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Set Apart Devotional June 14

by David Joynt on June 14, 2024


MATTHEW 5:23-24 | 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Jesus picks up on yesterday’s theme in this passage from the Sermon on the Mount. In worship, we come before God to offer our thanks and praise, to dedicate ourselves, to receive devotion and insight, and to ask for forgiveness. Only God can make us whole. But part of our duty to ourselves and others is to seek reconciliation. In fact, repairing damage done to a son or daughter of God is the first priority. When we seek reconciliation we strengthen relationships and community and make holiness a shared task. This allows us to experience God’s forgiveness in a deeper way.

 

Do you have any reconciliation work to do?

 

 

Gracious God,

Give me the courage to seek forgiveness and reconciliation when relationships are broken. I ask in Jesus’ name.

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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