Daily Devotion

Voice: Kae Chee

Today is the Monday of Easter Week, 6th of April. As we gather around the empty tomb, let’s be still in His presence.

We praise the Lord together in the words of Psalm 146:

146 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
² I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

³ Put not your trust in princes,
    in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
⁴ When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
    on that very day his plans perish.

⁵ Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶ who made heaven and earth,
    the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
⁷     who executes justice for the oppressed,
    who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸     the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
    the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the sojourners;
    he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

¹⁰ The Lord will reign forever,
    your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as It was in the beginning, is
now, and shall be forever. Amen.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas,and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God

Stand Firm

Again and again, we are asked to stand firm in the Gospel faith which we have received. Paul said that these are of “first importance.” These are essential and foundational for our faith:

Christ died for our sins. It was not just suffering and death as a moral example. It was a saving death to atone for our sins. There are many who think that they have not “sinned.” They have not murdered or robbed anyone. So what wrongs have they done that they need someone else to “save” them? These are questions that are repeatedly asked by guests in Alpha Courses.

In the Bible, sins are not just about committing major crimes. The deeper issue is about our relationship with God. We do not acknowledge Him as Creator. We trust ourselves more than Him. Even if we have not committed major crimes, we have sinned through mistreating others, being selfish and so on. These are “seeds” of sin that can lead to greater misbehaviour if the context allows it. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), Jesus said that anger is the seed of murder and lust through visual longing can be the seed of adultery. We do not reference ourselves to others but to a holy God. Romans 3:23 says that all have fallen short of the glory of God. Only Christ, who is fully God and Man can save us through his atoning death.

Christ died and was buried. He did not merely appear to die—He truly entered into death. And His burial fulfilled the Scriptures, as foretold—for example in Isaiah 53:9, where it says He would be “with a rich man in his death.”

But the story does not end in the tomb.

On the third day, He was raised.

Death was real—but it was not final. The tomb was sealed—but it was not permanent. This attest to the truth of His life and teaching. And it gives us hope that for us, death will not be the end of it all.

Lastly, St Paul gave his personal testimony of how by grace, God saved him. And now, by grace, God is using Him to be His messenger.

The message is not that we are terrible. But we are loved but lost. And because we are loved,
Christ came, died, and was raised—to bring us home.

We are asked to stand firm in this faith. And to be ready to share with others who need to hear it.

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We pray this Collect

Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death to make all things new in him: 
grant that we, being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit 
be praise and honour, glory and might, now and in all eternity.
Amen.

Be blessed by this rendition of At the Cross by David’s Harp.

1 Alas, and did my Savior bleed?
  And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
  For such a worm as I?

At the cross, at the cross where
  I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
  And now I am happy all the day!

2 Was it for sins that I had done
  He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
  And love beyond degree!

3 Well might the sun in darkness hide,
  And shut His glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker, died
  For man, His creature’s sin.

4 Thus might I hide my blushing face
  While His dear cross appears.
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
  And melt mine eyes to tears.

5 But drops of grief can ne’er repay
  The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
  ’Tis all that I can do.

Link to today’s Morning Office