Several decades ago, a song appeared on some of the country music charts that was titled, “Who Will Pray for Me When Mama’s Gone?” In the song, the narrator regrets the life that he has lived and confesses that he does not feel worthy enough to get down on his knees to speak to God.

No one, we believe, is so far away from God that he or she cannot call upon God and be redeemed. But we can certainly understand that lost feeling. In this instance, the narrator’s hope is that someone else — in this case his mother — can pray effectively for him. But what if his mother is no longer with us?

The song’s narrator fears that no one will take him up in their prayers.

In the passage of scripture that we just read, the writer of the epistle makes the point that prayer should be more than just individuals in communication with God. Prayer should be a communal effort. For that to happen, those who enter into prayer should, if possible, do so as members of a community of faith. We should pray for one another. We should share each other‘s joys, concerns, and sorrows. Again and again, while he was on earth, Jesus prayed for other people. His example is one that we are admonished to follow.

I confess that I do not know how prayer works. What I do know is when I pray for others, the burdens that I carry seem to be lighter and more bearable. This passage of scripture and the old country song raise the questions: who is praying for us, and who are we praying for?

Dear Lord, we come to you today with thankful hearts that just as we pray for others, there are people in our lives who are praying for us. May our prayers join with those of our family and friends to keep us close to your kingdom. Amen.

This devotional was written and recorded by Jim Stovall.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

This month on Grace for All, we are replaying some of our most listened to episodes. If you are enjoying these devotions and would like to have them in written form, our first six months of content is now available in print. You can find it by searching Grace for All, a book of daily devotions, by Jim Stovall on Amazon. As always, thank you for joining us, and we pray that you will be blessed.

Most of us pray for peace at some point in our lives. The prayer for “peace on earth“ is one that we echo from what the angels sang at the birth of Christ. We wish the tribes and nations, including our own, would be more peaceful. We wish that armies would stop fighting each other.

In our political and social lives, most of us crave peace. We wish to see an end to the bickering, the backbiting, the fighting, and the constant divisions with which the news media bombard to us every day.

In our personal lives, we wish that family members, again, including ourselves, could just learn to get along. Family gatherings of any type should be a time of peace. All too often they are a time of conflict.

Jesus, in this verse, has promised his peace, and we want to cash in on that promise. We are likely to skip over the part where he says “my peace“ is what he is giving us. We tend not to think very deeply about the words “I do not give to you as the world gives.“

So what is it that Jesus is offering us? It certainly is not the peace of our definition, the “peace on earth“ that we so desperately seek at all levels. The peace of Jesus is something different, something else, something very special.

It is the peace of the Kingdom of Heaven, which Christ came to declare in his ministry on earth. It is the peace of knowing that whatever wars and conflicts are occurring around us, we can have the peace of Jesus with us to calm the storms, not on the outside of our lives, but those storms that are in our hearts.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

This month on Grace for All, we are replaying some of our most listened to episodes. If you are enjoying these devotions and would like to have them in written form, our first six months of content is now available in print. You can find it by searching Grace for All, a book of daily devotions, by Jim Stovall on Amazon. As always, thank you for joining us, and we pray that you will be blessed.

Jesus said, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Have you ever crossed the street to avoid someone? Or ducked into another aisle in the grocery store, hoping they didn’t see you? Maybe it was someone you knew but felt you didn’t have the time or energy to face. Or maybe it was someone you didn’t know, but you made a judgement based on their behavior or appearance.

Regardless, something about that person made you uncomfortable, so you looked away, or moved in another direction.

What about the opposite? Has anyone ever crossed the street or looked the other way to avoid you?

We tend to avoid engaging with people who might pull us out of our comfort zone.

In the parable, Jesus tells to demonstrate what he means when he says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He chooses to identify the protagonist as a person who was used to being avoided.

