Listening for the Promise
Sola Publishing – Weekly Devotions
Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany – February 16, 2025
SOWeR Site — Weekly Devotional © Sola Publishing: www.solapublishing.com, 2019, written by Mark Werner. Scripture taken from ESV Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
(permission granted to active subscribers to reproduce this sheet for local congregational use)

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.” 
- Luke 6:22 -
I was at a fair when I saw this saying on a T-Shirt, “I can only please one person a day. Today isn’t your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.” I think most of us yearn for some type of appreciation. We want people to know what a great job we did. We want to please others, be the well-liked life of the party, the most popular in school, etc. We certainly want our employers to recognize how good we are and how well we’ve performed our jobs, that it might yield us a raise. There is both an internal pressure and a peer pressure that we experience in wanting to be liked.
When it comes to doing the right thing, or believing what Christ has taught us, we may find ourselves on the outside looking in. More than that, we may find ourselves attacked for what the world might consider narrow-minded beliefs. Challenge the notion that everybody goes to heaven with the truth that our salvation is through Christ alone, and people may accuse you of hating non-Christians. State that you believe marriage to be between one man and one woman and you’ll certainly be labeled as being a homophobe or worse. We may even be ridiculed in our beliefs by others who identify as Christian. A former member of the congregation I serve asked how I could possibly believe that the story of Jonah was real!
The world continues to move in a direction that is oppositional to Christian teaching on many topics that we may have once considered common sense. It is an uncomfortable reality that there are those who hate, attack, or demean Christians. It has happened in every generation. Prophets who spoke God’s Word were attacked. The apostles were beaten and killed for their faith. Around the world today, Christians are persecuted.
In these moments let us take heart in Christ’s assurance. It is the assurance of Jesus who said to his disciples and to us, “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33b) Remember, nothing is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39) Be in prayer for those who would hate or harm us, as Christ taught us to pray for our enemies. And, “Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold your reward is great in heaven…” (Luke 6:23a).