5-27-2026

Good Morning!

     Romans 7:18; “For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

        After every visit to my doctor, I try to exercise and lose weight. I know what I have to do: watch what I eat cut down on sugars and fats, exercise more and drink more water. Yet I really like “Special K Bars.”  Now I know that one bar is at least 2 hours on the tread mill, but I follow all the classic denials. I can try to justify the action; for example, I can eat them on the weekend as a reward for not eating them during the week. I can try to offset the action; for example, I will spend more time on the tread mill for each one. The final one is to hide the fact that I eat them and then deny, deny, deny that I ever ate them. I know what is right, but it is hard to do what I should.

    The technical name for this is called “cognitive dissonance.”  It is when we hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time. As a Christian I know I should forgive you but the sinful nature in me wants to punch you. So, I struggle. I have a friction in my heart and in my mind. I know what God’s desire and what God’s law says. I know I should keep it because of God’s great love for me and why would we hurt someone who loves us? Yet I desire revenge, I lust, I am greedy, I gossip, I judge the actions of others harshly, I really don’t want to give someone else what I worked hard for. Both are at work, the devil on the left shoulder and the angel on the right.

    Theologians call this existence “simul justus et peccator.”  We are, at the exact same time, justified saints and we are sinners. The sinful nature still rears its ugly head in our life. Sometimes, we can fend it off and sometimes we can’t. We will always fight it. We will battle it until we die or until Christ returns. The struggle will always be there.

    The unbeliever doesn’t have this trouble. The unbeliever doesn’t think about what their faith says to them. The unbeliever only worries about self-preservation and his own self-interest. It is only the believer who struggles because we know what is right, we even desire to do what is right but there are times when we fail. So, we struggle, we battle and we win some and lose some but through it all we are forgiven by God because of Jesus.

    We all have this battle; you are not alone in your battle. Yet while this struggle occurs in all believers; Christ continues to forgive us and to renew us. His Spirit continues to remind us of what is right, what is proper and what is according to God’s will. His desire is that we do his will because that is how the world was designed to run smoothly and peacefully. Through it all God is with us. His love and forgiveness will always be with us to give us power to withstand and to pick us up when we fail.

Father of all mercy, your Spirit guides me and shows me what is right, yet I often fail. Give me the strength to withstand the temptations of this world. Lead me to overcome this world’s deceits. Lead me to know your truth. In the precious name of Jesus, I pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret    

5-26-2026

Good Morning!

     Hebrews 11:17; “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son.”

      “By faith” that is the theme of this great chapter in Hebrews; some call it the “Hall of Faith.”  It lists many of the “greats” who we all look to as inspiration in the Bible. We look to these people as the greats, the stalwarts of faith. Yet if we look at them truly closely, we see that they are really human, just like us.

     Abraham led a life that was filled with questioning doubts at times. Even though he had God’s promises, Abraham often struggled with God’s truth. Along the way there were many times when Abraham doubted God’s assurances. He hid his wife Sarah twice by calling her his sister rather than his wife. He thought he was getting too old to have a child with his wife Sarah, so they “borrowed” Sarah’s slave girl and used her to produce a child. Abraham would hear God’s promises but would sometimes wonder.

    We do that much of the time; don’t we? We have heard God’s promises to us, yet we wonder sometimes how it can ever work out. We may wonder what God can possibly have in store for us when our spouse turns cold or our children turn angry and belligerent. We wonder what good comes from our health going bad or our memory failing. We wonder sometimes what it all means. Sometimes it means that God is showing us faith.

      Sometimes we claim faith, but do we have true faith? We have the security of our job, the security of our wealth, the security of our family, so we are safe and secure. Yet what happens if these are slowly stripped away? What do we truly rely on then? We may find that we place too much of our trust in the wrong things and sometimes, God strips those away so we can find our true faith. Sometimes, he removes the crutches that we rely on to show us that our true hope is not found in them. Sometimes he slowly removes them to show us the truth. Sometimes, this process can be incredibly painful. It might be physical pain or emotional or spiritual, but it is pain.

