2-28-2015

Good Morning All,

    Hebrews 10:24-25;” And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

    We have many ways to use the word “church”.  It can be a place as in “I am going to church.” Or “The church is on Maple Street.”  It can mean an activity as in “what time is church?”  It can mean an institution as in “the church supports life ministries”. 

    But these all miss the meaning that Christ uses.  When Christ speaks of the church; he sometimes refers to it as a family, a loving and supportive family.  We are children of God and we are brothers and sisters of Christ and of each other.  And like a family, it is good to get together with each other.  It is a time to share the joy in the family.  We recently were given a grandson and look forward to a new daughter-in-law.  The whole family shares in that joy.  When a member of the family is sick, we gather to offer comfort.  When a family member dies, we gather to mourn together and to give each other hope.  We gather at holidays and share meals and gifts but mostly laughter and love.

   Now you never have to go to a family holiday event; you are still in the family but look at what you miss.  You miss the love and joy, the camaraderie and fellowship, the common history and future are all missed when we stay away from our family.

   The same is true of our Christian family; the church.  It is here that we receive the pronouncement of forgiveness; it is here we join in the holy meal; it is here where we find comfort and consolation when we need it and a place to share in joy when we feel it.  It is where we encourage one another and stir up love and good works just like our verse states.  So today, do not neglect to meet together; remember to worship the Lord with your family.

    There may be times when we fight or disagree, many families do.  There may even be times when we pull apart and hate each other.  We can be very spoiled children.  Yet God continues to call us back, to call us to a life of reconciliation to one another.  He calls us to live a life of love and forgiveness.  He even tells us to reconcile with our brother before we bring our gifts of offering and praise to him.  God would rather that we lived as a loving family than to spend hours in phony worship.  This is because true worship is one in which we join in love and fellowship.

    So don’t neglect to meet together.  There is value there.  There is healing and rejoicing; there is love and support.  There is forgiveness and there is hope.  Together, we can face anything.

Dear Father, we are often ungrateful children who bicker and fight with each other.  Forgive us and move us to be your holy family here on earth.  Let our love for each other point to You as the source of our love through Your grace.  This we ask in the Name of our Brother Jesus, Amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

2-27-2015

Good Morning All,

          Psalm 118:1; “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”

       How do you start the day?  Most start with breakfast, some with exercise and some start with a prayer and devotion.  So how do you start your day?  Do you think the day through and try to plan the day or do you simply play it by ear?  Do you get up early and get going or do you need a couple cups of coffee to get going?  If you are one of those who start a little slow, how do you end the day?  Do you collapse and go to bed early?  Are you a night owl who is up until all hours of the night?  At the end of the day, do you think back on the day and see what went right and what went wrong?  Or do you simply put the day out of your mind and find a pillow with your name on it?

    Our verse gives us some direction.  In fact the whole psalm gives us direction for our daily life of faith.  It begins and ends with the same verse.  We should begin and end each day recognizing the love that God bestows upon us.  Yet the psalmist does this with a twist; he often looks at struggles or problems.  In verse 5, he speaks of being in distress.  In verses 10 and 11, he speaks of being surrounded by enemies.  In verse 13, he speaks of being pushed.  The psalmist seems to focus on the difficulties of the day and yet he is thankful.

    How can he be thankful?  Because he knows that God has seen him through his struggles and because of God’s mercy, he has prevailed.  The pain is given a voice, which makes room for gratitude. God hears our cry, and yet holds us together, which is enough to call for praise. As we wrap our days and life in thankfulness, we too will come to know the joy of the Lord.  We have His victory!   On the cross, Jesus accomplished what we could never do for ourselves. We were dead in sin, and now we live--the only response to such a gift is to live those lives in thanksgiving. This is the day that the Lord has accomplished. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!   

  It is easy for us to focus on the struggle; to focus on the battles with our spouses, our friends, our neighbors even with our own heart.  When we focus on the struggle we often lose sight of the fact that the victory is already won and that we are already victors.  Now we can start and end each day by focusing on the struggle or we can begin and end each day by focusing on the source of our victory.

    So how do we start each day? Will we focus on our circumstances, or on our God who reigns triumphantly over all areas of life?  To us Jesus says, ““I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Our troubles don’t disappear, but they are not eternal.  Our God and the victory that He gives us through Jesus is eternal.  Be thankful for God is a loving God who loves you completely.

Father, lead me to see your loving hand in all the circumstances of my life.  Even when I struggle, you keep me in your loving arms.  When I am hurting the most is when your grace is poured out greatly.  Heal me with your love and restore me with your Spirit.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret  

2-26-2015

Good Morning All,

          Galatians 5:25; “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

        A little boy was sound asleep in his bed when his mother came up to wake him.  “Get up Timmy; it is time to go to school.”  The little boy woke up and looked at his mother in total amazement; “you mean I got to keep going, I thought I learned it all yesterday!”  There are many times in our lives when we may feel the same way; I thought I did that yesterday.  You mean I have to do it again tomorrow and the next day as well?  Sometimes we feel like little Timmy; we just want to roll over and go back to sleep.

    Sometimes we may even feel that way in our faith life.  Yet Scriptures tells us something a little different.  Our faith life is a process not an event.  It is not even a series of events.  It is a lifetime journey that never stops or takes a break or time off.  God calls us, as his children, to a lifetime of faith.  He doesn’t want us to schedule our faith.  On Fridays I will have compassion, on Mondays I will have joy, on Tuesday I will love but I get Wednesdays and every other weekend off; that is not what a life of faith means.  A life of faith is a continual process of God’s mercy alive and active in our heart and in our life.

    This helps us when we don’t “feel” like we are loved or that we are close to God.  Faith is not dependent upon your feeling.  God’s mercy is not dependent upon your feeling.  God’s mercy is dependent on God.  God’s grace is dependent on God; neither depends upon us.  We have God’s promise to never abandon us or stray from us or to leave us alone.  We can always trust and know that this is true even if we don’t “feel” like it.  We have God’s sacred oath on this.

    So God encourages us and desires for us that we live each day in total communion with Him and that we live each day in faith with Him.  Will we always succeed?  No, we will slip and fall once in a while but we are to struggle onward, seeking his grace and knowing that His mercy is always there for us.  Yet God encourages us to live each day in faith for Him and in service to Him.  It is not to be a once in a while event but a continual process of living in prayerful conversation with Him.  We are to continually live out our life in the compassionate and loving service that God desires us to live.  It is through the Holy Spirit that God gives us the strength to live this faith filled process.

     There will be slips and falls along the way but the journey goes on and God grace is continually poured out upon your whole body and soul.  He daily restores us by his forgiveness so that we may continue our journey, freed from the slavery of sin and the devil; to live a new life in Him.

Gracious Lord, you are the shepherd who leads me down the path of righteousness.  Keep me in your flock that I may all the day long serve you.  Guide me by your grace and favor to be the child that you desire me to be.  Show me your ways and pour out your Spirit in my life that I may boldly walk the path that you have laid out for me.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret     

2-25-2015

Good Morning All,

        Isaiah 43:4a; “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you”

     Do you remember the story of Snow White?  It had the wicked queen who possessed a magical mirror.  She would look into it and ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”  The mirror would always answer, “You are my queen.”  That is until one day when the mirror decided that Snow White was even fairer than the queen. 

    “Mirror, mirror on the wall, how do I look to you today?”  We use the mirror for many purposes.  We use it to see when we shave or put on makeup.  We use a mirror to be sure that our clothes are straight and neat; that our hair is combed and that nothing is still stuck in our teeth.  Most of us sigh and figure it looks good for what there is to work with.

    Now if that mirror could look into our hearts it would find all sorts of ugly stuff.  It would find jealousy, anger, greed and the like; it would find sin.  As we look at that mirror we would see ugliness.  If we asked this mirror, “who is the fairest of them all?”  It would not be you or me that is for sure.  Unfortunately, because of this sin, this is how God saw us too.  He saw us as ugly, vermin filled creatures.  He could have destroyed us and started over.  He could have just turned his back and walked away.  However, what he did actually do, was to send Jesus to correct this ugly mess.

    What did Jesus do?  He let a man named Judas betray him, a man named Peter to deny him, all his followers abandoned him, the priests mocked him, the soldiers cursed him, spit on him, and finally nailed him to a cross to die for you and me.  When the world’s mirror looked at him; he was far from the fairest in the land but when God’s mirror looked upon him; God saw the price paid and the beauty of us being restored by the sacrifice of his Son on the cross.

    So now, when we look at ourself in the mirror, we want to make sure we look in the proper mirror.  If we look in the mirror of the world, it will remind us that we are ugly and worthless.  But we get a different mirror, because we are God’s redeemed children, we get the mirror that God looks into.  We get to look into this mirror because God has forgiven us, has claimed us through Baptism and we see looking in with faith to see a whole new us;  no longer ugly but beautiful because of God’s mercy.

    So God looks at us we are precious in his eyes.  We are his dear children because of the sacrifice that Jesus made upon that cross.  It was a bloody and ugly event but it gave to us the greatest gift ever and that is life eternal.  This is why we sing “Beautiful Savior”   The beauty that we receive because of his sacrifice gives us hope for eternal life and lets us look into God’s mirror which sees us as his forgiven, redeemed children.

Heavenly Father, you give us a new mirror to see our life through.  It is not the broken mirror of the world but it is the recreated mirror of your mercy.  Guide us down the path of the wonderful and loving life that you give us.  Your mercy pours over us like a river and our future in your loving arms waits for us.  Keep us safe and strong in your grace.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret