{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Reflections","title":"Monday of the Twenty-First Week After Trinity","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":415,"description":"October 26, 2026\n\nToday's Reading: Genesis 1:1-2:3\nDaily Lectionary: Deuteronomy 28:1-22; Matthew 18:1-20\n\n“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)\n\nIn the Name + of Jesus. Amen.\n\nIn the beginning, God created. He didn’t have to. He wasn’t lonely or bored. He didn’t create the world because something was missing in His life. God is perfect and complete in Himself - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - eternally blessed in the communion of the Holy Trinity. He created simply because He wanted to. Creation is an act of pure love and generosity.\n\nNotice how He creates! He creates by speaking. “God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.” He doesn’t struggle or strain. He doesn’t experiment or make mistakes. He speaks, and it happens. His Word is that powerful. When God speaks, things come into existence. When God speaks, chaos becomes order. When God speaks, darkness becomes light.\n\nThis matters for you. The same God who spoke the universe into existence has spoken to you in your Baptism. He has called you by name and claimed you as His own child. The same creative power that brought forth stars and galaxies, mountains and oceans, is the power that has made you a new creation in Christ. You didn’t cooperate with God in your Baptism any more than the light cooperated with God when He called it into being. God spoke, and you became His.\n\nSix different times in Genesis 1, we read “And God saw that it was good.” Then, after creating mankind in his image, male and female, God looks at everything He has made and declares it “very good.” All of creation - including you - came from God’s hand bearing His stamp of approval. Sin has corrupted and twisted what God made; we know that. But it hasn’t destroyed the fundamental goodness of creation. You are not an accident. You are not a cosmic mistake. You were created by God, in His image, and He called you very good.\n\nBut there’s more. After sin entered the world and ruined what...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/P3eUvssXYVZBQK4BZg1UEKstUh8zuVz_CoZCK6YjRSs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzI1MTcyLzE3MDI0/Mjg1MzAtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}