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Top X August 15, 2025 Devotional

by David Joynt on August 15, 2025


MATTHEW 7:11 | 11 If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your      Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

 

Prohibitions can be limitations or protections. A sign may tell me that I may not venture into a particular area and this feels like a restriction on my movements. But if I discover the reason for the sign is the danger of an avalanche or a roaming tiger, then the prohibition is felt as a protection.

 

The prohibition of covetousness is a protection from misunderstanding success. If material success guaranteed happiness, then the world would not be full of famous and wealthy individuals who are profoundly unhappy or lost in their own self-regard.

 

Do you think of the Ten Commandments as protections or restrictions?

 

 

Gracious God,

Protect me from materialism and a narrow focus on my own success.

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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