Two men were walking home. They were overwhelmed by life, dejected by what they’d seen, and telling themselves, “This is not how it was supposed to be.”

Ever felt that way? Like your life isn’t turning out quite as you’d pictured?
Wondering perhaps, how did I get here?
Maybe you’re going through a rough stretch
and questioning if God still cares or if He’s even there.
If so, then this story is for you.

Luke chapter 24 contains the most detailed of the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ. In verses 13-35, the scene recorded wasn’t His first appearance, but certainly one of the most relatable as Jesus brings two men on the Road to Emmaus from thinking that this is “Not how it was supposed to be” all the way to knowing “The Way it Had to Be.” Seeing the Way and rejoicing in Him.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025, and will continue until Resurrection Sunday, Easter (April 20, 2025). I hope you’ll join me and be prepared to have your eyes opened. I know mine have been in writing this series, “The Way it Had to Be.”
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The author gratefully acknowledges Grok XI for assisting with this year’s pictures.
Technology can be amazing.

If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2025 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

Advent begins December 1, 2024, and we will explore principles straight out of the Book of Hebrews regarding our Savior’s first advent and reasons for hope in His Return. I’m announcing it now with more explanation and prior years’ links to follow soon. Hope you’ll join me.

I need to do this because it’s important for the truth.
In the end, all I have to offer is my voice.

There are too many Ukrainians dying, too many Russians dying, too many Palestinians dying, too many Israelis dying, too many Arabs dying, too many Muslims dying, too many Christians dying, too many Americans dying, too many blacks dying, too many Hispanics dying, yes, and too many of every people group dying … for the appetite of endless wars.

Every one of those people who died bore the Image of God. Every last one of them.

I care. God cares. Multiple endless wars are profitable only for the ungodly…who worship money and power and not Christ.

Choose wisely who or what you follow.

To anyone who might be mistaken that I support a woman for President of the United States simply because she is a woman, you need to know that I do NOT support that notion. I cannot state it strongly enough!

It demeans all women when we are judged in the public only with respect to our chromosomes (or bodies) and not by our merit, our accomplishments, our beliefs and heart, and when it comes to leaders, by our leadership.

To that end, I have nothing to offer but my voice.

I choose Christ, first, foremost, and always. I choose love because He is Love. I choose peace because His is the Gospel of peace. The peace of God and peace with God are possible only with Him. My pursuing my life as a peacemaker honors Him. And the rest speaks for itself by a proven 4-year record to attest to its truth…and a chance for those still among the unbelieving world to learn who Christ is.

Whether anyone dies from war or fentanyl or through any number of other atrocities,
it ends the chance to learn about Christ.
The Gospel means nothing to deceased people. Evangelism ends when people die.
It is for the sake of the Gospel and my Savior that I must give peace a chance.

I wish you and yours a very happy New Year!

I know the years seem to be increasingly wild and unpredictably distressing in unparalleled ways. There is good news, though: Jesus is the One who sits on the throne, and He said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” (Revelation 21:5).

Every day we are one day closer to that reality so we can cry Hallelujah! Until that time, we can lean on Him for He said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

You do not need to worry, Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? (Luke 12:22-26)

Then He reminded us, “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) He told us ahead of time, not so we would worry or dread how the next year will be worse than the previous one, but so we would have peace in Him.

Isn’t today the best day to start a whole new year with a whole new life and born-again attitude?
Happy New Year in Christ!

As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile– the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?

As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
(Romans 10:11-15 )

In 2020 and beyond, Lord God, Be Thou My Vision.

Joseph—he was trying to do everything right.  He tried avoidance, reason, diplomacy, theology, and escape.  He didn’t expect false accusation as the result of his fleeing the scene of Potiphar’s wife’s unwelcome advances.

Genesis 39:13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

(What a lying snake!  Like her household servants wouldn’t have heard her scream.  Potiphar’s wife speaks, all the servants resist doing an eye roll.) 

Genesis 39:16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home.

<sarcasm warning> (Obviously traumatized.)  Interesting that the words are “his master” and not “her husband.”  

Genesis 39:17 Then she told [Potiphar] this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

(Liar, liar, pants on fire…)

Genesis 39:19 “When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, ’This is how your slave treated me,’ he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. “

Think about it:

• Being falsely accused is never easy because you know you didn’t do it, but you have no recourse.  In Joseph’s case, we aren’t given any indication he spoke up in self-defense, but as a slave, would he have been given that opportunity? 
• In anger, Potiphar quickly forgot all the blessings attached to Joseph.  When we’re angry, do we forget about God’s blessings? 
• Potiphar’s and Joseph’s experience of blessings might have elicited shouts of “God is good!”  When Potiphar is angry and Joseph is being falsely accused and thrown in prison, God was still good because it was advancing the storyline of Joseph’s life through which God would do great things!  Do you think it felt good for Joseph? 
• Do you think Potiphar would have been blessed apart from Joseph?
• Sometimes Joseph is called “a type of Christ,” a foreshadowing of things preparing our hearts for Jesus.  In what ways do false accusations and being a prisoner advance that thought?

“He is Risen!”  Three simple words.  Eternal in consequence.  Don’t we say them every Easter?  It’s a King James thing, and it’s how most of us recite the greeting.  Theologically and technically, I wonder if “He has risen” might be a bit closer to the truth. 

Luke 24:1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:

On the day the tomb was empty, He was discovered to be… “not here.”  If we’re not careful “Risen” could be an indefinite state of being kind of like when your teenager’s snooze button has been going for 30 minutes and he calls back in reply to your shouts of “Get out of bed!” with “I’m up”…which may be only a very temporary state because it’s the present tense. 

Not to go all Greek on you, but to my way of thinking, perhaps it’s not such a minor point.  The verb in the original Greek of the New Testament is indicative, aorist, and passive.  (Uh-oh!!  It’s okay.  Don’t worry about it.)  What it means is that it certainly happened in the past and it was done to Jesus by someone else (in this case, Romans 6:4 tells us it was done through the glory of the Father). 

Why is this important?  Why are you giving me a grammar lesson on Easter morning?  Can’t I just have sunshine and an empty tomb picture?  Hot cross buns, Greek Easter bread, a cup of coffee, and chomp the head off a chocolate bunny? 

Here is why I believe this nuance isn’t so minor:  Jesus isn’t in a constant state of Rising, presently Risen as if held in perpetual mid-air suspension, or even in a temporary state called “Risen” which might be more like your sleepy teenager.  Rather it’s a once-and-done certain event of eternal consequence.

Perhaps one of the clearer pictures is in Mark 16:6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him” (Mark 16:6). 

Do you see the past, present, and eternal?

• A one-time defeat of death,
• a one-time triumph over the grave
• by the one and only Person whose death and resurrection truly mattered for all eternity
• because God is immortal, invisible, and from before time began.
• Only He, Jesus Christ the Son of God, is God, and could pay for the immeasurable sin of man
• because His death was that of an infinite Being…
• raised by the glory of the immortal, eternal, Almighty God!  
• Our Risen Savior Jesus will never again be incarnated.  He still has a body–it’s with Him in heaven and that’s what His post-resurrection appearances prove.  

“He has risen!”  It’s final, eternal, and He’s coming back for those who believe that He is who He said He is, that He died for our sins, was raised from the dead, and is now waiting for the full number to enter in to the family of faith to usher the day of His return.

Have you entered into the family of faith made possible by His life, death, and resurrection?  If not, how about today?  Maybe He’s waiting for you to complete this family for all eternity.  Happy Easter!  He has Risen!  He has Risen indeed!