    So, God peels away the false hopes and reveals to us the only true hope that we have and that is God’s own grace. That is what Abraham was left with when he held the knife over Isaac. God had promised to use Abraham’s son to build a great nation and yet God wanted him to sacrifice him. We can only imagine what went through Abraham’s mind at that time, but we know that whatever it was; it settled on faith and trusting God. There are times in our life just like that and we too can only trust in God’s faithful promise to be with us, to guard us and to defend us through it all.

Gracious Lord, all we have is you. You are our only hope; our only stay. Strengthen us that we might not be moved from this certainty. Be with those who are struggling with the challenges of life and lead them to focus their eyes and their hope only on you. In your precious name, O Jesus, we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

5-25-2026

Good Morning!

     Psalm 23:6; “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

      It is interesting to watch how a true shepherd works with his flock.  The shepherd is up in front of the flock.  He is looking for good grass and fresh still water for the sheep to eat and drink.  He keeps an eye out for predators.  He calls the flock to follow him.  He calls each sheep by name and they respond to him.  They follow him to the fresh water and grass.  They follow him to the safe place to rest; usually.  There are always a few stragglers.  So how does the shepherd lead the flock and keep the stragglers and the wanderers from getting lost?  He uses sheep dogs.

     These are very highly trained animals, and they serve a very important purpose.  They keep the sheep in the flock.  They keep them moving along.  They keep them from losing sight of the flock and being lost.  The sheep dogs literally hound the sheep to keep them in the sight of the shepherd so that they are always safe and can hear the voice of the shepherd and be in the fresh grass and water and rest in the safe place.

    We often read this verse as some sort of a lazy day stroll.  “Goodness and mercy shall follow me” sounds like a carefree meandering.  Yet when we look at the original language, “follow” actually means to chase or pursue; almost to the point of hunting.  So rather than see this as a leisurely strolling, we should read this more like goodness and mercy are chasing us or hounding us.  We can see that goodness and mercy are Jesus’ sheep dogs.  They keep us up to the flock. They don’t let us get lost or distracted and if we do; they bring us back.  They chase us back to the flock and under the care of the shepherd.

   God uses his goodness, his grace, and his mercy to remind us of his great love for us.  He uses his love to remind us that he cares for us.  He calls us by our name, our own name, in gentleness to live in the safety of his precious, blood bought flock.  Even as we stray, he continues to call us, and he moves us forward with his goodness and mercy to bring us home.  He restores us with his blessed bread and wine.  He uses his Word to comfort us and to give us hope.  It is in this hope, this certainty of our salvation, that he brings us peace; the safe resting place under his watchful eye and protective arm.  We are his flock, brought in by the loving grace that he bestows upon us through our baptism. 

    So, as you graze in the glorious pasture of God’s immeasurable peace.  Rely on his wonderful love to sustain you.  Remember that his sheep dogs, goodness and mercy, will always be there to return you to the flock to remind you of his great loving kindness for you.  Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Gracious Father, you keep me in your flock by your grace and mercy.  Hold us close to you.  Keep us safe in your loving arms.  Be with those who have strayed and bring them safely home.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret    

5-24-2026

Good Morning!

      Joel 2:13; “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

      There was a news story about when the iPhone 6 was introduced. There was quite a promotion and people were camping out to be “the first” to buy one. The first one was purchased by a man who, when showing it to the reporters and to the rest of the customers, dropped it on the floor.  I find that amusing; I am sure he didn’t.  It is amazing how dependent we have become on these devices.  It is said that the average person checks their cell phone 110-150 times a day.  They check their Facebook account 14-18 times a day on their phone.  It is vital that we stay connected to everyone.

    I can remember the tractor that I spent the most time on when I was in high school.  It didn’t even have a radio.  I had no phone so the only way to contact me while I was disking or racking hay or whatever I was doing was to drive out and talk to me.  Without a GPS, you had to know where I was and how to get there.  I actually enjoyed the solitude.  Now, as I watch people drive down the road, they are all constantly talking on the phone.  I don’t know enough to have that long of conversations.

    When I ask some people what they talk about, high school girls talk about boys and what other girls were wearing or doing.  High School boys were talking about girls, cars, and sports.  Spouses were asking their spouses what was for supper and where they needed to be that night.  Parents were checking with their children to see how practice or school went and did they have their homework done.  Employers were informing employees of the next assignment.  Everyone finds it so important to be in contact with each other.  So how often do we contact God?

