Pastor Love's BLOG

WHAT WE CHOOSE TO SEE IN DISAGREEMENTS?

2012-01-26T09:47:00.002-05:00

The following perspective arises from the blessings I received at the DOXOLOGY retreat this past week.

In any disagreements that take place in the local congregation, each person has two ways of seeing those on the other side of every issue. This is especially true when a person begins using whispering campaigns, force, threats, and intimidation to attain the outcome he or she desires.
When a person uses such methods in a disagreement, what do you see when you look at the one doing such things?
Do you see that person as “stubborn”, “arrogant”, “wrong”, or “hard-headed”?
On the other hand, do you see that person as one who is captive to the power of his/her own sinful pride’s illusions? ... someone captive to the illusions and reasoning of Satan? One does not have to be demon possessed to be deceived by Satan and his wiles.
To see that person apart from the cruel confusing and confounding power of sin and Satan is to see that person with eyes other than those of Jesus Christ. To see them this way, we are left to manage them and the issue ourselves. This being the case, we will have to turn to the same methods that sin and Satan have convinced them to use. Our only hope of winning the issue requires that we use their sinful ways in greater measure and with more cleverness.
To see them as one captive to sin and Satan is to see them as one pinned in a crashed car. So let us consider:
If they wrecked their car, would that keep us from calling 911?
If we caused their car to wreck, would that keep us from calling 911?
If they could not get out of the car, would that keep us from calling 911?
If we could get them out of the car, would that keep us from calling 911?
Of course, the answer to all four is NO!!! Definitely not!!!
We would call 911 because we would want to have those who can – to get to them, free them, and bring the needed aid to their wounds. We would want them to do for them, what we cannot do.
Yet in truth, such is the real spiritual condition of anyone who turns to whispering campaigns, force, threats, and the like. They have crashed their faith on some issue and they are trapped and cannot free themselves.
As with any accident, the first issue cannot be who is right or wrong, or who caused it. The issue must be their injuries and meeting the needs for which their injuries cry out. Only the eyes of mercy can see this.
We can stand around looking at the crash and the person pinned inside, describing them, their driving and even the crash, but to what end? None of this frees them from the crash. None of this brings that aid they need. None of this summons the ones who can get to that person and help them. None of this frees them from their crash.
On the other hand, we can see with the eyes of mercy, and bow to their needs by calling on the Lord Jesus Christ to come and set them free.
Just as none of us can save ourselves from our sin or sustain ourselves in saving faith, neither than can we save those in sin’s crash or sustain them in their journey of faith. He alone came to our crash site. He alone allowed himself to be pinned in the damning crash of our sin, not by us or our sin, but by His own love for us. “… He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.” Is 53:5.
Christ alone mercifully forgives us so freely that we are saved from the crash and set back again upon the journey of faith and unity with one another.
What we choose to see in others will determine whether we “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ep 4:1-3.
In addition, what we choose to see is always determined by what we believe the Lord sees and does to us, and those that we see: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” Psalms 103:10.
What will you choose to see today?
A bunch of selfish, self-serving, stubborn, arrogant and apathetic people?
Or will you choose to see personal crashes of faith in desperate need of someone to call – not 911, but God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to come in mercy and rescue those who have crashed their faith and been crushed and pinned in sin?

Lord God, heavenly Father, have mercy upon us and give us eyes to see and tongues to call upon You for our deliverance from sin and Satan, and for the same constant deliverance of all those You have given to us at home, at church, at work or wherever we find ourselves. In the blessed name of Christ our Lord. Amen.

- pmwl

All depends on faith

2012-01-12T08:44:00.000-05:00

"All depends on faith [in Jesus Christ alone]. He who does not believe [in Christ alone] is like one who must cross the sea, but is so timid that he does not trust the ship; and so he must remain and never be saved, because he does not embark and cross over."
- Martin Luther.
A Treatise Concerning the Blessed Sacrament and Concerning the Brotherhoods - LW II.

Blessed are the "un-cool"

2012-01-09T14:03:00.000-05:00

An excellent article on why worship isn't about what's cool or makes the worshippers feel cool.

