May 20, 2026 Devo

Can you imagine how this prophecy of Isaiah hit the people of Israel? As God’s “Chosen People,” it would be extremely difficult for them to wrap their minds around God loving and choosing the Gentiles of the earth. They were an “unclean” people. They had habits that were disgusting and lifestyles that were appalling. How could God care about them with all the other “gods” they had in their lives?
But there it was. Written hundreds of years before Jesus came, God foretold His mission. Not just to reach out to the comfortably religious, but to reach out to the unworthy and unlikely. All you have to do is look at the ministry of Jesus, and you see that it’s true. Tax collectors. Prostitutes. People possessed by demons. Roman officers. Samaritans. A woman caught in the act of adultery. A thief on a cross. Cowards like Peter who denied Him. Doubters like Thomas, who didn’t believe. Persecutors and blasphemers like Paul. Dangerous people. Horrible people. Sick people. The kind that needs The Doctor, The Savior, The Liberator, The Redeemer.
In my sermon on Sunday, I reminded our people that sometimes the people we find the most unlikely are the very ones that God is working on their hearts. Like the man in my church many years ago, who was fresh out of prison. He was big, gruff-looking, and intimidating. He looked like the kind of man you’d meet on the street who would cause you to start running the other way. But I watched God melt him, change him, shape him, and work through him. He was the kind of person people wouldn’t want to come to their church. He was also exactly the kind of man Jesus came to be a light to and to die for. And exactly the kind Jesus wants us to reach out to.
I say this because most of us have these unlikely people around us. They’re the obnoxious worker that no one can stand. They’re the annoying neighbor who complains about everything. They’re the foul-mouthed guy at the gym. They’re the person that you believe wants absolutely nothing to do with God, the church, or even decent people. But inside, they’re just lost souls who need to be found and hurting people who need to be healed. So be a light to them. Be kind to them, regardless of how they treat you. And when God nudges you, reach out to them. Because God knows something we often forget. It’s unlikely people who have the most amazing testimonies! That’s God’s Word for you today.