READ: GENESIS 12:1-8; ROMANS 8:28-39

“But I don’t want to go.”

For months I begged Mom. I didn’t want to leave our home to move to a new state hundreds of miles away. I didn’t want to say goodbye to friends and neighbors I had known forever. I didn’t want to start all over again, especially in the middle of the school year.

“Why can’t I stay here?”

But I knew why. Cancer. We had lived in Florida my whole life, but now Mom’s doctor said the Florida weather didn’t pair well with her treatment. So my dad took a new job in North Carolina. And they would not leave me behind.

I just wished we didn’t have to move so far away.

Change was scary. Making new friends had always been hard for me. Would they like me? Would I do well in school? What if I didn’t like it?

In Genesis 12, God told Abraham to leave his home in Haran and take his family to Canaan… hundreds of miles away. So Abraham gathered his family and everything they owned and walked across a hot, dusty land to their new home. When they arrived, he pitched a tent and built an altar, “and he called on the name of the LORD” (verse 8).

But I often wonder: Was Abraham afraid to go? Did he ever ask God if he could stay? What gave Abraham hope during this time of transition?

The answer? Abraham looked ahead at what God had promised him—to make a great nation in this new place. In the same way, we can trust in the promises God has given to us, His people.

Because Jesus died and rose again, everyone who puts their faith in Jesus is part of God’s family, His nation (1 Peter 2:9). God is always working in our lives, and He is using even the toughest situations for our good (John 5:17; Romans 8:28). One day, Jesus will make all things new—then terrible things like cancer and homesickness will be gone forever. But in the meantime, we can take the next step knowing He’ll be with us through it all. • Carolyn Bennett Fraiser

• What changes are you facing in your life? What next steps might God be calling you to take?

• How can Jesus’s promise to be with us affect the way we see any situation?

[Jesus said,] “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20 (CSB)

READ: MATTHEW 11:27-30; JOHN 1:14; 5:19-20; HEBREWS 1:1-12

Have you ever celebrated the Day of the Epiphany? While most North Americans celebrate December 25 as the big gift-giving day of the season, other cultures celebrate January 6 as the day for presents and other surprises. On January 6, the Day of the Epiphany, many people traditionally remember the day when the Magi brought gifts to young Jesus. In many Spanish-speaking countries, children leave out grass and water for the Magi’s camels the day before Dia de los Reyes (the day of kings). They awake to find their shoes filled with gifts “from” the visiting Magi. In Germany, children dress up as the Magi and carol from house to house, asking for charity donations. The Epiphany is celebrated in Italy with bonfires and special treats; the French make a holiday gateau des rois or king cake. There are many other traditions as well.

The word epiphany means revelation or manifestation. The Day of the Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God, born as a baby into the world. As He lived among us, Jesus was a living revelation of who God is—that means Jesus reveals to us what God is like. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that “the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” Throughout His life, Jesus demonstrated God’s power, His love, His mercy, His holiness, His wisdom, and more. The words Jesus spoke were the very words of God (John 5:19). And Jesus’s death and resurrection fulfilled God’s plan of salvation for His people.

The Magi experienced the epiphany of seeing young Jesus. And Jesus invites each of us to have this epiphany as well. Do you see Jesus as God Himself? He invites us to see His glory as “the one and only son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). That’s exactly who He is! • Laura N. Sweet

• How did Jesus demonstrate God’s power while He lived among us here on earth? How did He demonstrate God’s mercy? His love?

• Why is it important that Jesus is both God and human? How does this affect the way we understand His death and resurrection?

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 (NIV)

READ: GENESIS 1:26-27; 3:1-11; 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19-20; GALATIANS 2:20

I’m fat. My skin is broken out. My nose is too big. I’m ugly.

Thoughts like these have haunted me most of my life, particularly during my teenage years. I often wondered what was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I look different? Sometimes, just looking in a mirror made me want to cry.

My weight bothered me most, so I tried anything to reduce it. I refused my body nourishment, exercised too much, adopted specific and irrational eating rituals, and spiraled into binge eating. All of this was an attempt to quiet the sadness inside. I thought if I could control my weight tightly enough, I would be happy.

What I couldn’t see back then was that I was believing a lie. I hated my body for how it looked. I thought it was worthless. I didn’t think God cared or had anything to say about it. It took me many years and much wise Christian counsel to realize that nothing could be further from the truth.

God created all of us in His image, the crown jewels of His originally good creation. It was only after humanity’s fall into sin that we began misusing our bodies and considering them shameful. But even in our broken state, God came to save us. Fully God and fully human, Jesus was born into the world. He has a body like we have, and that’s why He could die on our behalf and make us right with God again, no matter what our bodies look like (Psalm 34:5; Romans 3:22-26).

And there’s more good news. Before Jesus came, God provided His people with a temple, a place for His presence to dwell so they could worship Him. But now, God doesn’t make His home in a physical building anymore. He lives in us. That’s right, He chose to make the body that I hated and mistreated for so long into His new temple. Scripture tells us that we are not our own, we were bought at a very high price. And that price was the blood of Jesus. Therefore, we are called to glorify Him with our bodies.

So, if you are ever tempted to view your body as I did, please remember that you are worth much more than you think. The staggering reality is that we, bodies included, are immeasurably valuable because God created us, loves us, died for us, and lives in us. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing. • Alissa Griffin

• Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them.” How does the fact that we bear the image of God affect how we view our bodies?

• After Jesus died on the cross, He rose from the grave, and His disciples saw His resurrected body. If we’ve put our trust in Jesus, we can look forward to the day He will raise us from the dead—then we’ll have resurrected bodies too, and we’ll live with Him forever in restored creation! On that glorious day, we won’t struggle with sin and brokenness anymore. How might knowing that our bodies will be resurrected change the way we view ourselves? What does this say about how valuable our bodies are to God?

• What does it mean to honor or glorify God with our bodies? (Hint: read Romans 6:13 and Ephesians 5:29)

• Today’s devotion mentions disordered eating. If you are struggling with disordered eating or think you might have an eating disorder—such as anorexia nervosa (extreme restriction of food intake), bulimia nervosa (eating large amounts of food followed by purging), or binge eating disorder (repeated episodes of consuming large amounts of food in short periods of time)—who is a trusted adult you could talk to about getting help? Treatment for eating disorders can be long and complex, usually requiring therapy and nutritional counseling, but Jesus will walk with you every step of the way, and He’ll provide fellow Christians to...