As a Samaritan living on the fringes, he had likely watched people cross the street to avoid him on many occasions. And now, here was his chance to do the same. After all, even the religious leaders crossed over and walked on by. This robbed, beaten and injured man was not their problem. It was a reasonable thing to do.

Who would have blamed the Samaritan if he had crossed the street and kept on walking too?

What would it take to stop and offer help to someone knowing that if another the situation were reversed, they would have crossed the street to avoid you?

This is the grace Jesus offers each of us, and it is the grace he calls us to offer our neighbors.

It is what he means when he says, “Go and do likewise.”

Brother Jesus, teach us how to be good neighbors, that the deep woundedness of this world might be healed. In Your Holy name we pray. Amen.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

Thank you for joining us for Grace for All. This month, we are repeating some of our most loved episodes. We hope they will inspire and encourage you on your faith journey. Welcome.

I don’t know the full history of the Jesus prayer, but recently I keep tripping over it. The first reference I read was years ago. A Russian peasant seeking wisdom and peace is told to pray “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” He travels for years seeking understanding, only to discover that reciting the prayer unceasingly was his source of peace.

Recently, I stumbled over it again, and the writer questioned, “how does one pray without ceasing when we are constantly interrupted by everyday life?” Mystics have written about it. More recently, I read a week of Father Richard Rohr’s meditations on it.

How does one pray without ceasing?

As I sit writing this, the sun is rising over my backyard. The beans in my garden are climbing poles as the sunlight glistens on the dew that covers all. Perhaps the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that we pray for is like the dew that covers everything I see.

Sometimes I think to myself I would like to work in the yard now, but I will get soaked. I tell myself I should wait. I see it as a problem. I hesitate as if it is something bad.

Perhaps the dew is a beautiful blessing that I should let soak me through and through because the love and mercy of Christ is shining through it and everything I touch. What if the dew is a blessing and not a curse? What if my perception that something seems difficult, or unpleasant, or inconvenient is the curse, because it keeps me from seeing the light of Christ’s mercy on me? What if by hesitating I am failing to share mercy and light with all that I encounter?

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Give me the strength to recognize the blessings and your love that is in everything I see, and touch, and am. May your light shine on me, through me, from me. Lord, give me the strength to pray unceasingly and never hesitate. Lord Jesus Christ HAVE MERCY ON ME!

This devotional was written by Jill Pope and read by Greta Smith.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

This month on Grace for All, we are replaying some of our most listened to episodes. If you are enjoying these devotions and would like to have them in written form, our first six months of content is now available in print. You can find it by searching Grace for All, a book of daily devotions, by Jim Stovall on Amazon. As always, thank you for joining us, and we pray that you will be blessed.

Ain’t it the truth?

God says, “Go to the place I will show you.”

How many times in life have I started out thinking I had a clear sense of direction only to find the place I arrived was not at all the place I had envisioned.

Can you relate?

Often the journey has been long and hard, filled with unexpected twists and obstacles. Often I have found myself asking whether I could possibly be on the right path, and I have been tempted to give up or turn back.

But more times than not, the place God showed me, while different than I imagined, filled me with awe and gratitude. Mostly, I have been surprised by how the real beauty and blessing was in the journey itself. Such is life in faith.

Usually, when God calls us, the only things that are certain are the things we leave behind. The destination is a mystery, revealed only when we have arrived, and we can finally say, “Oh, now I see. This is where You were leading me all along.”

It strikes me that God’s promise to Abram was not in the land so much as in the showing. “I will show you,” God says. “I will.” It is God’s faithfulness to Abram and not Abram’s faithfulness to God that results in fulfillment of the promise.

God’s faithfulness still results in fulfillment of God’s promises. Even now God is calling us with these same words, “Go. To the place I will show you.”

Faithful God, increase our faith in you, that we would not hesitate to go, knowing you will show is the way. Amen.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

This month on Grace for All, we are replaying some of our most listened to episodes. If you are enjoying these devotions and would like to have them in written form, our first six months of content is now available in print. You can find it by searching Grace for All, a book of daily devotions, by Jim Stovall on Amazon. As always, thank you for joining us, and we pray that you will be blessed.

When my grandson was born, in one of the many conversations I had with my son (his father), we talked about where the baby would sleep and what kind of a setup the parents had for him in their house. The parents wanted the baby to sleep in a separate room, but they were putting a video camera there so they could keep watch over him. My son mentioned that the child would inevitably grow up in a “surveillance society.”

I think about that occasionally when I hear Biblical phrases such as the one in this famous Psalm about the Lord being a shepherd who watches over his sleep.

If we are trying to live within the Kingdom of God, we too are living in a “surveillance society” – one that is watched over by God, who doesn’t need a video camera. He is always there with us. No matter where I am, God is there. It is one of his consistent promises throughout all of scripture. Just as the parents provide and care for a new infant, the Lord is indeed our all-seeing shepherd, and we shall not want for whatever we truly need.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

Thank you for joining us for Grace for All. This month, we are repeating some of our most loved episodes. We hope they will inspire and encourage you on your faith journey. Welcome.

One of my favorite pieces of music is “A Simple Song” from Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass.” In 2019, I served as a flute accompanist for a soloist performing this piece during a church service. While reading today’s verse, this piece of music spoke to me loud and clear.

One of the biggest ways in which I could feel this piece speaking to me was by listening to the flute throughout. In listening to the track, the flautist takes on the role of being a bit of a backup to the vocalist, whose part is quite loud and powerful. For a while, the flautist starts by playing the notes of a B flat scale in descending order, going from a high E flat to a middle G. You notice the same simple and subtle, yet beautiful line repeated a couple of times in the background and note the change in scale from B flat to A flat, before it begins to take shape as a fuller melody and aligns with the vocalist’s singing.

As the lyrics of this song state “God loves a simple song”, so despite the melody from the flute being simpler compared to the lines of the lyricist, if music is being played from the heart to give thanks to our Lord, it is sure to be pleasing! I can say for certain that both myself and Joseph, who was the vocalist I accompanied back in 2019, were singing and playing from the heart to give thanks to our lord. So as this piece shows, it does not matter if a melody is more subtle and simplistic as opposed to a more bold and powerful lyrical line, even a so-called “simple song” is sufficient to give thanks to God.

God, help us to remember in this season of Thanksgiving to always sing your praises, whether through simple songs or bolder melodies. May we always remember that there is no superior form of music more pleasing, so long as we give thanks to you in all forms. Amen.

This devotional was written and recorded by Grace Jonas.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

This month on Grace for All, we are replaying some of our most listened to episodes. If you are enjoying these devotions and would like to have them in written form, our first six months of content is now available in print. You can find it by searching Grace for All, a book of daily devotions, by Jim Stovall on Amazon. As always, thank you for joining us, and we pray that you will be blessed.

When we recite the Apostles' Creed, we usually say the lines “born of the Virgin Mary“ and “suffered under Pontius pilot“ with nothing in between. In doing that we skip over the time that Jesus spent on earth and his ministry to those who are fortunate enough to hear him in person.

During his time on earth, Jesus declared the establishment of the Kingdom of God. He repeated this phrase again and again, and he often began parables with "The Kingdom of God is like . . ."

What Jesus was saying was that there was a new way of thinking about God and a new hope for all of humankind. The Kingdom of God was at hand, and Jesus was inviting us to be a part of it.

His words to the scribe in this story are important. The scribe shows a depth of understanding of what Jesus was saying that was unusual for his day. It was obvious from the scribe's words that he had discovered something new and unique about Jesus. Jesus compliments him by saying that he is "not far" from the kingdom.

The question for us, then, is how far are we from the central message of Jesus's ministry?

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

Mentioned in this episode:

Thank you for joining us for Grace for All. This month, we are repeating some of our most loved episodes. We hope they will inspire and encourage you on your faith journey. Welcome.