Matins Devotion: August 30, 2024

2 Corinthians 8

Your Lord was rich. You were poor, poor in spirit. You were homeless and helpless, clothed in garments of shame and sorrow and sin. But out of love for you, your Lord who was rich embraced your poverty. Jesus Christ left behind His throne of glory, left behind the majesty of His Father’s kingdom. He came down to earth and found you in your poverty. He put on the garments of humiliation, of rejection, of cruelty, and suffering. And at the cross, your Lord took on the garments of your sin. He who knew no sin became sin for you. He who knew no poverty took on the greatest poverty of all–your condemnation, your unworthiness. He took that garment off of your skin, placed it upon His own and paid the debt incurred by every thread of that garment, by every sin you committed.

There the only One who was unworthy of death embraced death. He died the death you earned so that He could give you the life He earned. And on the third day, He gave you that life. The Lord who embraced poverty for you arose in riches, arose in majesty. And through the waters of your baptism, He poured out those resurrection riches upon you. So even if you are poor in this life, now you are not poor at all because every radiant brick of the Kingdom of Heaven is now your eternal possession. Even if you are clothed in humiliation in this life, you are clothed in honor because the God who created the very heavens and the earth calls you His own beloved child. He knows your name and has sworn to give you every ounce of HIs inheritance. Your Lord was rich. You were poor. But because your Lord became poor for you, now you are rich. Now you are covered in divine wealth that no one can ever take away from you.