and necessary—isn’t it? But what is Jesus saying to us here? Does He mean we’ll never feel hungry or thirsty? No. He is telling us there is something more than what we so easily invest ourselves in and which, at the end of the day, is completely temporary, utterly fleeting.

Jesus is inviting us to turn from ourselves and turn to His Words. He is telling us that our quest for happiness will only be satisfied when we look beyond this world to His Word. Remember the Old Testament connection: the feeding of the Israelites foreshadows Jesus, the true Bread come down from heaven. In a similar fulfillment of prophecy, listen to this beautiful passage from Isaiah 55. In these Words, can you hear Jesus inviting you and me to turn to Him?

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live. … Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:1-3a, 6-7).

Because of Jesus, God forgives you and me for all the times we have turned to our own way. Jesus was hungry and thirsty upon the cross, but His situation wasn’t grounded in His feelings. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Jesus came that you and I might have life, real life. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Friends, this Spirit-given life is better than anything we could ever find on our own. Our lives are full of things we need to do to support ourselves and our families, but don’t mistake chasing those things for the whole of life itself. There is more. Jesus tells us so, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10b).

Abundant living is found in Jesus—He is the Bread of Life and the One on whom God has set His seal.

WE PRAY: Heavenly Father, fix our minds on that which matters most. Fix our minds on Jesus. In His Name we pray. Amen.

Based on “And the Pursuit of Happiness,” a sermon by Rev. Dr. Dale Meyer, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour

05/29/2026

"A Friendly Recommendation"
May 29, 2026
This devotion pairs with this weekend’s Lutheran Hour sermon, which can be found at lhm.org.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

She wasn’t even trying to offer a recommendation. She was just describing it, witnessing to what the book had done for her: “I was so happy it ended the way it did,” she explained. “I just closed the book when I finished it, and cried.”

Usually, when I hear somebody raving about a new book, I’m skeptical. I don’t assume it would do the same for me. But in this case, when she described it, I knew right away I wanted to read it, not just because of her enthusiastic testimony, but because I knew the author. I hadn’t read this book, but I had read another book by the same author, so I knew what she had described would be true, not just for her, but true also for me.

The first verse of the Bible announces God as the Author who made everything out of nothing. The second verse describes the initial condition of God’s creation. And it uses an odd pair of words to do so: “formless and void,” or as other translations have it, “waste” and “empty.” Elsewhere in the Bible, these words describe a wasted land (see Deuteronomy 32:10), or an abandoned city (see Isaiah 24:10), or a kingdom in ruins (see Isaiah 34:11). It’s a strange way to describe the unformed earth, waiting for God’s next creative move.

Why put it in these terms?

It may have been for the benefit of the first hearers of Genesis, for people who were living in a wasteland. And some days their lives felt formless and void (see Numbers 20:3-5). Genesis was written to assure them that the God who is with them in the wilderness is the same God who once made an unformed beginning into a joy-filled end. They are dealing with the same Author.

If you are like me, some of your days feel formless and empty. I don’t feel that way all the time, but in the moments I do, I need a witness who knows our Author. Genesis is one such witness. The opening chapter recalls how, out of a formless void, God made everything “very good.”

Jesus, of course, is the greater Witness, God’s most friendly recommendation. But He does more than rave about God’s book. He is the Word who writes the book, the Author become human to rescue us from our formless and empty storylines.

God can do this because He’s not like us. He doesn’t sit alone and wait for inspiration. God writes out of generous abundance. He creates from the already full joy of the eternal story of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (see John 17:24).

For God, the story has no beginning and no end. But He made a beginning so we could share in His joy, so that we could help write new chapters and episodes and spin-offs. That’s part of what it means to be made in God’s image. We are made to relate and create, to collaborate as God’s co-authors, God’s witnesses—a friendly recommendation to a world that needs Him, so that their ending would be in Him, and His joy would be ours, and what has always been true for Him will also become true for us.

WE PRAY: Dear Jesus, out of sin and death and cross, You brought resurrection, forgiveness, and life. Thank You for writing me out of the formless void and into Your Father’s “very good.” Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Speaker for The Lutheran Hour.

Today's Devotion God’s Way—Not Man’s—Is Blessed Forevermore May 9, 2026Saturday, May 9, 2026 [Jesus said] “Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” (Luke 12:31) Friends, life is more than merely meeting our physical needs. Real living, real life means to rest in...

05/29/2026

"Ready or Not, Here You Go"
May 28, 2026
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

It makes me laugh, that second sentence: “And when they saw [Jesus] they worshipped Him, but some doubted.” Apparently there were still disciples who couldn’t believe their eyes, even after forty days of spending time with the risen Jesus! That’s kind of a pity, don’t you think?

I’m sure Jesus knew about their doubts, but it didn’t stop Him from going on to the next thing. Which was sending His people out into the world to spread the story of what Jesus had done to save us all. These followers would go to their own people, the Jews; to their neighbors and sometime-enemies, the Samaritans; and then to “the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8b) to tell every last person in the world what God has done.

And what has He done? He has come Himself into our world as a human being, born among us as one of us, to be our Savior. He came and served and healed and preached and cared about people during the years of His public ministry; and when the time was right, He allowed Himself to be betrayed by a friend, arrested by His own people’s leadership, handed over to foreigners, flogged, mocked, and put to death on a cross. Jesus did all this in order to break the power of death, sin, and evil over us—not just for humanity in general, but for each one of us in particular. It was you He suffered and died for, you He rose from the dead for. He came to make you God’s own dear child, forgiven, blessed, and wanted forever.

Jesus has done it all. And now He gives this free gift of salvation, love, and adoption into God’s family to everyone who trusts in Him. And He sends His people out—even you!—to share that message with others who haven’t heard it yet. He sends us out—even the ones who doubt! Even the ones who haven’t quite got their faith or life straightened out yet. And in some ways, that’s everybody, isn’t it?

Jesus knows our weaknesses, but He won’t have us sit around waiting till we get it right. He says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” That’s good enough to compensate for all our weaknesses. Jesus Himself will use us, and work through us, and where we are weak, He is strong. We can ask Him for whatever we need. Understanding? He can give that. Courage and willingness? He can give that, too. The right words? Jesus will provide. We can ask Him to work through us, trusting Him to bring about the results. Because we can’t do it—but He can, and will.

WE PRAY: Lord, I’m not much, but I’m Yours. Use me so that others will believe in You. Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.

05/23/2026

"A Clearing in the Storm"
May 23, 2026
My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD.” Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. (Lamentations 3:17-26)

No matter how tough things may look, the mercies of God are new every day. They are new every day of the year for those who put their trust in Him. Things don’t look good in our world right now. In fact, they look bad enough to make some people wonder whether there is a God at all. Others wonder if there is a God does He really care about the world we live in.

When one looks at circumstances and nothing more, it’s very easy to get in the frame of mind of the author of Lamentations. For the most part, today’s headlines are filled with bad news, and if we’re not worried about that, we have our own little worlds to fret about—our families, our jobs, our relationships with the people we work with and live with. It can be overwhelming and oftentimes is.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, the true malady behind all our worldly woes is sin. While crises in the world will come and go, leaving their impact on our lives, the sin we carry from birth must be dealt with. This means whether times are good or bad, our sin persists like a cancer that will not go away—unless it is somehow addressed and eliminated.

That’s where Jesus comes in.

Like a ray of sunlight in the midst of the storm, like the sharp clear note of the trumpet in the howling wind, there is always hope for the nations of the world. Great is the faithfulness of our God. The love of God for the world has never been clearer than in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. In Christ everyone can see the love of God at work.

God acts in Jesus Christ. He was raised from the dead and today He lives. He was raised for you so that you might put your faith and trust in Him, so that you can receive forgiveness for your sins—every last one of them—and so you can know God’s full and unconditional pardon for your rebellion.

God’s mercies are new today and every day. In Christ there is a new start, a fresh start. There is forgiveness and the power to be what you could never be without Him: a new creation redeemed by God and given hope to face whatever you encounter in this world.

WE PRAY: Heavenly Father, we have a lot to deal with in this life. Give us courage to face the day and a heart of faith to weather the storms of this world—through You. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

Based on “New Mercies for the New Year,” a sermon by Rev. Dr. Oswald Hoffmann, former Speaker of The Lutheran Hour

05/21/2026

"Rivers of Living Water"
May 21, 2026
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39)

It interests me that Jesus tells us to come to Him and drink. Apparently if we do so, we ourselves will become sources of living water for other people to drink from. At least, that’s how I read “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water”!

And Jesus isn’t talking about just a little water. He says “rivers,” plural—the water is so much and so great that it overflows our hearts in every direction, not just one. And as the Gospel writer John points out, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God whom Jesus gives us to live in us.

But it all starts with coming to Jesus and drinking, that is, believing in Him. We put our trust in the One who loves us and who died and rose again to give us real life—life that will never end. He will quench our thirst.

People drink water when they are thirsty. That’s generally the only time they drink water, unless they are doing it for medical reasons—there are lots of other drinks available to people who want pleasure, or celebration, or relaxation. But if you’re truly thirsty, there’s nothing like cold clean water. And if you truly feel your need for something more than the everyday things of your life—if you feel that thirst for God—coming to Jesus in trust is the way to go. He will meet that thirst, and then some. He will give you the Holy Spirit, God Himself, to live inside you forever and satisfy your thirst on the deepest levels of your life. You will never go thirsty again.

And that sets you free to help other thirsty people—people who are looking for something more, something true and good and solid, they don’t know exactly what. You know, because you’ve already had a chance to “taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8a). And now you can offer that same gift of living water to the people around you. There’s always enough to satisfy everybody in need—rivers-full, in fact. The Holy Spirit is enough for our needs, and for the needs of the whole world.

WE PRAY: Lord, give me Your living water to drink, and use me to pass it along to other people. Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.