8-16-2026

Good Morning!

     Psalm 103:12; “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”

     Little Timmy was a rambunctious young man.  He seemed to be able to cause grief for his mother most of the day.  He was often more curious than anything but that still led to broken flowerpots, or spilled milk or broken windows or electronics which were no longer in working order.  He kept his parents on their toes at all times.  Yet today, he was especially active even for Timmy.

     After an exhausting day, Mother decides that it is best if Timmy goes to bed before anything else can go wrong.  She gave him his bath and then they went to his room for his one book and then Timmy saying his prayers.  Timmy was exceptionally quiet during his book time.  When it came time for his prayers, he seemed restless.  His mother asked what was wrong.  He asked his mother if he could pray by himself.  Sensing something was wrong she asked, “Timmy, is there anything you want to tell me?” “No, Mommy, you would just scold me. If I tell God, he will forgive me and then forget about it.”

    Maybe you have had days like little Timmy.  Maybe you didn’t start out to sin but by the end of the day, there were a couple whoppers.  They may have even been bad enough to hurt, to have really hurt.  You may even feel that if you admit to them; God will turn away from you.  So, we try and hide them away. We think we can hide them in the back of our mind and in our psyche.  We think if we push them down enough that they will go away but they always remain around to bug us and to remind us of our weaknesses and our failures.

    The thing we need to remember is that little Timmy was right.  When you tell God, he will forgive and forget; in fact, he forgave even before you told him.  He forgave them when Jesus died on the cross at Calvary.  The sin you commit is forgiven.  God has released you from the consequences of that sin by placing the cost on Jesus.  His freedom is complete.  Your sins are gone, as far as the east is from the west.  He keeps no record of them so you shouldn’t either.  You should let those sins that burden your heart and soul go.  You should free yourself from the pain and guilt that the devil likes to use to keep you down.  God has freed you; trust in his grace to let you enjoy that freedom.  Take hold of this freedom from the slavery of sin and live the life that God has designed for you to live, as his dear children.

Merciful Father, your love pours over us every day.  Your grace supplies all that I need.  Move us by your loving kindness to hold onto your gift of forgiveness.  Give us the strength and courage to throw off the devil.  Hold us in your loving arms and keep us safe.  Keep us secure in your eye.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret      

8-15-2026

Good Morning!

     Esther 9:28a; “that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.”

    One family’s New Year’s Eve tradition was to gather around the fireplace with the year’s calendar, the one marked with all the schedules and activities. They would tear off January and recall the events of that month—the family gatherings, the parties, the odd happenings. There were laughs and a lot of “remember that?” Then January would be committed to the flames.

This was done 11 more times until December was in the fire. But not all the memories were happy ones. The family members also recalled times of anger, misunderstanding, quarreling, hurt, and pain that they had caused each other. At times they would remind each other of the forgiveness of Christ and speak a word of forgiveness to each other.  They remembered their past year, the good and the bad and the highs and the lows.  They remembered the events and they remembered God and what he did.

     Our verse comes from the story of Esther where a man named Haman tries to have all the Jews killed.  His attempt is thwarted by Mordecai and Esther.  This is celebrated on the feast of Purim which occurs usually in the month of March.  The celebration includes the sharing of food, donations to the poor, a celebration, and a re-reading of the story of Esther.  This is done to remember what God did for the Jews at this time and how he kept them safe.

   This is important for all of us to do; we need to remember what God has done for us and what he is doing for us and then look to what God promises us.  God has sustained us and protected us from the onslaught of the devil and the world.  We survived with God’s grace and blessings.  He continues to sustain and protect us from the wickedness that the devil intends for us.  God will protect us from the harm and pain that the devil tries to use to draw us away from God.  God wraps his loving arms around us and defends us with his mighty power.

    All these point to what God has promised to do for us.  He has promised to continue to protect and, when the fullness of our time is right, to complete our salvation and give to us the eternal glory that waits for us with Jesus.  We are already going on that path; we are already saved and participating in the joy.  This is why God protects and sustains us for we are his redeemed children.  He doesn’t save us for something later on; He saves you right now so that we can live with hope.  So, remember what God has done for you; it is the down payment on life eternal.   

Gracious Father, in you we have hope.  Guard us by your loving arms.  Keep us strong and secure in our faith that we may always remember what great blessings you have given to us and that you continue to place in our life.  Keep us safe until we reach our eternal home with you.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-14-2026

Good Morning!

     2 Corinthians 9:7; “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

      God loves a cheerful giver; makes you want to grab your wallet and run sometimes, doesn’t it.  That is ok, you can feel that way.  For far too often this verse is used to “encourage” a bigger check in the offering plate.  This verse sometimes gets used because when people see the offering plate coming and they look in their wallet and they see a $20 bill, a $5 bill and a $1bill, they at least go past the single.  It is no wonder this verse causes us to clench up when we hear it or read it; it strikes us with guilt and usually that is the intent.

     I am not suggesting that you abandon the financial support of your church.  It costs a lot of money to operate a church, especially if you have an ongoing mission commitment either locally or nationally.  So be as generous as you can, however; that is between you and God.  This verse actually speaks to much more than just the monetary side of the church; it actually applies to how you live your Christian faith in the world around you.

    We know that God has given us everything and has given it to us beyond our need and even beyond our wants.  He has poured upon us his loving kindness far above what we deserve.  He has generously given us his grace.  He has restored us to the full standing within his family by redeeming us from sin.  We are all then co-heirs with Christ.  We are blessed with the gifts of the Spirit.  We have a lot to be cheerful about but are we cheerful when we share and use these gifts or are we stingy?

   The Apostle Paul lists those gifts as love, peace, joy, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness; elsewhere he writes of humility, compassion, bearing one another’s burdens.  God gives you these; are you stingy in giving of these gifts to those around you?  Are you grumpy and demanding?  Do you look the other way when you see someone in need?  Are we cheerful, generous believers or are we stingy with God’s gifts?

    God gives us these gifts so that we might be blessed and that we might be a blessing to others.  He desires that we use these gifts to offer healing and comfort in a world that is broken and in pain.  He gives us these gifts so that we might relieve the suffering of the world and to be a bright spot in the lives of so many around us.  It might be your spouse or neighbor or someone who works in the store where you shop.  It might be the single parent across the street or the lonely elderly person who sits next to you in church.  There are many people who need you to be a cheerful giver; go and be one today.

Gracious and loving Father, give me the will to do your will and to be a cheerful giver.  Lead us to those who are suffering and in pain.  Lead us to shine brightly in this dark world.  Lead us to those who are missing the joy of life.  Guide us by your grace to bring healing.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-13-2026

Good Morning!

      Daniel 9:9; “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him.”

      There was once a class of school children who loved to go outside and have recess. Their teacher was very generous. If the class had been good and finished their work, the teacher would let them go outside for a few extra minutes. Usually, the class was very good. They always finished their homework, always tried to be good, and always looked forward to their reward. But one day the class was a bit unruly. Paper airplanes were flying. Hair was being pulled. Talking was nonstop, and homework was simply not getting done.

    All of a sudden, the teacher called everyone to attention and said, “Time to go out.” All of a sudden, the students’ eyes fixed on their teacher, their mouths dropped a bit, and almost in unison said, “But why? We don’t deserve to go out. We’ve been terrible. We haven’t listened. We haven’t finished our homework. We don’t deserve to go out.” “I know,” said the teacher, “but I want to show you that sometimes in this world things are given to you even when you don’t deserve them. Sometimes things are given to us especially when we haven’t earned them.” And with that, the students slowly stood up and walked outside, still a bit confused and unsure about the new world they had just stepped into. For the first time, some of these students experienced what grace, what a gift, truly was. They were given something that wasn’t earned or deserved.

    This is the story of our life.  If we received what we deserved, we would die.  We would suffer horribly for all that we have done.  We never really behave well enough to deserve any blessings.  We are always misbehaving, even worse than the children in the story.  Ours are not childhood inappropriateness; ours are acts of anger, hatred, selfishness, and greed.  Our actions destroy life.

    Yet, incredibly, God has chosen to forgive you.  His love for you surpasses all else.  He made a way for our salvation.  All of our punishment was poured out upon Jesus; because of this, when God looks at us, he only sees the righteousness of Jesus.  Because of this, he pours his love out upon us.  We receive the good things which we do not deserve; we receive the wonderful blessings of salvation, the comfort of today, the healing of now, the restoration which we seek and need.  We receive, undeserved as they are, all these gifts and more from God because of his love, because of his nature.  God blesses us every day even though we do not deserve it.

Father of all mercy, in you we have eternal hope.  We go through life never deserving the wonderful gifts ad blessings which you pour out upon us.  We give you thanks for this and all the love that you graciously give us.  Move us to share this love with those around us.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret  

8-12-2026

Good Morning!

      Isaiah 35:8; “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it.  It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.”

     I was never the world’s greatest bowler.  I could keep it in my lane but only because the gutters stopped the bowling ball from going into the other lanes.  I seldom get more than 75 or so.  I am not much of a bowler but I did see a way to improve my score; there are blow up bumpers that they place in the gutters.  When you roll the ball, if it heads to the gutter, it bounces back into the alley and eventually has to knock some pins down.  I figure I could double my score if I bowled like that.

    There are times when it would be nice to have “bumpers” in life.  Maybe you are having a rough day and you snap at your spouse or children.  You regret it but it is out there.  It would be nice to bounce back into the regular lane.  Maybe you did something years ago and it just continues to fester.  Perhaps you have lived a life where you didn’t make the best choices; you want to get back; at times you think you are back but every once in a while, the thoughts creep back and put us in the gutter.  It would be nice to avoid this.  If only we had a bumper to put us back on track.

    As Christians, we do have a bumper.  God has made the “Way of Holiness.”  He did this through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  This cleared the path to God; it gave us the way to go.  God placed us on this path through the gift of Baptism.  At that time, he gave us the bumpers that we would need for life.  No matter what we did or do; God mercy keeps us on the path; he keeps us on the Way.  His grace brings us back.  Even when we, foolishly, try to go a different trail; God keeps calling us back to the right trail.  Our sins are forgiven and God gives to us the desire to follow and to do his will.

    So now our desire is to stay on this path.  Our desire is to stay on the Way of Holiness.  We don’t seek to hurt or destroy.  We seek to love and to honor God with our life.  We do not have to let the past pull us back into the gutter.  God looks at us and at our future.   His desire is that we are all brought to salvation, to life eternal with him.  We only need to trust in this great promise; we only need to know that God has placed us on the Way of Holiness and that it is his desire to keep us there.  Trust that God only looks to your future.  He looks to it with love and gives you hope to see his grace.

 Wonderful Father, as we wait for Jesus to return, keep us safe, keep us holy.  Purify us by your mercy.  Lead us to love only you.  Help us to leave the past behind us.  Keep us from falling into the pain and sorrow that the devil wants us to live.  Lift us up and put us back on the Way.  Be with those who feel as though they are off the path and cannot return.  Give them the peace to know that your love conquers all.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-11-2026

Good Morning!

        Ephesians 4:24; “and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

      One time, as I was coaching high school age kids in baseball; I talked with a fellow coach who faced a unique situation.  He had a young man come up who could throw the ball pretty well.  He had decent speed and was fairly accurate.  The problem was that the way he threw the ball made it an illegal pitch.  If a runner was on base it would have been called a balk.  So, he had to set about to completely change.  He had to get rid of the old style of pitching and bring in a new style of pitching.

     This was harder than it sounds.  One of the first problems was that he wasn’t convinced that he had to change.  He had been successful at the younger level and no one had made him change.  His coach kept telling him that he was wrong but neither he nor his parents believed him.  He asked me what he should do.  I told him to go ahead and let the kid pitch.  The other coach asked, “what about a balk?”  I said, “so what?  He doesn’t believe you; let him believe the umpire.  The only thing I would do would be to talk to the umpire before the game and let him know that you know it is a balk and that he should call them, vigorously if needed.”  Needless to say, the young man’s first pitching appearance wasn’t what he or his parents expected.

    So, the young man swallowed his pride and worked to change his pitching style.  He was never as dominant as he was when he was younger but he was a competent pitcher.  In a way, our life is like that.  Sometimes change is needed but change is hard.  That is what has to happen in a Christian’s life; we need to change.

   When God calls us to faith, he makes us “a new creation.”  This means that we need to shed the old life and live the new life that God gives us.  This can be difficult because part of change is to recognize that the old life was bad.  It takes humility to admit that past failures have caused pain.  It takes humility to confess our sins.  Yet this is an important part of faith.  We humble ourselves before God.  When we truly recognize and confess our sin, God creates us as new creations.  It is out with the old and in with the new, the new that God creates in us.  We need to embrace it and to live it.  We need to shed the old.  We need to, through faith, embrace the new life, trust in God’s mercy and his will for our life.  This is the new life to trust in God over our own skill and knowledge.  Trust in God to provide and protect us.

Father of all that is good and gracious.  We give you thanks for the new life that you give us.  Strengthen us by your Spirit.  Give us the humble heart to live according to your divine will. Guard us from all evil and keep us safe within your loving arms.  Be with those who are struggling with the cares of life and give them the certainty of hope in you.  Save them by your mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret          

8-10-2026

Good Morning!

       Genesis 2:7; “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

      When I was a kid, I got a box of clay one time.  It had four different colors blocks of clay.  It kind of looked like sticks of butter.  You could take it and then you had to “warm it up” that was to roll it in your hands until it became pliable.  Once it was pliable, then you could form it into different shapes.  It was fun to work with but my actual shapes were not quite as good as my imagination.  I had visions of being a Michelangelo but I ended up more like the turtle than the artist.

    It takes talent, patience, an artistic flair, and a passion to be a good sculptor.  It takes an eye that sees what this blob of clay can be.  Michelangelo once said that “he saw an angel in the block of stone and chiseled til I set him free” That is quite the skill and it displays a little of what God does for us through his creative process.

   In this process we see two things about God.  First, we see him as the God who is willing to get his hands dirty in our life and secondly, we can see this creative process as an ongoing event.

   In the creation of the rest of God’s works; he spoke and it was.  Yet here we see God taking his time to mold and shape you to be the creature that he wants us to be.  With the creation of Adam, he had the perfect creature.  It was shaped right and it filled its role in creation perfectly.  Then Adam sinned and he began to add extra clay to his existence.  He padded this perfect creation with excess selfishness, excess jealousy, excess greed, with excess hatred.  All of this excess went to block his vision of God and Adam lost sight of all that God had done for him. 

    So, God sent Jesus to return us to the creative process.  We see when Jesus told his disciples that he would “make them fishers of men.”  Here, “make” can be thought of as molding or shaping or fabricating.  It is taking a lump of clay and shaping it into a piece of art.  We can see God doing this when we think of times when the excesses of our lives are stripped away until we see that our only source of hope and security is God.  All of that padded on excess sin needs to be shed.  We need to stop clinging to our old sins, our old sinful desires and to our old sinful hurts to be the creation that God desires us to be.

   Yet we sin and we sin daily so God must continue to shape us and mold us daily.  He does this through the forgiveness of sins which he tells us to remember.  We call this the confession and absolution cycle.  Through this process God continually molds and shapes us.  He gets his hands dirty because he loves us.

Gracious Father, you have wondrously made me and you continue to mold me into the disciple that you want me to be.  Lead me to trust in your loving arm.  Lead me to be your holy child.  Lead me to be the light in this dark ad lonely world.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret