Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).

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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance

Week 22: Resurrection — Following in His Steps, 1 Peter 2:19-25
God calls his own to follow in the steps of the King, Christ Jesus. His innocent suffering on our behalf offers a pattern of true spirituality, not simply as a historical event but a living model for our daily walk. When we make ourselves available to Christ without conditions or qualification, we learn the way of Christ, i.e., to endure unjust pain without retaliation, entrusting ourselves and our cause to God, and fixing our eyes on the Shepherd. In his body he bore the stripes we deserved, and now we can participate personally in the very pattern Christ established. His wounds became the method of our healing; his steps are our way.

Invocation
Gracious Lord, as I open your Word now, quiet my heart and fix my gaze upon the One who suffered innocently on my behalf. Grant me ears to hear your call afresh, that call to follow in his footsteps and not in my own strength, but through the grace that flows from him and his wounds. May the King’s example illuminate every undeserved burden I carry today. Amen.

Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.

Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Sunday: Prov. 5-7

Lectionary Readings for Today
Our readings from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Epistles are taken from the Revised Common Lectionary for this week.
Psalm: Psalm 23
Old Testament (or Acts [during Eastertide]): Acts 2:42-47*
Gospel: John 10:1-10
New Testament: 1 Peter 2:19-25

Click here for all of this week’s Scripture readings

*During Eastertide a reading from Acts is often substituted for the lesson from the Hebrew Bible.

Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Sunday: Psalm 26, 56, 86, 116, 146 and Proverbs 26

Following In His Steps, 1 Pet. 2:19-25
The innocent suffering of Jesus models patient endurance under unjust treatment and pain; his wounds heal us, and his example calls us to follow in his steps faithfully.

Reflection
The Lord calls us as believers to a walk of patient, God-honoring endurance under unjust suffering, grounding that call of endurance in the example of the Messiah-King himself—the sinless Servant who neither retaliated nor threatened, but entrusted himself to God. His cross bore our sins and healed our souls; his life marks the path that God summons us to walk as those returning to our true Shepherd.

Engaging God’s Word Today
When you face unjust criticism, undeserved pain, or circumstances beyond your control, do you entrust yourself and your situation to God as the righteous Judge, or are you inclined to quietly retaliate and nurse grievance? How can you learn to walk in the way of the Shepherd whose wounds have already secured our wholeness?

Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.

We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.

Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Benediction
Thank you, Savior and Friend, for your example and pattern of living for God in total surrender. Your example moves my heart. Help me to rise and go now, bearing my burdens with patient faith, knowing that the Shepherd who bore my sins walks before me still. Where injustice wounds you, let your stripes remind me that I am healed. Where things tempt me to retaliate, let your silence and resolute obedience to the Father steady my actions and my direction. And may you dear Lord, the Guardian of my soul, keep me today, now and always. Amen.

Scripture Memory for this season
Mark 8:31-38 (ESV): The Messiah’s Predicted Suffering: The Kingdom’s Path 
³¹ And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³² And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³ But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” 

³⁴ And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever would save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. ³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? ³⁷ For what can a man give in return for his soul? ³⁸ For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” 

Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.

Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during season of Epiphany)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Ascension)
• Thy Kingdom Come, Rev. Terry Cornett and Dr. Don Davis (during season of Ascension)
• Kingdom, Church and World, Howard Snyder (during seasons of the Coming of the Holy Spirit, Headship and Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)

Book Reading Reflection: Destined for the Throne
(Reading “The Presence of the Future,” during season of Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection)

THE KINGDOM OF GOD HAS BROKEN THE POWER OF EVIL

“We conclude that Jesus saw in the successful mission of the Seventy an evidence of the defeat of Satan. It is beside the point to ask precisely when Satan was cast down, even as we may not ask when Satan was bound (Matt. 12:29). The Fourth Gospel conceives of the death of Jesus as the time of Satan’s defeat (John 12:31; 16:11; cf. Heb. 2:14); and as we shall see, the Synoptics represent the death of Jesus as an essential fact in the coming of the Kingdom. It is the entire mission of Jesus which brings about Satan’s defeat. We do not need to decide whether Satan’s fall is thought of as preceding the mission of the Seventy or as taking place in their very mission.

The objection that we cannot conceive of the disciples causing the overthrow of Satan is met by the fact that it was not the disciples themselves but only the authority committed to them by Jesus (Luke 10:19) which effected Satan’s fall. They exercised their power only in Jesus’ name. Their authority was a delegated authority. Bowman is right in insisting that this passage teaches that the power of God’s Kingdom has entered into human history through the ministry of his disciples. The deeper significance of these exorcisms is seen in Luke 10:20 where the disciples are told to rejoice above all because their names are written in heaven. Defeat of the forces of evil is but a means to an end. The warfare of the Kingdom only makes room for the peace of the Kingdom. The destruction of evil is part and parcel of the salvation of mankind (sic). The true reason for joy is the salvation that is being achieved. This is achieved because the Kingdom of God has broken the power of evil.”

~ Ladd, George. The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids: MI, 1974. Electronic Edition, location 151-157.

On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
On the Road to Emmaus, Luke 24:13-35 

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