Our devotional reading this Sunday focuses on the Gospel text and comes from Concordia Commentary: John 1:1–7:1.

My friend bought an old, but low mileage, cute Volkswagen Bug. But this car had sat immobile for too long. Almost immediately, the car’s fuel pump failed. Next, the water pump failed. Soon, the belts failed. And so on. Our bodies are very much like that little Bug. If we don’t use them, we lose them, so to speak. They do not function at their best. “Fearfully and wonderfully” God designed our bodies (Psalm 139). And when we use them by moving (exercising) them, the way God designed, our bodies are amazing. However, if we sit, just like this poor car sat, they fail to be all they can be.

Our devotional reading this Sunday focuses on the Epistle and comes from Commentary on Romans: Second English Edition.

For Ash Wednesday, our devotion comes from Gathered Guests: A Guide to Worship in the Lutheran Church, Second Edition.

As we celebrate the Transfiguration of Our Lord today, we read an excerpt from The Big Book of New Testament Questions and Answers.

On the feast of St. Matthias, we read a brief biographical devotion about him taken from Treasury of Daily Prayer.

For today’s commemoration, we read a short biography of Polycarp taken from One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism: Christians Through the Centuries.

My family has an affection for certain shows. Many of you do as well, I'm sure. You don't simply have a show you watch, but you have shows that are "your shows”. You may not rush home to watch them, like in the days before DVRs and streamed TV, but something has happened culturally where we all gained a possessiveness to our shows. At our house, we like Star Trek of various kinds, Young Indiana Jones, and Sherlock. We get our reality show fix in the form of The Amazing Race. You can probably make your own list. It maybe slightly less nerdy, but I bet you have a list.

We focus on the Old Testament text for today by reading a devotion from Concordia Commentary: Leviticus.

For our devotional reading commemorating Martin Luther, we turn to Luther: Biography of a Reformer.