Home > Reading > NALC Devotions – December 28, 2017

Today’s readings: Isaiah 49:13-23; Isaiah 54:1-13; Matthew 18:1-14

On this Feast of the Holy Innocents, as we contemplate those infants put to death by Herod, the Church prays for the unborn and their parents. We hear Rachel weeping for her children.

But what if today’s Rachel, weeping over her aborted child, cries: “Will my little one be eternally lost?” What can the Church — since the child was not baptized — say to her?

In 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul calls himself an aborted fetus. That’s the literal meaning of “one untimely born.” How did salvation reach him?

Stephen prayed for him, that’s how. In Acts 7:60, Stephen prayed for those who were killing him, and one of his killers was the future apostle. Soon afterward, that aborted fetus received salvation.

The Church can say: “Rachel, someone was praying for your child every day.”

In our sanctuaries and closets, we should include the unborn in our prayers.

Prayer: Father, may parents contemplating abortion receive good counsel, help in every need, and your abundant mercy; and may the little ones aborted on this day be untimely born in your arms. Amen.

Today’s devotion was written by Gary Blobaum, Pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church, in Sumter, SC.

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