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Celebrate! May 29, 2025 Devotional

by David Joynt on May 29, 2025


JOHN 15:13 | 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

 

The word sacrifice, in our culture, also has a noble tone. We remember on Memorial Day the soldiers who sacrificed time and sometimes life and limb in defense of our nation and its values. Their willingness to do so is a deterrent war and aggression in many places in our disordered world.

 

Police and firefighters and other brave public servants also must maintain a constant willingness to move into high danger and high risk situations on behalf of others. Samson is an Old Testament           analogue. He was a one-man army against the Philistines, who sacrificed his strength and the altar of his desire, only to defeat the enemy in a final act of self-sacrifice.

 

Pray for those around us who courageously embrace sacrifice.

 

 

Gracious God,

Thank You for those who prevent evil and defend justice, and for everyone who moves toward danger on others’ behalf.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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