Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. I'm Elisa Morgan, and I call our reading today, Welcome, Matt.

Browsing through the doormats displayed in my local big box store, I noted messages stamped on their surfaces,

Hello, or Home, with a heart for the O. And the more customary one I chose, welcome.

Putting it in place at home, I checked my heart. Was my home really welcoming the way God desires it to be?

To a child selling chocolate for a school project?

A neighbor in need?

A family member from out of town who called on the spur of the moment.

In Mark chapter 9, Jesus moves from the Mount of Transfiguration where Peter, James, and John

stood in awe of his holy presence to healing a possessed boy with a father who had lost hope.

Jesus then offered private lessons to the disciples concerning his upcoming death.

They missed his point, badly. In response, Jesus took a child

atop his lap, saying, whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me,

and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but the one who sent me. The word welcome here

means to receive and accept as a guest. Jesus wants his disciples to welcome all, even the

undervalued and the inconvenient, as if we were welcoming him.

I thought of my welcome, Matt, and wondered how I extend his love to others.

It starts by welcoming Jesus as a treasured guest.

Will I permit him to lead me, welcoming others the way he desires.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Mark Chapter 9, verses 30 through 37.

They left that place and passed through Galilee.

Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were,

because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, the son of man is going to be delivered

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