Our Sufficiency Is From God
"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God..." - 2 Corinthians 3:5
When it comes to the knowledge of how one may stand before God and attain eternal life, that is truly not to be achieved by our work or power, nor to originate in our brain. In other things, those pertaining to this temporal life, you may glory in what you know, you may advance the teachings of reason, you may invent ideas of your own; for example: how to make shoes or clothes, how to govern a household, how to manage a herd. In such things exercise your mind to the best of your ability. Cloth or leather of this sort will permit itself to be stretched and cut according to the good pleasure of the tailor or shoemaker. But in spiritual matters, human reasoning certainly is not in order; other intelligence, other skill and power, are requisite here – something to be granted by God himself and revealed through his Word.
Religious Experts vs. the Cross: On Reading the Book of Job
But now I see that these were for me questions from “below,” questions that reflected more my anxiety and uncertainty than God’s love.
Could Adam pray? Did he know who God is and what the Name of Jesus means? Did he understand the mystery of God among us? For a long time I thought about these questions. For a long time I was curious about how much of what I knew, Adam could know, and how much of what I understood, Adam could understand. But now I see that these were for me questions from “below,” questions that reflected more my anxiety and uncertainty than God’s love. God’s questions, the questions from “above” were, “Can you let Adam lead you into prayer? Can you believe that I am in deep communion with Adam and that his life is a prayer? Can you let Adam be a living prayer at your table? Can you see my face in the face of Adam?”...................
You Are Not White As Snow - Ash Wednesday
“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” –Psalm 51:7
Hanging on to our sin is a terrible business. When it goes unconfessed, we usually try to double and triple down on it to keep it off the radar. Then we end up with far more than just the initial transgression we try to hide. And something happens to our conscience during our unholy charade. We stop feeling the weight of our sin. We are simply self-blinded to what we’ve done. And in the end, we tragically feel and see nothing........
Motherhood Is Physical—and So Is the Gospel
Central to Christianity is the conviction that our spirits and bodies are connected—that what happens to our bodies matters.
Central to Christianity is the conviction that our spirits and bodies are connected—that what happens to our bodies matters. We believe, proclaim, and practice that the God who made bodies took on a body and meets us still today in our bodies. We declare that the God who made the physical earth visited it in the flesh and is still entirely committed to nurturing his creation. Our good news is that, in the end, this Creator-God will not separate our souls from our bodies or his presence from the earth. For after his body was broken in death, he did not meet us in spirit but in resurrection. As the firstfruits of the new creation, Jesus is both our Savior and our future promise. God will not abandon but redeem our earth and bodies. He will make his permanent dwelling with us in the restored and recreated heavenly city on earth......
Offer Hope. Don't Peddle Fear
four other things the Church needs to do more.
From hatred to apathy to fondness, a variety of emotional responses are evoked when the word “church” is mentioned to both believers and non-believers alike. It has served as both a scapegoat and symbol in a society that is both ever-changing and dependably tumultuous.
Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/offer-hope-dont-peddle-fear#EwcAvqhebqZUpL03.99
There’s a Difference Between Taking a Stand and ‘Causing Division'
How to find unity no matter what side of politics you stand on.
In the post-election chaos and divisiveness, one thing has been clear to me: We put a lot of stock in our head of state. Perhaps too much.
Whether you’re celebrating, mourning or remaining ambivalent about our new president, you probably see it, too. On the far side of the continuum, thousands have been protesting Trump in unbridled outrage. On the other side, some have been responding radically with violence and racism................................
“This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King. ”
7 Things Christians Should Give Up To Reach Unchurched People
The challenge is that unchurched people aren’t exactly flocking to most churches, and many Christians seem stumped as to why that is.
So you want your church to reach people who don’t go to church.
That’s wonderful because that’s basically the mission of the church: to share the love of Christ with the world in the hopes everyone will come into a relationship with Jesus.
The challenge is that unchurched people aren’t exactly flocking to most churches, and many Christians seem stumped as to why that is.......................
“This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King. ”
Stop Doing Good Works To God
By Martin Luther You have often heard that we need not do good works to God, but to our neighbor.
By Martin Luther
You have often heard that we need not do good works to God, but to our neighbor. We cannot make God stronger nor richer by our works, but we can make our neighbor stronger and richer with them; he is in need of them, and hence they should be directed to him and not to God. This you have often heard and you have it now in your ears; I would to God, that it might come also into your hands and feet....................
“This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King. ”
To The Troubled In Conscience
“And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” -Genesis 3:21
This is a word to those with a troubled conscience. Those tormented by their failure to conquer that secret sin, or those who have screwed up so horrifically and publicly that they are in danger of losing all hope. When the good news of the gospel seems so distant in comparison with the deafening thunder of shame that cracks and wakes you up in the middle of the night (if you can find sleep at all.) And for those falling further into sin, against the still small voice of wisdom or the discordant harmony of warnings from friends and family....................................
“This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King. ”
Autoimmunity and the Heart Curved Inward
Autoimmunity is the paradox of disease categories. And it’s substance sounds a lot like Saint Augustine’s words from The City of God, “And hence the falsehood: we commit sin to promote our welfare, and the result is rather to increase our misfortune.”
I am sick. That’s pretty much all I can tell you about it with any real confidence. For two years, a harvest of strange and debilitating medical maladies have continued to hurl wrenches into the functioning of my poor and puzzled body (I’ve detailed some of that elegant saga here and here). In my time not writing about being sick on Mockingbird, I slug from one doctor to the next, submit myself to pokes, prods, needles, and indelicate personal questions. Everyone agrees things aren’t right. Yet I am still without a clear diagnosis. There have been rabbit-hole-suspicions by many-a-medical professional, ranging from panic disorder to systemic candida to Crohn’s. But the most recent one is this: autoimmune disease.................................
“This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King. ”
Does Courage Even Matter Anymore?
What bravery looks like in a culture of comfort
Who doesn’t want to be courageous? We love the stories of people who defied the odds. We taste the suspense. We feel the sweat and tears. We rejoice in the glory of triumph. As for us, we often feel inadequate in the face of such inspiration. We doubt we would ever have what it takes—even as we secretly long to play a significant role in such a story. Yet ironically, Christians are called to do just that: to be agents of change for good in the world. As Christianity is pushed further into the margins of society, it can be daunting to know how to navigate a strong Christian witness. Such a calling requires courage. We need to rediscover the lost art of being courageous.
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
4 Things Jesus Never Said
In the history of humankind, few people have been as misquoted as Jesus.
In the history of human kind, few people have been as widely quoted as Jesus. Which also means few have been misquoted as often as Jesus. I don’t mean we quote verses incorrectly; rather we associate thoughts, opinions, words and phrases with Jesus and the Bible that actually may not be there.
Here are a few things I hear frequently hear that we may need to rethink …
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
Interacting with the Scriptures
For the preaching of the gospel is nothing other than Christ coming to us, or we being brought to him.
by Rev. Dr. Jonathan Mumme
With Gutenberg’s invention of movable type printing and waxing literacy especially among the urban population, Christian interaction with the Bible entered a new phase in the Reformation era. In this, Martin Luther played a direct hand, not only with his translation of the Bible, but also with his introductions to the various books of the Bible. Luther came to his task as translator..............
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
Political Contrast
Luke’s narrative is written to focus our attention on smaller things. From the Roman colossus Caesar, the spotlight shifts to Joseph and Mary, an ordinary couple.
There is a deep shadow that lays across the first lines of Luke chapter 2, and it is a political one. Caesar Augustus, the emperor of Rome, the most powerful man in the world, opens the scene by commanding the entire world. Everyone must be registered. That is a politician with power. He casts a long shadow.
Politics is still that way. Elections and laws and policies and cable news and presidents flow on in a never-ending attention-grabbing stream. In 2016, we were fixated on the political process
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
Law-Abiding Citizens
God’s not after law-abiding citizens, He’s after gospel-driven ambassadors!
BY BRAD GRAY
Among the things that perturb me about modern Christianity is our residual clinging to a sort of “Christian-karma.” You’ve probably read this frustration from me before, but with some recent events in my own life, I feel as though Christians still just don’t get it. We want so much for our deeds and actions to matter that we’ve actually trivialized grace instead of personalized it. We’ve made the Christian life so conditional and provisional, qualitative and restrictive. We’ve degraded the relationship we’re supposed to have and called to have with the Lord Jesus into nothing more than a rigid life of “paying it back” and “balancing the scales.” We’ve crisscrossed the vertical and the horizontal, so that now the minor is majored, the petty is prominent, and the arbitrary is aggrandized. We coerce obedience through convictions instead of cultivate it by grace. We loft our goodness into perfectness so that it’s easier for us to condemn others and exonerate ourselves. We’re lost in karmic realities when we should be lost in cosmic grace.
Let me reiterate very clearly: Christianity isn’t a...............................
Why Person-First Language Matters
Person-first (or people-first) language “aims to avoid perceived and subconscious dehumanization when discussing people with disabilities.” In effect, you change your language to change your thinking.
By Daniel Ross
I read it in news articles. I hear it on newscasts. I hear it walking on the street. I have even heard it used in churches. I see and hear it everywhere, and it makes me cringe —Every. Single. Time. What is it? It is people using a characteristic (usually a disability) to define who a person is. And it is wrong.
Now, I am no Social Justice Warrior. Nor am I a guy who is on the extreme edge of being politically correct. This is not about that. So please, hear me out before you tune me out.
How Our Minds Work
Our minds want to categorize everything. Chaos is...................................
The Old Testament Roots of Baptism: Part 2
At the font today, God's Word, water, and the Spirit are at work, doing something to speak new life into existence.
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
BY DONAVON RILEY
God's Word, water, and the Spirit. Always when God creates and recreates, God's Word, water, and the Spirit are in play. Whether at the beginning of it all, or in the days of Noah, in the wilderness during the Exodus, or at Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River, and at the font today, God's Word, water, and the Spirit are at work, doing something to speak new life into existence.
Take for example, the Levite priests. Before they could enter the temple they had to wash themselves in a font of water, or a "laver of brass" as it's often translated. That is:
Make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. Put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and fill it with water. Aaron and his sons will use it for washing their hands and feet. Before they go into the tent of meeting, they must wash so that they will not die. Before they come near the altar to serve as priests and burn an offering by fire to the Lord, they will wash their hands and feet so that they will not die. This will be a permanent law for him and his descendants for generations to come (Exodus 30:18-21).................................................
Read the rest at Christ Hold Fast
The Old Testament Roots of Baptism: Part 1
The past three to four hundred years have seen an increase in churchly debates about Baptism, but it isn't a new teaching. It wasn’t in Jesus' day, either. In fact, neither Jesus nor John the Baptist introduced baptism. It goes much further back.
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
BY DONAVON RILEY
Baptism isn't a new teaching. The past three to four hundred years have seen an increase in churchly debates about Baptism, but it isn't a new teaching. It wasn’t in Jesus' day, either. In fact, neither Jesus nor John the Baptist introduced baptism. It goes much further back.
To baptize literally means in Greek “to wash with water.” Such washing has deep roots in the Bible. The basic stuff can be found all the way back at the beginning of everything. This explains why Jesus - The Word of God in the flesh - made so much of Baptism being about water, Word, and Spirit.
The roots of Baptism begin in Genesis 1, when the Spirit of God overshadowed the waters, and the Word of God spoke creation up from the waters. At the beginning of everything the Trinity, the Father and the Word and the Spirit, are there in and with the water.
Jump ahead thousands of years and the Trinity shows up again at Jesus' baptism in the Jordan. At the beginning of his ministry we read about the Father, and the Word, and the Spirit in and with the water. Only at that time, Jesus comes not to create, but recreate. Jesus' Baptism is for "the fulfilling of all righteousness." It's a washing of regeneration and renewal, a new beginning, done to us by God's Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is at Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, and so it will be with all baptisms until the Last Day. Creation and recreation. Genesis and regeneration through water, God's Word, and the Holy Spirit.
Baptism comes up again in the story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9). Cain's children had practically ruined the world since "every thought of their hearts was evil every day of their lives." But God's Word, water, and the Holy Spirit (the breath of Life) brought about a regeneration and renewal of the world. Noah and his family, eight people in all, were saved from judgment by water, God's Word, and the Spirit..............................
Read the Rest at Christ Hold Fast .org
The Gospel is Not a Sales Pitch
We need to stop presenting the Good News like a pyramid scheme.
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
It felt like church in there,” my friend said as we rushed outside.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, all that attention, those testimonies, the lifestyle they were pushing … it felt like church!” She sighed as she fiddled with her keys to open the car door.
The thing is, we hadn’t been at a church or religious event. We were quickly driving away from the business district hotel which had housed the “red carpet event,”—aka, the pyramid scheme—we had just attended. And in that moment, I had a bit of a “before-and-after” realization myself: but this “before-and-after” had nothing to do with some wonder-product. Instead, it was about how I share Christ.
I thought back to earlier that evening when the audience was released from the hour-and-a-half presentation. My friend and I were immediately surrounded by members of the company, asking us about what we do, what our goals are, and what our dream jobs are. I’m not going to lie, the attention was wonderful; but it was empty.
Every time I tried to ask them a question about themselves, they immediately related their answer to the product. When I told them what I hoped to do, they told me about someone with a similar goal who was very fulfilled by selling the product, and how doing so enabled their dreams! When I began talking to my friend about her ill mother-in-law, I was interrupted by a higher-up, asking me shallow questions.
Are We Selling Jesus?
The obvious agenda of the people at the event was not the best strategy to gain my interest. But it made me think back to every evangelism event I had participated in. Every time a new person wandered into my small church. Every moment a friend of mine who wasn’t a Christian mentioned something spiritual...............
12 Reasons Millennials Are OVER Church
Only 4 percent of the Millennial Generation are Bible-Based Believers. This means that 96 percent of Millennials likely don’t live out the teachings of the Bible, value the morals of Christianity and probably won’t be found in a church. This author goes deep to explain why.
This article does not necessarily reflect the options and beliefs of Grace Lutheran PSL but is listed to help us grow in our faith in Jesus the King.
From the depths of my heart, I want to love church.
I want to be head-over-heals for church like the unshakable Ned Flanders.
I want to send global, sky-writing airplanes telling the life-change that happens beneath a steeple. I want to install a police microphone on top of my car and cruise the streets screaming to the masses about the magical Utopian community of believers waiting for them just down the street.
I desperately want to feel this way about church, but I don’t. Not even a little bit. In fact, like much of my generation, I feel the complete opposite.
Turns out I identify more with Maria from The Sound of Music staring out the abbey window, longing to be free.
It seems all-too-often our churches are actually causing more damage than good, and the statistics are showing a staggering number of millennials have taken note.
According to this study (and many others like it) church attendance and impressions of the church are the lowest in recent history, and most drastic among millennials described as 22- to 35-year-olds.
- Only 2 in 10 Americans under 30 believe attending a church is important or worthwhile (an all-time low).
- 59 percent percent of millennials raised in a church have dropped out.
- 35 percent of millennials have an anti-church stance, believing the church does more harm than good.
- Millennials are the least likely age group of anyone to attend church (by far).
As I sat in our large church’s annual meeting last month, I looked around for anyone in my age bracket. It was a little like a Titanic search party…
IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE? CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?
Tuning in and out of the 90-minute state-of-the-church address, I kept wondering to myself, where are my people? And then the scarier question, why I am still here?
A deep-seated dissatisfaction has been growing in me and, despite my greatest attempts to whack-a-mole it back down, no matter what I do it continues to rise out of my wirey frame.
[To follow my publicly-chronicled church struggles, check out my other posts The How Can I Help Project and 50 Ways to Serve the Least of These.]
Despite the steep drop-off in millennials, most churches seem to be continuing on with business as usual. Sure, maybe they add a food truck here or a bowling night there, but no one seems to be reacting with any level of concern that matches these STAGGERING statistics.
Where is the task-force searching for the lost generation? Where is the introspective reflection necessary when 1/3 of a generation is ANTI-CHURCH?
The truth is no one has asked me why millennials don’t like church. Luckily, as a public school teacher, I am highly skilled at answering questions before they’re asked. It’s a gift really.
So, at the risk of being excommunicated, here is the metaphorical nailing of my own 12 theses to the wooden door of the American, Millennial-less Church.
1. Nobody’s Listening to Us
Millennials value voice and receptivity above all else. When a church forges ahead without ever asking for our input we get the message loud and clear: Nobody cares what we think. Why then, should we blindly serve an institution that we cannot change or shape?
Solution:
- Create regular outlets (forums, surveys, meetings) to discover the needs of young adults both inside AND outside the church.
- Invite millennials to serve on leadership teams or advisory boards where they can make a difference.
- Hire a young adults pastor who has the desire and skill-set to connect with millennials.