    Do you contact God 110-150 times a day?  Some of us do but most of us don’t.  Most of us wait until something “really big” comes up.  Then we pray and it often seems like nothing happens.  The problem is that God is not a vending machine.  We don’t put in our money, push a button, and then watch what we select spiral out and down to where we can get it.  Prayer is about staying connected to God.  It is a vital part of our faith life.  We need to listen to God (through his Scriptures) and speak to God (through prayer). 

    So, God invites us to return to Him.  Return to the Lord and hear his words of comfort and grace.  Return to having the holy conversation with Him that keeps us connected and keeps us strong.  Keeping connected strengthens our faith and anchors our hope.  Keeping connected to God through prayer and devotion leads us to be more content and peaceful.  God is abounding in love which he daily and richly pours out upon us.  Trust in his mercy and his love to sustain us and to bring us home safely.

Gracious Father, keep us connected to you.  Guide us to desire to return to your mercy and grace.  Guard and protect us from the devil and his attacks.  Be with those who have lost contact with you and bring to them the certainty of your promise and your grace.  In the precious name of Jesus, our risen Savior, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

5-23-2026

Good Morning!

     Luke 18:1; “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”

      Are you a household that has two types of dishes?  Do you have the “every day” bowls, plates and silverware and then have the “good dishes”?  Perhaps it is even China with real silverware.  It might be handed down by your mother or grandmother.  It might be special to you.  It may have even caused some discomfort in the family as someone got it and someone else did not.  Do you use it sparingly?  Perhaps for Christmas, a special anniversary or birthday, it may be a special guest who you want to impress.        

    In our verse, Jesus uses a story to try and teach his disciples.  The basic idea of the story is to pray and not faint away.  So, what does that mean to us?  What is Jesus telling us?   The message here is pretty clear.  First and foremost, prayer is not a luxury in the life of a Christian.  It is not the fine China in the house that we take out and use when we want to impress someone.  Prayer is the everyday stuff.  Prayer is the day in and day out dishes that we use.  We need to see that prayer is not a meaningless function or something that we try to fit into our busy schedule.  Prayer is and should be far more than that.  When Jesus says, “ought always to pray” He means we ought to be in prayer at all time.

    Yet he does not want us to avoid our everyday activities either.  What he is talking about is that our soul has an intimate contact with God.  We keep his Word in our heart and in our mind.  Our first thought is to look to his grace to defend us and to comfort us.  In this mode, we never lose conscious fellowship and communion with God.  When we stay in this communal state or desire is to trust God.  Our desire is to rely on him from the start and not from the middle.

   This type of prayer is the type of prayer in which it is completely and intricately connected to God’s Word.  The two combined and never can really be separated.  It is by keeping this combination first and foremost in our mind that we keep focused on God’s grace.  We remember our inability to accomplish on our own and can thus rely fully on God.  By fully relying on God, we will not faint away at those times of intense emotions or reactions to events. 

    The thing to remember is that there will be times when we fail.  Fear will creep in and control us for a while.  Yet God does not give up on us so we should not give up on God.  Continue to strive for the prayer life that God has designed for us.  It is designed to give us hope.  When we cling to it, we have the comfort and the peace that we desire.

Father of all mercy, in you we have our hope secured.  Keep us mindful and focused on this truth.  Keep us in prayerful communication with you so that we may not faint away.  Keep us courageous at all times that we may stand strong in this life.  Be with those who are struggling and in need of your grace.  Strengthen them by your tender mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,                                     

Pastor Bret

5-22-2026

Good Morning!

     Isaiah 40:22; “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.”

      I remember reading a “Beetle Bailey” cartoon once that had the characters Plato (the smart one) and Zero (the not so smart one) watching an ant colony.  Zero commented on how they worked together so well.  Plato went into this long, drawn-out discussion of how they were not as advanced as humans; they had no laws or justice system; they had no military or method of exploration.  About the time he got to this part of his speech, a plume of smoke, in the shape of a mushroom cloud erupted from one of the ant hills.

