6-9-2026

Good Morning!

    Ephesians 4:31; “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”

      A man was camping in the woods in the Black Hills.  As he went to go through the stream, he was bitten by a rattlesnake.  They rushed him to the hospital where the anti-venom was administered.  As he was leaving the hospital, he asked the doctor if the bite was truly deadly.  The doctor told him, “No, the bite is not deadly it is the venom that the bite leaves.  That is what really kills you.” 

    That is true in our life as well.  It is never the “bite” that really does the harm.  In our life it is never the cruel word that is said about us that kills us.  It is not the slight against us.  It is not the cruel action against us.  It is not the way that others mistreat us.  These things do not kill us.  They hurt us; they hurt us a lot but they do not kill us.

    What will kill you is the “venom” that these acts leave in us.  The bitterness, the anger, and the hatred that we feel toward others is what kills us.  It is the residual that we carry in our heart that truly destroys us and it destroys us from within and not from without.  It is the anger that we cling to; it is the bitterness that we keep hold of that causes us to suffer and die. 

     This is why Jesus tells us over and over, throughout the entire of Scriptures not to hold onto the hurt that others cause us.  This is part of why he tells us to forgive those who sin against us.  As long as we hold onto the pain they caused us, the bitterness and the “venom” grows within us and poisons us to death.  This poison separates us from God’s family as we stand on the outside looking in.  As we hold onto the wrath we feel, the devil leads us down the path that leads to sin which leads to our death.  The bitterness we hold onto and allow to fester and to consume us eventually will destroy us.

    So, Jesus tells us to let it go.  Let go of the bitterness and the anger.  Throw the pain away and cling to God’s hope.  It may take some time.  It might take many times of throwing away the anger and the bitterness before it is finally all gone but we must keep throwing it away.  As long as the venom is in us, as long as the bitterness remains, we are susceptible to the revenge mode that the devil tries to entice us into.  Sin remains crouching at our door.  Jealousy, pettiness, greed, and the like all grow from the poison of resentment and bitterness.  As long as these remain festering in our system, we are separating ourselves from God.  So let the bitterness go; let the anger subside and grab onto the incredible promise of God’s mercy actively growing in our lives to be the beacon we desire.  Focus on the good things; focus on God’s grace.

Father of all grace and truth, lead us to release from our body the poison of anger, resentment, bitterness, and malice.  Guide us by your Spirit to walk the path of your righteousness.  Lead into all truth and in all truth into all mercy.  Move us to show the same mercy to others that you have shown to us.  Free those who are holding onto their bitterness.  Release them that they may know your peace.  In the precious name of Jesus, our Risen Savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret   

6-8-2026

Good Morning!

    2 Corinthians 7:10; “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

        Frank Sinatra sang it; Elvis Presley sang it; Paul Anka sang it; and there are many more but they are the “biggies.”  Paul Anka actually adapted the song from a French song and wrote it especially for Frank Sinatra.  It is titled “My Way.”  The song is about exactly what it says, a man tells of living his life and doing this his way.  It has a line that I always like; “regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention.”  This is the basic goal of this singer; to have no regrets in the life that he lived.  Do you live a life of no regrets or do you “have a few”?

     Regret can lead to a despair that can cause us to feel that God’s grace is not sufficient.  We look and think that our life could have been so much better “if only.”  “If only” I had bought that land or not bought that land.  “If only” I would have taken that job or married the “other one;” if only life was different.  We often want it to be different because we believe it would have been better; no one wants a different life that would have been worse.  Yet when we live with regrets; the regrets always assume that life could have been, would have been and should have been far better than our life truly is.

    Our verse is telling us that godly grief (regret) for sins we commit leads us to a repentance where we leave the sin behind and look forward to living in God’s grace.  This type of regret is the type that causes our conscience to see the wrong we have done, to see the pain that we inflict.  This should produce the penitent heart which releases the sin and strives to live a more godly life.  It is the worldly grief (regret) that leads to doubt and pain.  It is the worldly grief that leads to the regret that causes us to think that our life should have been better, that God somehow shortchanged us.

    Once we start down that path, there is only pain to come about.  This is a situation that will only cause us to hurt as we question God, his grace, and the sufficiency of that grace.  The Apostle Paul is telling us to stay away from this line of thinking; it will only hurt.

