This 5-day devotional draws directly from Will Barlow's sermon “Preach the Gospel (6/21/2026)” so you can keep engaging with the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or friends.
You Were Made to Carry Good News
Monday — Understanding the Truth
Have you ever had news so good you couldn't wait to tell someone? That's actually closer to the heart of the gospel than most of us realize.
Today's Scripture "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." — Acts 1:8
Reflection The word "gospel" simply means good news. And the message at the center of it is this: God loves you, sin broke the relationship between you and him, and Jesus came to fix it — completely. That's not a complicated theological system. It's a story about a Father who refused to give up on his kids.
What makes this message different from every other hopeful idea in the world is that it actually holds. When life gets hard and you need something to lean on, the gospel doesn't crumble. It's solid ground. A lot of things promise comfort but collapse under pressure — this doesn't.
And here's what's remarkable: God doesn't just ask us to believe this good news. He invites us to carry it. Not because he needs our help, but because sharing it is part of how we love the people around us. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to ordinary people — people like you — to live this message out loud every single day.
You don't have to have all the answers. You just have to know the story and be willing to tell it.
Today's Step Take a moment today to remember what the gospel has meant in your own life. What changed for you when you first understood that God loved you?
A Closing Thought The best news in history was never meant to stop with you — and it won't.
The Hope That Holds When Nothing Else Does
Tuesday — When It's Hard
Most of us have sat across from someone in real pain and felt completely at a loss for words. What do you say when someone is grieving, or afraid, or just done?
Today's Scripture "God created us to be in a perfect loving relationship with him." And: "For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control." — 2 Timothy 1:7
Reflection There's a reason it feels hard to share your faith sometimes. It's not just awkwardness or the fear of saying the wrong thing. It's that the world around us is full of real, heavy pain — and we feel the weight of it. Grief, loss, broken relationships, unanswered questions. How do you hand someone the gospel when they're drowning?
Here's the honest truth: you don't have to fix everything. You just have to offer something that actually holds. The pastor described it this way — when people are leaning on things made by human hands, it's like quicksand. It gives way. But the hope we carry, the hope of Jesus and what he's done, is solid ground.
That doesn't mean you'll always have the right words. It doesn't mean every conversation will go the way you hope. But it does mean you're not walking into those hard moments empty-handed. You carry something real. Something that has held you in your own darkest moments.
The spirit God has given you is not a spirit of fear. That's not just an encouraging thought — it's a promise. You don't have to have it all together to be someone who points others toward hope.
Today's Step Think of one person in your life who seems to be leaning on something that isn't holding. Pray for them today — just by name, just asking God to show up for them.
A Closing Thought You don't need perfect words. You just need to show up with the one thing that doesn't give way.
Small Steps, Real Impact
Wednesday — Putting It Into Practice
You don't have to preach a sermon to preach the gospel. Most of the time, it looks a lot smaller — and a lot more like ordinary life.
Today's Scripture "But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts." — 1 Thessalonians 2:4
Reflection Here's something freeing: the gospel gets shared in a thousand small ways before it ever gets shared in a big one. It's in the phone call you make because someone crossed your mind. It's in the way you treat a stranger at the grocery store. It's in the patience you show at work when everyone else is stressed. It's in caring about the people who often get overlooked — the lonely, the grieving, the ones who feel invisible.
Living this out doesn't require a special setting or a prepared speech. It requires something simpler: a heart that's been filled up with the word of God, so that what comes out naturally reflects who God is.
The more you put into your heart — through reading, through prayer, through honest conversation with God — the more you have to give. It's like a well that keeps filling. You can't pour out what you don't have, but you also don't have to manufacture anything. You just stay connected to the source.
One practical step: invest a few minutes each day in scripture. Not as a duty, but as a conversation. Let God's word settle into you. Then watch what comes out when you're with people who need it.
Today's Step Choose one small, concrete way to reach out to someone today — a text, a check-in, a kind word. Don't overthink it. Just go.
A Closing Thought Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks — so keep filling your heart with something worth sharing.
When God Shows Up in the Middle of It
Thursday — What This Looks Like in Real Life
Sometimes faith stays mostly in our heads until something happens that we simply cannot explain any other way.
Today's Scripture "And many signs and wonders were done regularly among the people by the hands of the apostles... and more than ever, believers were added — multitudes of both men and women." — Acts 5:12, 14
Reflection Imagine a woman who has lived with a constant, maddening ringing in her ears for months. She's tried everything. Then one evening, in the middle of an ordinary gathering with other believers, it simply stops. No gradual fade. Just — gone. And it never comes back.
Or picture a man whose hand was crushed in an accident. Ligaments and tendons detached. He didn't want surgery. And against everything medicine predicted, they reattached. His doctor had no category for it.
These aren't ancient stories from a dusty Bible. They're the kinds of things that happen when ordinary people bring the word of God into ordinary situations with genuine faith.
Here's what's worth holding onto: miracles aren't just about the person who receives them. They ripple outward. When you tell someone what God did for you — really did, in your actual life — it does something that an argument never could. It opens a door. It makes the invisible visible. It gives someone else permission to believe that God might show up for them, too.
You probably have a story like this. Maybe it's dramatic, maybe it's quiet. But God has been at work in your life in ways that belong to you — and to the people who need to hear them.
Today's Step Think of one moment when God showed up in your life in a way you couldn't explain. Write it down, even just a sentence or two. That story matters more than you know.
A Closing Thought God confirms his word — and sometimes he does it in ways that leave no room for doubt.
Go, and Don't Go Alone
Friday — Carrying It Forward
The week is almost over, and the world outside your door is full of people who are still waiting for the hope you already carry.
Today's Scripture "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me... for apart from me you can do nothing." — John 15:4–5
Reflection Here's the thing about carrying the gospel into the world: you were never supposed to do it on your own strength. The whole point of abiding — staying connected to Jesus the way a branch stays connected to a vine — is that the life flows from him to you, not the other way around.
This week we've looked at the truth of the gospel, the hard moments when it feels heavy, the small daily steps, and the real-life ways God shows up. All of it comes back to this: stay connected to the source, and the fruit will come.
You don't have to have a strategy. You don't have to be bold in a way that feels unnatural to you. You just have to stay close to Jesus and stay present with the people around you — your neighbor, your coworker, your family member who's still searching.
The ends of the earth might be far away. But your "ends of the earth" might be the next street over, the next cubicle, the next conversation. Wherever you go this weekend, you carry something the world desperately needs. And you don't carry it alone — the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead goes with you.
Today's Step As you head into the weekend, ask God simply: "Who do you want me to be present for today?" Then stay open to the answer.
A Closing Thought You were made for this — and you were never meant to do it alone.