    Some people took offense at this comic.  They thought that the cartoonist was making a political statement about the use of nuclear weapons and that he was somehow implying that the people who were responsible for them were about as bright as ants.  Others thought he was saying that humans thinking that they could control atomic weapons weren’t any brighter than ants.  Either way, the assumption is always that humans have the highest level of intelligence.

    Yet it is this line of thinking that gets us into the most trouble.  We think that we are far smarter than we ever are.  So, we think that we have a better thought or plan than God does and every single time; we are wrong.  That is the very crux of our problem and our sinful nature; we think we are smarter than God.  We have moved away from that original purpose of existence.  We were designed to live in God’s holy presence, worshipping and praising him and living a life completely dependent upon his grace because it was sufficient for us.

    So instead of trusting God to have our best interest in heart and mind, we set off on our own.  We soon become so buried in the mud and mire of selfishness and mistrust that we completely lose our bearing and our focus; we stop trusting God and we trust our own nature which caused us to be lost in the first place.  So, Scriptures keeps calling us back to recognize that God’s way is the best way for us.  Even when we are not sure, we need faith to trust God.  We need to hold onto his loving embrace.

   God, in his mercy, reaches down to us and picks us up like a hurt child and holds us close to his heart and whispers in our ear words of comfort.  Faith is hugging God back.  It is recognizing that God’s ways are far superior to our ways and through everything that this life pours out upon us God’s love is for us.  He is faithful to all his promises and he is faithful to the ones he made to you.

Father of all mercies, we stand before you in awe of your great love.  Move us by your Spirit to trust in your loving arms to hold us close and to protect us from all the harm the devil throws.  Be with those who are especially feeling the pain of this world.  Bring them comfort and give them your peace.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret   

5-21-2026

Good Morning!

     Psalm 137:1; “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.”

     I remember watching a special on the television about slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War.  It spent a portion of the time on the men and women who made their living chasing down runaway slaves and returning them to their rightful “owners.”  The narrator read from a diary of one of these men and he told how they rarely tried to track the runaways.  They simply headed to the ocean coast and waited.  It seems that the slaves would immediately head in an easterly direction trying to run home to Africa.  They would often be caught standing on the coastal front staring out at the ocean.  The slaves would soon realize that they wouldn’t get home.

    Our verse is a lot like that.  This was a Psalm that sings the lament of being held as a captive slave in a faraway land.  This was a Psalm that the Israelites sang while in Babylon after the Babylonians captured and destroyed Jerusalem and carried many off as slaves to Babylon.  It was a Psalm of great pain and sadness.  It was a Psalm sung by many who thought they would never return to their home.  They feared that they would die in a strange land, forgotten by God.

    Are there times when you feel like that?  Do you feel like you are being held captive in a faraway land with no hope of rescue?  Do you ever feel that God has abandoned you?  Many of us have at one time or another, perhaps even now.  Have you had a health setback or someone in your family?  Is there a relationship in your life that seems to be floundering?  Are you having job troubles or other financial strains?    It can feel like we are on the wrong side of the ocean looking toward home.

    This is one of the devil’s favorite tricks.  He wants you to think that there is an ocean of distance between you and God.  The devil wants you to think that distance is so great that God has forgotten you.  The devil wants you to sit on the shore, by the waters of Babylon and weep in sorrow, all alone and without hope.

    Yet we have hope.  When you sit there and feel all alone, look around; you will see many brothers and sisters in Christ waiting to comfort you, to offer you that holy consolation that God promises to bring us in our times of need.  It will come in the form of our family and friends; it will be in the form of someone we barely know but who has experienced what we are experiencing right now.  This comfort and consolation may take many different shapes and forms but they are all God actively seeking to bring your comfort, to bring you hope, to rescue you from the bondage and the pain that you find yourself in.  Trust in God’s favor; it is with us at all times.

Father of all mercies, there are times when I feel like the waters of Babylon are keeping us apart.  Yet through Jesus, you have brought me through the waters to your protective arms.  Be with those who feel especially lost and hurt.  Heal them with your loving Spirit.  Guide me to be your hands in their life.  In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret