Grace for All

Scripture Saturday (October 25, 2025)

#708

Today at 4:01 AM

Thank you for joining us for today's Grace for All podcast.

On Saturdays, we pause for a few moments to look back on our week and to review the scriptures that we have used in our podcast.

We encourage you, after listening to this episode, to go back and listen to the episodes you missed, or to review the ones that were particularly meaningful for you. We trust that the thoughts that we have shared with you this week have provided a full portion of the joy, peace, and love of Jesus Christ.

...

Wait on the Lord

#707

Yesterday at 4:01 AM

Psalm 27: 13 &14

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Waiting for God’s goodness doesn’t always feel like helpful advice. When we are experiencing challenging life moments, such as loss. When a loved one is in the midst of a major medical crisis, we want action, not to be told to wait. When we look at the news and feel weighted down by all the negatives that are happening...

When Weakness Becomes Power

#706

Last Thursday at 4:01 AM

2 Corinthians 12:7–10

I was given a thorn in my body because of the outstanding revelations I’ve received so that I wouldn’t be conceited. It’s a messenger from Satan sent to torment me so that I wouldn’t be conceited. I pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me alone. He said to me, “My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness.” So I’ll gladly spend my time bragging about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power can rest on me. Therefore, I’m all right with weaknesses, insults, disasters, h...

Our Future and Our Hope

#705

Last Wednesday at 4:01 AM

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and hope.

This oft-quoted verse is part of a letter from Jeremiah to the Israelites in captivity in Babylon under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah prophesies that they should not give up hope; they will not be captives in a foreign land forever. Jeremiah says they should build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce. They should marry and have children and in general contribute...

The comfort you received, offer to others

#704

Last Tuesday at 4:01 AM

Romans 5:3-5 (CEB)

But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

I believe that a lot of scriptures give us only part of the story and beg the question, “To what end?” This very familiar passage from Romans is a prime example for me. It brings to mind someone who works out to get stronger physically. Weight produces resistance and resistance builds strength and strength produces a more fit and healthy body. But to what end? To admire...

One Day at a Time

#703

Last Monday at 4:01 AM

Matthew 6:34 (NIV)

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I'm retired now, but I used to get anxious on Sunday nights about the week ahead. I called it the "Sunday Blues"—that familiar knot in my stomach that would start around dinnertime, thinking about Monday's meetings, Tuesday's deadlines, Wednesday's presentation I wasn't ready for.

I'd sit at the dinner table with my family, but I wasn't really there. My mind was already in conference rooms and inbox battles that had...

Being transformed

#702

Last Sunday at 4:01 AM

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

I selected this passage during a trying week in the United States. It was the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States; Charlie Kirk, a political activist, was murdered during an event on a college campus, and two high school students in Colorado were injured in yet another school shooting.

Lord, have mercy. C...

Scripture Saturday (October 18, 2025)

#701

10/18/2025

You are listening to Grace for All, a daily devotional podcast produced by the people of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee.

This is Scripture Saturday, a time when we pause and reflect on the scriptures we have read throughout the week. If you missed any of our devotionals on these passages, you can find them on our website at 1stChurch.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now, we invite you to listen and receive Grace. Welcome and thank you for joining us.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast pr...

The Way

#700

10/17/2025

John 14:6

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

It can’t be much clearer than that! We all need to set our sights on Jesus to listen to and apply all He had to say.

This world is filled with noise in every available electronic form and beyond. It is necessary to tune it out and focus on the truth. The truth that is found through Jesus!

Don’t be distracted by the misinformation and dysinformation that we can easily...

Great is Thy Faithfulness

#699

10/16/2025

Lamentations 3:22-25

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 that seeks him.

Many of you, upon hearing these verses, will recall the hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” It is a hymn that celebrates God’s steadfast love and grace. While the hymn may have taken its chorus from these verses, the reality of the writ...

Motivate

#698

10/15/2025

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Every year, Pastor Sarah makes star words for our congregation. They are simple wooden stars with a word printed on them that is to be our focus word for the year.

My late wife Barbara got her very first star word in January 2024, and it was Motivate. She asked me to clarify with Sarah that this could be the same as nagging.

Throughout that year, we had lots of fun with that. She "motivated" me to s...

The Lord's Prayer

#697

10/14/2025

Ralphine Hood:

"God has been urging me to write about prayer. That should be easy for me since I am such a strong believer in prayer. Our Lord's prayer was taught to the Disciples and to us."

Matthew 6:9-13

Our Father in heaven Hallowed be Your name Your kingdom come Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors And do not lead us into Temptation, But deliver us from the evil one For Yours is the king...

Not to Worry

#696

10/13/2025

Matthew 6:34

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Square in the center of the Sermon on the Mount, in the last verse of the sixth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus gives us this advice: don’t worry about whatever has you down. A few verses earlier, in verse 27, he poses this related challenge: “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

There is so much in the Sermon on the Mount o...