"People sometimes assume that because I’m a progressive 30-year-old who enjoys Mumford and Sons and has no children, I must want a super-hip church—you know, the kind that’s called “Thrive” or “Be” and which boasts “an awesome worship experience,” a fair-trade coffee bar, its own iPhone app, and a pastor who looks like a Jonas Brother.
While none of these features are inherently wrong, (and can of course be used by good people to do good things), these days I find myself longing for a church with a cool factor of about 0.
That’s right.
I want a church that includes fussy kids, old liturgy, bad sound, weird congregants, and…brace yourself…painfully amateur “special music” now and then.
Why?
Well, for one thing, when the gospel story is accompanied by a fog machine and light show, I always get this creeped-out feeling like someone’s trying to sell me something. It’s as though we’re all compensating for the fact that Christianity’s not good enough to stand on its own so we’re adding snacks.
But more importantly, I want to be part of an un-cool church because I want to be part of a community that shares the reputation of Jesus, and like it or not, Jesus’ favorite people in the world were not cool. They were mostly sinners, misfits, outcasts, weirdos, poor people, sick people, and crazy people.
Cool congregations can get so wrapped up in the “performance” of church that they forget to actually be the church, a phenomenon painfully illustrated by the story of the child with cerebral palsy who was escorted from the Easter service at Elevation Church for being a “distraction.”
Really?
It seems to me that this congregation was distracted long before this little boy showed up! In their self-proclaimed quest for “an explosive, phenomenal movement of God—something you have to see to believe,” they missed Jesus when he was right under their nose.
Was the paralytic man lowered from the rooftop in the middle of a sermon a distraction?
Was the Canaanite woman who harassed Jesus and his disciples about healing her daughter a distraction?
Were the blind men from Jericho who annoyed the crowd with their relentless cries a distraction?
Jesus didn’t think so. In fact, he seemed to think that they were the point.
Jesus taught us that when we throw a banquet or a party, our invitation list should include “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” So why do our church marketing teams target the young, the hip, the healthy, and the resourced?
In Bossypants (a book you should really go out and buy this very instant), Tina Fey describes working for the YMCA in Chicago soon after graduating from college. This particular YMCA included, “a great mix of high-end yuppie fitness facility, a wonderful community resource for families, and an old-school residence for disenfranchised men,” so Fey shares a host of funny stories about working the front desk. One such story involves one of the residents forgetting to take his meds, bumping into a young mom on her way to a workout session, and saying something wildly inappropriate (and very funny—you should definitely go out and get this book). Fey writes, “The young mother was beside herself. That’s the kind of trouble you get when diverse groups of people actually cross paths with one another. That’s why many of the worst things in the world happen in and around Starbucks bathrooms.”
Church can be a lot like the Y...or a Starbucks bathroom.
We have one place for the un-cool people (our ministries) and another place for the cool people (our church services). When we actually bump into one another, things can get awkward, so we try to avoid it.
It’s easy to pick on Elevation Church in this case, but the truth is we’re all guilty of thinking we’re too cool for the least of these. Our elitism shows up when we forbid others from contributing art and music because we deem it unworthy of glorifying God, or when we scoot our family an extra foot or two down the pew when the guy with Aspergers sits down. Having helped start a church, I remember hoping that our hip guests wouldn’t be turned off by our less-than-hip guests. For a second I forgot that in church, of all places, those distinctions should disappear.
Some of us wear our brokenness on the inside, others on the outside.
But we’re all broken.
We’re all un-cool.
We’re all in need of a Savior.
So let’s cut the crap, pull the plug, and have us some distracting church services… the kind where Jesus would fit right in.
Do you ever get the feeling that church is just one big show? Have you found a congregation in which Jesus and his friends would be welcome?"

From: http://rachelheldevans.com/blessed-are-the-uncool

Why Christmas is on December 25

2011-12-12T12:36:00.000-05:00

Biblical Archaeology Review has a good scholarly discussion of why Christmas is celebrated on December 25. And it is evidently NOT because it was superimposed on a pagan holiday:

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.
Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.
It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.5 In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.6 They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly. . . .
There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character. . . . In the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E. . . . .
There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.8 But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.
Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d
This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.” Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.
The article goes on to document other ancient sources that associate the day of Jesus’s conception with the day of His death, going back to rabbinic Jewish texts that make similar connections.
________________________________________

Article printed from Cranach: The Blog of Veith: http://www.geneveith.com
URL to article: http://www.geneveith.com/why-christmas-is-on-december-25-2/_4074/
[1] Biblical Archaeology Review: http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp#location1

The faith of the saints - which closes its eyes to see eternal light.

2011-11-01T09:32:00.000-04:00

As we give thanks to our Lord for all the saints in Christ, one might well wonder how they remained and endured as the saints the Lord has made and kept them to be. Such wonder is born of a faith that looks to much to the things seen. Such saints are those who lived by faith in what the Lord said and still says to them. To live this faith is to live beyond what is seen and experienced. Such faith lives and abides in the living Word of God - i.e. Jesus Christ. This is not a simple or easy faith, it “is the experience of faith, the faith that does not see, that does not understand, such faith as Luther attributes to the dying Abraham: ‘He closed his eyes and withdrew into the darkness of faith. There he found eternal light’” (Herman Sasse – We Confess Anthology [Jesus Christ – Theology of the Cross] p. 54.)

- pmwl

... my works are a stink in the nostrils of God

2011-10-31T09:33:00.000-04:00

Apart from Him, my works are a stink in the nostrils of God.
Apart from Him, I am so deeply damned that I cannot even conceive the depth of my damnation.
There is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.
The world hates it when we preach this.
It will hate us as it hated the One whom we preach.
And the world is not kidding.
It will not give us a pass, but will execrate and reject us as those who disturb civil tranquility and turn the world upside down.
There is nothing quaint or tolerable about the preaching of the church about sin and grace.
There just isn't. This causes the cross of persecution to be laid upon our shoulders.
So be it.
We preach the cross of Christ so that we are empowered to bear our cross when it comes.
Now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

- not sure where this came from, but I pray the Lord may grant me such wisdom in all the throws of life.

pmwl

A Prayer for the Treasure in a clay jar

2011-10-15T12:44:00.002-04:00

Gracious God, heavenly Father,
You have chosen to place Your eternal treasure – Jesus Christ,
Within me, a clay jar, a broken and most weak clay jar.
While I cannot comprehend such choosing and placement,
I do gratefully pray that this blessed Treasure of Jesus Christ,
Whether He be spilt through cracks and weaknesses of my life and living,
Or He be poured forth by work of Your Spirit in my various vocations,
Grant that this Treasure may enrich the lives of all upon whom He is spilt or poured,
With a closer walk with You in faith.
Let this heaven sent Treasure be spilt upon this feeble prayer that it may be pleasing in Your sight.
Amen.

- pmwl

Are you crying for the truth and proper instruction ....?

2011-10-07T08:50:00.000-04:00

A person may pretend to be a Christian while in reality he is not.
As long as he is in this condition, he is quite content with his knowledge of the mere outlines of the Christian doctrines…
However, the moment a person becomes a Christian, there arises in him a keen desire for the doctrine of Christ.
Even the most uncultured peasant who is still unconverted is suddenly roused in the moment of his conversion and begins to reflect on God and heaven, salvation and damnation, etc.
He becomes occupied with the highest problems of human life.
An instance of this kind is afforded by those Jews who flocked to Christ and also by the apostles. Those multitudes heard Christ with great joy and were astonished because He preached with authority and not as did the scribes.
But the majority of these hearers never advanced beyond a certain feeling of delight and admiration.
The apostles, too, were uneducated people, but they acted differently.
They did not stop where the rest stopped, but propounded all manner of questions to Christ…
It is, therefore, quite true what the Apology to the Augsburg Confession says: “Men of good conscience are crying for the truth and proper instruction from the Word of God” … (Mueller, p. 191; Triglot Concordia, p. 290).

—C. F. W. Walther

Treasury of Daily Prayer (Kindle Locations 24221-24226). Concordia Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

bad sermons ...

2011-10-03T08:56:00.000-04:00

This is a repost from a blog: http://letitstet.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/bad-sermons/

It is written by a lay person who is fed up with preachers trying to be something other than the Lord called them to be in the hopes that they'll get done what they Lord called them to do. Enjoy!

There have been a lot of bad sermons in the world.
Sermons about the Packers’ score, unicorns, global warming, lands of make-believe, funny stories that really aren’t funny at all, and a lot of other topics that leave parishioners willing Jesus to come back before the sermon is over just to make the insanity stop.I’m not a pastor. I don’t know how hard it is to write ten minutes of theological genius each Sunday. I don’t know the sheep in the pew and what they need to hear.
But here is what I do know: pastors have, at best, one hour for church and ten minutes to pack all the Gospely goodness they can into a sermon.
They have ten minutes to cut those of us listening down with Law, apply the sweet salve of the Gospel, and to give us Jesus . . . again and again and again.
This other stuff is all superfluous. It’s filler. It’s what one of my favorite professors said:
This fill-in-the-blank bit is the in thing. (1) It is too late. We all know about it already. (2) It is a Gospel substitute. (3) The world is perishing.
And as if that isn’t reason enough, and although I may not be a pastor, I do know that taking up five minutes of those precious ten describing the latest YouTube video (which I already saw, thanks), recounting the newest movie (which I wouldn’t be caught dead seeing), telling us your kids’ soccer score (which I don’t care about), or attempting to create a bad analogy (which falls apart horribly moments later) is unnecessary and unhelpful.
And let’s be honest: it’s also a waste of time. If I want to watch YouTube videos, I’ll stay home in my office. If I want to see a movie, I’ll go to the theater. If I want to watch a soccer game, I’ll go to one. If I want to hear bad analogies, I’ll argue with someone.
But if it’s Jesus I need, and it is, I’ll go to church. And I’m counting on the pastor there to deliver the goods, the goods that the Internet, the theater, sports, and the world can’t.
I’m not a pastor. I don’t know anything about sermons.
But I am a Lutheran, and I do know this: It ain’t rocket science, and it’s not an atomic secret.
So spare me the Packers’ score, unicorns, global warming, lands of make-believe, and funny stories that really aren’t funny at all, and give me the one thing needful: Just give me Jesus.

