Day 3: Hope in the Darkness Today’s devotion is brought to you by Cammonde Andunga. Cammonde is a Partnership Facilitator working at Compassion Kenya. We commemorate the day that Jesus died on the cross every Good Friday. From Matthew 27:45-50, we see an agonizing death as Jesus shed His blood for us at the cross in Calvary. We see the utter rejection that He experienced and the great darkness that engulfed the world at that moment. We also witness the mockery of those who crucified Him; and, finally, the Saviour of the world died on the cross. I can picture the disappointment that His followers might have experienced, watching their Master crucified. They had hoped He was the Messiah, who was prophesied beforehand to redeem and restore the world. Seeing their Master dying would have made them feel that their hope was in vain. This was indeed a dark moment for them. What would they do now? Those who had chosen to faithfully follow Jesus Christ would have been disappointed and discouraged as they helplessly watched their master and friend on the cross—it seemed like darkness had won. This would not have been the end that they had envisioned. What seemed like the end, however, was only the beginning of something wonderful. When it seemed like the night was the darkest, God was at work keeping His promises to his people. It was at that moment of rejection that God poured out the cup of wrath that was in store for the world on His own beloved Son. He was rejected so that He could be the bridge of our salvation, dying to redeem us from the power of sin and death. Whatever was meant to be the end of His ministry, in the eyes of those who crucified Him, paved the way for salvation for all mankind. God turned it all around for good! Often, when the situations in our lives and in our world seem to hit rock bottom, it can be easy to be discouraged and disheartened. In John 10:10, we are reminded that the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but Christ came so that we may have abundant life. This abundant life would only come to us through Christ’s death on the cross.

Day 4: Hope in the Waiting Today’s devotion is brought to you by Benigno Torrez and translated by Junieth Dinarte. Benigno is a pastor at Compassion’s partner church, Iglesia Bautista Filadelfia, based in Nicaragua. Christ’s death and resurrection are pillars of our Christian faith. The apostle Matthew writes that after the day of Preparation, the religious leaders looked for Pilate. They remembered that Jesus had said that He would come back on the third day, but because they didn’t believe in Him and His purpose, they didn’t believe in His power over sin and death either. They were worried about the disciples stealing Jesus’ body and later lying to the people. They didn’t recognize Jesus as Lord and instead said that the disciples’ last deception would be worse than the first. For them, the first deception was believing that Jesus was the Son of God, and the last was that He had been raised to life again. To make sure that Jesus’ ministry ended with His death and that no other movement would rise in His name afterwards, they asked for guards to be placed outside the tomb. However, despite all the precautions taken by religious leaders, we know that Jesus Christ rose victorious! And Christ’s resurrection guarantees our resurrection too. No matter how long the wait or how dark the hour, Isaiah 40:29-30 encourages us that the Lord is able to give strength to those who have none and to those who wait on Him. The Bible calls our attention to Isaiah 40:30 especially, because it reminds us that the source of our strength does not come from ourselves or our youth, or from any other agency, but it comes from our faith in God. So, just as God raised Jesus to life, we are assured that He will raise us to life with Him. The way in which God will do it is difficult to understand, but in 2 Peter 1:21, He tells us that we will be moved by the Holy Spirit. The translation of the word moved in this context means to have a duty or mandate to fulfil. In this way, we can understand that God will guide us to His purpose and take us to the destination He has planned for us. Like passengers on a boat, He is leading us through the waters and holding us afloat when we journey through storms. Despite the doubts, fears and perhaps our wish to move or act on our own, when we wait on Him, He will continue moving the ship toward the safety of the purpose that He has designed for us. And in the end, just as Christ was raised to life, we will be raised to life with Him.

Yesterday was a rough day I was at Target and heard a loud crash and something shattering. Being nosy, I walked towards the sound and saw some people whispering and looking back to the end of the next aisle. When I walked down that aisle, I saw that an older lady had hit a shelf and many things had fallen to the ground and broken. She was kneeling on the floor embarrassed, frantically trying to clean up. I felt so bad for her. Every one was just standing there staring at her. So I went and knelt beside her and told her not to worry and started helping her pick up the broken pieces. After about a minute, the store manager came and knelt beside us and said, “Leave it, we will clean this up.” The lady, totally embarrassed said, “I need to pay for all this.” The manager smiled, helped her to her feet and said, “No ma’am, we have insurance for this, you do not have to pay anything!” If you have read this far, give me another minute. Wherever you are, close your eyes, and imagine God doing the same for you! Imagine the broken pieces of your mistakes or the pieces of your broken heart from all the blows life has thrown at you all over the floor and you’re there trying to collect all of the pieces and fix them yourself. Now imagine God comes and kneels right down beside you, smiles and says to you, “Leave it all there, I will clean this up for you.” He loves you that much and wants to put all of those pieces back together if you will let Him! With Him we have this insurance and it’s called GRACE! It’s free! All you have to do is ask Him to forgive you, help you, and to heal you. He’s faithful, I promise! 🫶🏼🙏🏼❤️✝️📜🖤👑🏆🩷👼🏼⚓🙏 EVEN THO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US FALL SHORT OF HIS GRACE AND MERCY, HE LOVES US ANYWAY ❤️

Your presence carries influence before you speak a word. Today, embody that awareness. Walk into every space knowing that your energy sets tone and direction. Let it be grounded, assured, and unapologetically refined.

Day 2: The Living Hope of Jesus Today’s devotion is brought to you by Jack Vasquez and translated by Fernando Sinacay. Jack is the Manager of Partnerships in Global Program working at Compassion Peru. The Lord’s hour is getting closer, and He’s preparing to celebrate the Passover with His disciples one last time. The book of Luke reminds us that the lamb must be sacrificed for Passover. There is no Passover without sacrifice. There is no other way for men to receive forgiveness. Our Lord Jesus, during the Passover celebration, shares a very special moment with His disciples—the Last Supper. As we read in Luke 22, we see the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the wine among them. But more than sharing a meal, it marked a meaningful milestone of the sacrifice that was to come. More than a mere Passover celebration, Jesus establishes the Lord’s Supper, which represents to us the acknowledgment of Jesus’s perfect sacrifice for us in our condition as sinners, which He redeemed through his death and resurrection. Jesus gave precise instructions to remember Him for His sacrifice made for us at the cross of Calvary. The Last Supper was a meaningful event, and it proclaimed a crucial moment in God’s plan for the world. Comparing Jesus’s crucifixion with the Passover, we can easily see the redemptive nature of Christ’s death and how it symbolizes the Passover’s original sacrifice in the Old Testament. Christ’s death atones for the sins of His people. His blood rescues us from death and saves us from slavery. The Passover invites us to celebrate and to relive Jesus’s surrender to death because of His love for us and the power of His resurrection, which reminds all men that we were created to live with God for eternity. It’s also a celebration and remembrance of hope, as we partake of the body and blood of Christ. Likewise, during the Last Supper, Jesus taught His disciples by example the principles of service and forgiveness when He washed His disciples’ feet (Luke 22:26-27; John 13:1-20).