We are All the Same Under the Skin

#695

10/12/2025

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1 (NRSV)

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For our slight, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

In the 1980s, when we lived in Cedar Rapids, IA, I volunteered in an oral history project. Community volunteers interviewed nearly a...

Scripture Saturday (October 11, 2025)

#694

10/11/2025

Thank you for joining us for today's Grace for All podcast.

On Saturdays, we pause for a few moments to look back on our week and to review the scriptures that we have used in our podcast.

We encourage you, after listening to this episode, to go back and listen to the episodes you missed, or to review the ones that were particularly meaningful for you. We trust that the thoughts that we have shared with you this week have provided a full portion of the joy, peace, and love of Jesus Christ.

...

Be Still and Know

#693

10/10/2025

Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

I’m a big fan of the movie Groundhog Day. I’ve seen it a couple of dozen times, and it is a tradition in our house to watch it on February 2nd every year. In the movie, weatherman Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray, gets stuck reliving the same day over and over again in the small Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney, the home of the famous groundhog “Punxsutawney Phil.” At first...

Crucified with Christ

#692

10/09/2025

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Repeatedly throughout my Christian walk, I have considered the question, “What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?”

Surrender—of my life, of my will—is central to my understanding of what it means to be a Christ-follower. When I chose to follow Jesus, I decided to give myself to Jesus. F...

Let Go and Let God - A Season of Surrender

#691

10/08/2025

Welcome to the Grace for All podcast. Our theme for this month is Let Go and Let God - A Season of Surrender.

Normally, I would begin by sharing today’s verse of scripture and then a short devotion; however, I believe today’s format should be story first and then scripture because that is exactly how it happened.

I will begin the story by saying the theme of Let Go and Let God - A Season of Surrender is both the worst title for this story….and the perfect title.

Surrender? Not a chance...

Mary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

#690

10/07/2025

John 12:24

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

If a seed does not germinate, it bears no fruit. It has been formed to create, yet it does not fulfill that destiny. It is squandered. It wastes away, dried up and useless. What a loss!

We also must realize that the majority of seeds in the history of creation have been planted by the wind, birds, and other animals. They have germinated and gone on t...

A Time for Everything

#689

10/06/2025

Ecclesiastes 3:1

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

I suppose we didn’t study Ecclesiastes in my childhood Sunday school classes because, for a long time, I thought this verse, and the examples of opposite human experiences (life and death, planting and reaping, weeping and laughing, love and hate, war and peace, and others) in the following eight verses, were the lyrics to a song.

And they are!

Singer and activist Paul Seeger wrote the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” in 1961, incorporating these verses, and it was recorde...

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

#688

10/05/2025

Matthew 6:34

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

There are several songs in popular movie musicals that refer to the hope and promises of tomorrow. Perhaps one of the most popular examples of this is the song “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” from the musical Annie.

In the musical, the orphan Annie sings this song after she escapes the orphanage in an attempt to find her parents, after she and the other girls residing in the facility have been h...

Scripture Saturday (October 4, 2025)

#687

10/04/2025

You are listening to Grace for All, a daily devotional podcast produced by the people of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee.

This is Scripture Saturday, a time when we pause and reflect on the scriptures we have read throughout the week. If you missed any of our devotionals on these passages, you can find them on our website at 1stChurch.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now, we invite you to listen and receive Grace. Welcome and thank you for joining us.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast pr...

Seasons

#686

10/03/2025

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NLT)

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

There are different seasons in our lives. When I was a young boy, I thought as a young boy. All I could think about was receiving my long list of wants. I believed that all would be right with the world if only I had a certain toy or bike. Birthday and Christmas gifts? Did they make my life more fulfilling? Actually, they only provided a short-lived, very brief, intense excitement. We humans do pray for a lot of th...

The Radical Ordinary

#685

10/02/2025

1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

Now about your love for one another, we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God's family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not b...

Pray and Rest in Jesus

#684

10/01/2025

Philippians 4:6-7 (the Living Bible)

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers. If you do this, you will experience God‘s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.

The constant drone of awful information can cause us to feel afraid, worried, and overwhelmed. Reports fill our eyes and ears with news of the constant drone...

Equality in God

#683

09/30/2025

Romans 3:23-24

…since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…

One doesn’t have to be a performer to have heard the advice for someone who is nervous to go on stage or speak or perform in front of a crowd: just imagine everyone in the audience in their underwear (or sometimes, it’s even “imagine them naked”). I think that I first heard that advice on a cartoon as a child, b...

The Mind of Christ

#682

09/29/2025

Philippians 2:3-8

Don't do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the p...

Grace, Doubt, and Resurrection Power

#681

09/28/2025

John 20:29

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believed."

I am so grateful that God’s grace is bigger than my doubt. In my life, I have been blessed to witness numerous things I would consider miracles, things that by the odds never should have happened. Some have been big—life-changing. Others have been small; perhaps no one even noticed but me. Each, an unexpected gift. Undeserved favor. Grace.

And yet…

Doubt clouds my thoughts. When I consider...

Scripture Saturday (September 27, 2025)

#680

09/27/2025

Thank you for joining us for today's Grace for All podcast.

On Saturdays, we pause for a few moments to look back on our week and to review the scriptures that we have used in our podcast.

We encourage you, after listening to this episode, to go back and listen to the episodes you missed, or to review the ones that were particularly meaningful for you. We trust that the thoughts that we have shared with you this week have provided a full portion of the joy, peace, and love of Jesus Christ.

...

Who Is My Family?

#679

09/26/2025

Matthew 25:40

And the King will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Reading the red passages in the Gospels, the words spoken by Jesus sometimes terrify me. Previously in this chapter, Jesus describes His return and uses a metaphor comparing believers and nonbelievers to sheep and goats. Sheep, highly valued, will be on the right. Goats go left. The sheep receive the inheritance, the kingdom of God, while the goats are sent to “t...

Living Your Faith

#678

09/25/2025

I Samuel 20:42

Then Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace because the two of us made a solemn pledge in the Lord’s name.”

When we think of faith and good works, our minds go immediately to the New Testament and the words of James, “Faith without works is dead.” Recently, however, I was reading the story of David and Jonathan anew from the Old Testament. In it, I see a story of faith and action that challenges me as to how I should be living my faith.

David had been anointed by Samuel to...

Follow Me

#677

09/24/2025

John 21:20-22

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

I suspect Peter must have suffered from a little (or a lot) of John envy. It was John whom Peter relied on to ask Jesus w...

Toward Love and Good Deeds

#676

09/23/2025

Hebrews 10:24

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

Who are the greatest influencers in your life? Family? Friends? Coworkers? Neighbors? Or are they politicians? Content generators? Social influencers?

We have entered an unprecedented era in which the people who influence our behavior the most could easily be people we have never personally met and likely never will. While we may identify with them on some level of shared interest, belief or experience, there is no personal connection. And while there is potential good in...

Stir Up One Another

#675

09/22/2025

Hebrews 10:24-25 (NIV)

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.

In thinking about this passage and reading other versions of these words, I came upon a phrase I think more accurately describes what the author of Hebrews is asking of the reader. Rather than the word “spur,” the phrase I prefer is “stir up”. I understand this phrase as someone who enjoys baking. I’m often stirring up various ing...

You Are the Branches

#674

09/21/2025

John 15:1-5

Jesus said:

I am the true vine and my father is the vinekeeper. Every branch that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in m...

Scripture Saturday (September 20, 2025)

#673

09/20/2025

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the people of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee.

This is Scripture Saturday, a time when we pause and reflect on the scriptures we have read throughout the week. If you missed any of our devotionals on these passages, you can find them on our website at 1stChurch.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now, we invite you to listen and receive Grace. Welcome and thank you for joining us.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the me...

Let Your Light Shine

#672

09/19/2025

Matthew 5:16

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

I love lighthouses. There is just something special about them to me. I love to photograph them, especially at dusk or dawn.

What’s interesting to me about lighthouses is that although they are often architecturally very plain, and there is usually nothing special about their location or setting, they serve an incredibly vital purpose. I guess you could say that they are humble. They're not trying to show off. They're not...

Progress Isn’t Always Visible

#671

09/18/2025

Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

How many times in life have we as humans felt that we are working towards something and making little to no visible progress?

I know that, being a graduate school student, I have felt this plenty of times, going through two thesis changes and working a job 20 hours a week on top of my course load.

However, while we may not see it, progress is not always visible. We could be maki...

A Living Faith

#670

09/17/2025

1 John 3:18

Little children, let us love not in word or speech, but in deed and truth.

In my life, I’ve had more than one experience, as I’m sure you have had, in which a person touted their piety and religious superiority, but I later found out that it was not backed up with behavior that reflected God’s love toward others. One of the most stark examples I can remember is when I was a child, and an interracial couple started attending my church. They were stared at and whispered about until they went from sitting...

Talk is Cheap

#669

09/16/2025

1 John 3:18

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

I’ve known some “big talkers” in my lifetime. Some of these acquaintances spoke of grandiose plans for their future, only to fizzle out when action was required. Others would spout off accomplishments, but in reality, they were riding on someone's coattails and attempting to take credit for someone else’s work. I try hard not to be too judgmental or dismissive of these folks, but I’ve been burned too many times by people with little or no follow-through.

This v...