    Rather, we are encouraged to look at the blessings that God bestows on us every day.  He gives us life and breath and above all; he gives us the forgiveness of sins and the hope of life eternal.  He blesses our life because of his mercy in all of our life regardless of the situation that we find ourselves in.  God’s love for us does not depend on the choices you make; God’s love depends upon God and his nature.  We have no need to have the worldly regrets because different options would not make God love us more than He already does.  There is no greater love than that of God, so regrets we really have none.

Father of all grace, lead us to have no regrets.  Lead us to see that your incredible grace for us is beyond anything that we can comprehend.  Lead us to rejoice in your mercy.  Be with those who feel that they regret so much of life.  Help them to see the grace in their life and know that they are safe within your wondrous loving arms.  In the precious name of Jesus, our Risen Savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret    

6-7-2026

Good Morning!

    Jeremiah 2:13; “My people have done two things wrong.  They have abandoned me, the fountain of life-giving water.  They have also dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can’t hold water.”

    I remember reading a sign at a repair shop.  It said that labor was $50 per hour, $60 per hour if you watched them fix, $75 per hour if you offered advice and $125 per hour if you tried to fix it first.  This repairman had tried to repair too many of someone else’s “fixes.”  Why do we insist on fixing things on our own?  Usually, we think we can do as good a job, or better, then the man who is trained in this task.  We may want to save a little money or time but in the end we do neither.

    Our verse speaks to people trying to fix their own problems.  In this verse God is speaking to his prophet Jeremiah and telling him what his people (Israel) had done wrong.  First, they left the true God then they made their own false gods and lost everything.  So, what made them do this? The same reason we do it; sin causes us to do things that always end badly.

    What leads us to abandon God?  Sometimes it is fear.  We look at the world and the events as they occur and we wonder how God can possibly resolve the problem at hand.  Often when we look at the size of our problems instead of the size of our God; we tend to see fear.  When we look at the size of the wave instead of the size of the master’s hand, fear can rule our hearts.  Fear can cause us to seek our own strength, to dig our own wells (cisterns), that is to seek our own path and soon we find that our path is disastrous.   

    Sometimes it is the lack of patience.  We think that God doesn’t move fast enough.  So, we think we can fix it fast and better than God is willing to provide.  So, we follow our own path, dig our own cisterns, rather than trust the true God to provide for us the true life-giving water. 

    Sometimes it is because we think that our way is better and faster.  This might come from the idea that someone is “ahead” of us.  We might be jealous of those around us.  Our selfish greed leads us down a path that only hurts us.  Instead of the life-giving water, we have dug a worthless cistern that only holds our false beliefs.  This cistern will always fail; it will crumble when the stresses of struggles arrive.  Only when we rely on God’s strength and love can we withstand the assaults of the devil. 

    God gives us the power to withstand the devil’s attacks.  He strengthens us so that the battles of this world will not defeat us.  Yet we must have faith in him and his grace.  We cannot go after our own selfish or foolish path.  We cannot dig our own cistern and expect to find God’s life-giving water.  This wonderful gift only comes from God the true source of all that is good.

Gracious God, you are our only source of hope.  Keep us from straying or looking to our selfishness as our guide.  Keep us firm in your gracious and loving arms.  Be with those who have found that the cisterns they have dug and now are empty of hope may hear your words of comfort and forgiveness.  Redeem them by your mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

6-6-2026

Good Morning!

             1 John 3:1a; “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

     How often do we tell someone in our family that we love them?  For most people it is probably daily.  For some it is probably multiple times a day.  Maybe it is as the kids head out the door to school or when you or your spouse head off to work.  Hopefully, you hear it at least as often as you say it.  You may be one of those who say it without uttering a word.  For some it is easier to show it than to say it.  For some it is so common that they don’t often think about it; it becomes just something to say.

    It becomes so easy for us to make something like “I love you” just something we say.  Maybe we say it to get something we want from the other person or maybe we don’t know what else to say so we simply blurt it out.  Maybe we regret saying it or maybe later on we regret not saying it.  Maybe we want to say it but just can’t make ourselves.  Maybe our response to “I love you” is “ditto.”  We feel it, we desire it, but expressing it is kind of hard at times.

    This is the great thing about God; he never has any difficulty expressing his love for us.  When Luther ends his discussion of the Apostle’s Creed in the Large Catechism; he does it like this.  “For in all three articles God himself revealed and opened to us the most profound depths of his fatherly heart and his pure, unutterable love.  For this very purpose he created us, so that he might redeem us and make us holy, and moreover, having granted and bestowed upon us everything in heaven and on earth, he has also given us his Son and his Holy Spirit, through whom he brings us to himself.  For as explained above, we could never come to recognize the Father’s favor and grace were it not for the Lord Christ, who is the mirror of the Father’s heart…But neither could we have anything of Christ, had it not been revealed by the Holy Spirit.”

   If you have ever experienced a time when you felt unloved, know that you were/are/and will be always loved by God.  If you have ever felt abandoned and completely alone, God was there with you at all times, holding you in his loving fatherly arms.  He holds you with unutterable love.  No matter how daunting or painful the challenge we face; God’s love, real love, is holding us tightly to his chest where we can feel the warmth of his love and we can hear the pulse, the beat, of his love for us.  This love is never expressed in any form other than true and pure love.  God, whose love for you is genuine and sincere every day, holds you close, cradling you in his loving arms.  There is no greater love than God’s love for you and there is no challenge that will ever take you from his love.     

Most loving Father, there are many today who feel only pain and sorrow.  Comfort them Father with your gentle Spirt.  Help them to know your peace.  Help them to know the hope that is in Christ Jesus.  Use us to give them the comfort that they need.  Lead us to share your love.  All this we ask in the precious name of Jesus our risen Savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-5-2026

Good Morning!

       1 Timothy 4:10; “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.”

    The English language is a strange beast. How a word is pronounced or how it is used can vary and be dependent upon the person using the word. For example, the word “stock” means something different to a person who raises animals, to a person who is a race car driver, to a gunsmith, and to a person of finance. The word “unionized” means (and is pronounced) differently between a scientist and a member of the Teamsters. (un-ionized to union-ized). Words can be difficult and frustrating but what can be very frustrating to a Christian is when the devil and the world take really good Bible words and mushes them all up and uses them to mean something altogether different.

    Hope is one of those words. In the worldly vernacular, hope is a flimsy, worthless, imagination of folly. When people use the word “hope,” you can almost sense that they think their “hope” is lost. I hope my team wins the World Series this year even though they have never won one and they traded their best players for some unknowns. I hope I have better crops this year than last year even though I have not changed anything since last year. I hope I win the Powerball lottery even if the odds are 292.2 million to 1. So, when we use the word hope like this, what good is there in having your hope set on the living God? How can that possibly be of any value?

    “Hope” in the Bible refers to the expectation of future good because of past events. Hope is a certainty not a flimsy wish. I hope that when I get out of bed, my feet hit the floor. Gravity has not failed before, and it won’t fail now. So, playing with English words, we can read “our hope set on the living God” and think “our ANCHOR set on the living God.”  Our hope is in God. We can anchor ourselves to this truth. We can hold onto God’s great promises of forgiveness and salvation and eternal life in the face of every earthly life storm.

    There is no greater power or force than God’s love for you. He shows us that love in the person of Jesus, whose death and resurrection gives us hope. It is our anchor into God’s rock of love. We will be battered, slammed, and attacked by everything this world has, yet just like the ship that rides out the storm because it is anchored safely in the cove, we too, are safe, anchored in the resurrection of Jesus and secure in his loving arms. We “wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” That is our hope, that is our anchor. We have Jesus and more importantly, He has us.

Gracious Father, our hope is in You because of your great promises which never fail. Help us to always know the confidence of your grace and the certainty of your mercy that declares us your children. Keep our hearts and minds safe in the knowledge of your love. Defend those who are struggling and send Your Spirit that they may know Your peace. In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-4-2026

Good Morning!

      John 16:13; “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

    We just completed a family trip to Wisconsin Dells. Three vehicles leaving at different times from different places, what could go wrong? We all have GPS, maps on our phones and in our vehicles, and a hearty desire to get there. What could possibly happen? The first leg was to meet up in Rochester, Mn. and spend the night. Our first issue was we were given three different routes to Rochester, so we used the “shortest route.” We drove through portions of Minnesota that a wise driver wouldn’t but we had GPS so off we go. Vehicle #2 (oldest son and family with wife the navigator) was cruising along when suddenly, they are to travel down a gravel road, he is about to question this route when the navigator’s phone rings and it kicks the map off the screen. So, he continues on the gravel road, hoping no bean field is the next path (a different story) before she reconnects to the map. Safely back on track, they arrive in one piece. The next day, Vehicle #3 (youngest son, family, wife the navigator) had a commanding lead to get to our destination but was nowhere to be seen when we arrived. They entered the wrong address and went to a different part of the complex where we stayed.

    Fortunately, we have a guidance system that is far more reliable than even the best GPS; we have the Holy Spirit to guide us by reminding us of God’s blessings, promises and his wonderful words of grace.  He brings to mind all of God’s graciousness and steadfast love for us.  “Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” “Cast all your anxieties on him for he cares for you” “Christ came into the world to save the world not condemn it” “Be still and know that I am God” these are but a few there are many more for you to hold onto at the various times of your life and the journey you are on.

    The challenge in our life is much like the GPS; do you trust it?  While the GPS has been known to lead us astray once in a while, God’s Spirit never has.  So, we need to trust in God’s grace for our life.  We need to always keep in mind that God’s desire is for you to live as his redeemed child.  God’s desire is to have you live with him in eternal joy.  We need to keep this in mind.  There may be some bumps along the way, there will be times when the path isn’t clearly visible to us but God is always there for us to protect us, to guide us, to heal us, to give us life. 

    Jesus came into this world to give you life.  He came to give you hope.  He returned to heaven to rule and to intercede on our behalf.  He promised that the Holy Spirit would come to guide us and to lead us home.  This is the promise that God makes to you.  Trust his Word to see you through.

Father, as we face the struggles of this life, we sometimes are lost.  You send your Spirit to guide and comfort us. Give us the strength to trust your Spirit when we feel lost and beaten.  Be with those who especially battling life’s challenges.  Give them the courage to rely on you, in the precious name of Jesus, our risen Savior, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-3-2026

 Good Morning!

      Ephesians 2:14; “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”

       In 1965, Simon and Garfunkel released a song entitled, “I am a Rock.”  Unlike the Chevy pickup commercials, this was not an enjoyable experience.  It spoke of pain and loneliness.  The second verse goes like this:    I've built walls, A fortress deep and mighty, That none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. It's laughter and it's loving I disdain. I am a rock; I am an island.

    Maybe this is you.  Maybe you have built walls.  You may have built them in an effort to stop being hurt, to stop feeling the pain.  Maybe you opened your heart and your soul to someone and they crushed you.  Perhaps they rejected you, were disloyal to you, betrayed you or caused you pain in another fashion.  Pain can be one of the greatest driving forces in human existence.  We seek to avoid it at all costs even to the point of building walls around us.

    That is often how we deal with this kind of emotional pain; we build walls.  We build them between our spouses, family, friends, rivals or anyone else who can hurt us.  We build these walls in a false hope that we can protect ourselves from pain.

    The problem with this thought is that the only thing we usually accomplish by building walls is to hold in the pain rather than keep it out.  By keeping the pain in, we self-inflict even more pain and suffering.  The stronger the walls; the more effective they are in holding in all the pain and suffering.  The more we suffer, the more we build walls; walls that separate us from those whom we love and who love us.  This is what sin does to us; it convinces us to build walls.  Sin convinces us that being all alone is better than having a loving relationship with those around us.

    Yet we know that Jesus came to bring about healing.  He came to heal all of our brokenness.  He came to break down walls.  The first and greatest wall that he destroyed was the one that separated us from God’s love.  He destroyed this wall and brought us back into his loving kingdom.  He gives us the power to destroy the walls that we have between us and those around us.  His forgiveness makes us his children.  What others say or do; how others react towards us does not define us.  The events of our lives do not define us, God’s grace defines who we are; we are his children, loved by him and cherished by him.  This is what we can cling to.  We don’t need the walls; God grace will protect us.

Father, at times we struggle with the pain of broken and harmed relationships.  This world only gives us pain but in you we have comfort; in you we find hope.  Help us to break the walls and to heal the fellowship that we have with our brothers and sisters.  Be with those who are suffering at this time.  Send them your healing Spirit.  In the precious name of Jesus, our risen Savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret