I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, and I do Your commandments. My soul keeps Your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. I keep Your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before You. Let my cry come before You, O LORD; give me understanding according to Your Word! Let my plea come before You; deliver me according to Your Word. My lips will pour forth praise, for You teach me Your statutes. Psalm 119:166-171

There is in the state of Georgia, a white man who is buried in a cemetery which has traditionally been reserved for black people.

The mother of this distinguished man died when he was a small child. The boy's father who never remarried, and according to custom at that time, employed Mandy, a Christian black woman, to help with the raising of his son.

Without being his mother, Mandy gave the boy a mother's love.

Among his earliest and warmest recollections was Mandy's tradition of coming up to his room, leaning over, and waking him with a gentle, "Wake up, God's mornin' is come." The boy grew, and as some grown boys do, he went off to college. When he came home for holidays and summers, Mandy still began the day with, "Wake up, God's mornin' is come."

He never outgrew hearing those words; she never outgrew saying them.

Later in life, after he had achieved no little success, the man got the message "Mandy has died. Can you come to her funeral?"

Of course, he would come.

Standing at Mandy's open grave, he turned to his companions and commented, "If I die before Jesus returns, I want to be buried here beside Mandy. I like to think that on Resurrection Day she'll say, 'Wake up, my boy, God's mornin' is come!'" The boy had gotten it. Mandy had gotten it. They knew Christ has risen. They knew death could no longer destroy them.

They got it.

Sadly, there are billions of people in this world who don't get it.

Some have never heard of Jesus. They can't get it. Some know the Name of Jesus, but only when it's used as a curse word. They won't get it. Some don't get it because they refuse to believe that a Man who lived and died 2,000 years ago can have any impact or influence upon them.

Whatever the reason, billions don't get it and they remain lost, retain their sins, reject salvation, and refuse the Redeemer's rescue, which has broken the shackles of sin and Satan, death and damnation.

This is why I give thanks for your church, organizations like the LWML (Lutheran Women's Missionary League), and Lutheran Hour Ministries. We know it is our job to try and waken those who are spiritually sleeping and let them know, "God's mornin' is comin!'"

THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, I give thanks for the faith I have been given in my Savior. Because of Him I have no fear of the coming morning. Now may I do all I can to reach out to those who are still without faith in the Redeemer. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.

In Christ I remain His servant and yours,

Today's Bible Readings: Jeremiah 20, 35-36    Colossians 4

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