... man putting himself at the center of everything.

2011-10-02T20:00:00.000-04:00

In his book Worldviews: A Christian Response toReligious Pluralism, Anthony J. Steinbronn writes,

“Accordingto Stott (Between Two Worlds),the missionary task is -

‘faithfullyto translate the Word of God into modern language and thought-categories, andto make it present in our day. However,if we are to build bridges into the real world, and seek to relate the Word ofGod to the major themes of life and the major issues of the day, then we haveto take seriously both the biblical text and the contemporary scene … Only thenshall we discern the connections between them and be able to speak the divineWord to the human situation with any degree of sensitivity and accuracy.’

At the heartof this bridge-building activity is a threefold commitment by those who areserious about making disciples of all nations: (1) studying God’s Word; (2)studying one’s target culture; and (3) discerning and constructingmissiological bridges that communicate the apostolic message into the heartsand minds of the hearer because “faith comes from hearing, and hearing throughthe word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).” (KindleLocations 154-163).

In the study of our culture, Steinbronnidentifies what I believe to be the foundation upon all that drives andauthorizes much of our culture. I fearthat it is the same thing that is behind and drives the exodus from the truechurch for the non-denominational churches and gives rise to those who confessto being “spiritual” but not “religious”.
What is it? HUMANISM! Steinbronn goes on:

“What IsHumanism? There are three basic humanistic principles that provide the coreassumptions of humanism:

NATURALISM – the rejection ofthe supernaturalist worldview that understands God as the ultimate source ofall existence and value.
ANTHROPOCENTRISM - Reuben Abeltraces the origin of modern anthropocentric thought to an assertion byProtagoras that man is the measure of all things. (See Reuben Abel, Man is theMeasure, New York: Free Press, 1997.)
SCIENTISM – the view that scienceis the measure of what exists and of what does not exist. Since the Enlightenmentperiod, the Christian truth-claims have had diminishing effectiveness for manypeople, partly because they have seemed inconsistent with the understanding ofthe world in modern science.

Humanism isa system whereby man, beginning absolutely by himself, tries rationally tobuild out of himself, having only man as his integration point, to find allknowledge, meaning, and value.
It is ‘the effort of modern man to find themeaning of his life in his own purposes or in his own communities andhistorical causes.’ Glover,Biblical Origins of Modern Secular Culture, 109.
Ina thoroughly anthropocentric world, there is no room left for God.
The worldspirit of our age, observed Francis Schaeffer, is autonomous man settinghimself up as God in defiance of the knowledge and moral and spiritual truththat God has given.
Humanismis freedom from “any restraint, and especially from God’s truth and moralabsolutes.” Schaeffer, Great Evangelical Disaster, 315.
Humanism, in its most fundamentalexpression, is man putting himself at the center of everything.

Worldviews:A Christian Response to Religious Pluralism
Anthony J. Steinbronn,(2007-01-01).
ConcordiaPublishing House. Kindle Edition. (Kindle Locations 439-444).

As much as we need to understand this humanism, it is critical that we understand it to be the most pure, raw and unleashed form of the old man born of original sin in the drivers seat. As such it is all part of the first illusion Satan cast for Adam and Eve - that they could be like God.
Truly there is nothing new under the sun.
May the Lord grant us the wisdom of His Word and Spirit to articulate His Law so as to put the old man to death so that we might speak His Gospel by which He might resurrect a new life in all.

- pmwl

Cheap Grace vs. Saving Grace

2011-09-30T11:12:00.000-04:00

WHAT IS CHEAP GRACE?
"Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like a cheapjack's wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut-rate prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! And the essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite.
What would grace be, if it were not cheap?
. . . In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. . .
Cheap grace means the justification of sin [i.e. making the sin alright] without the justification of the sinner [making the person right].
Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.
p. 42

. . . Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance [a turning away of heart, mind and living from the sin], (it is) baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
p. 43-44

WHAT IS SAVING (COSTLY) GRACE

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake of one will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.
Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. . .
. . . Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "my yoke is easy and my burden light."
p. 45

Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

The Cost of Discipleship (Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.,

WHEN I, LIKE ELIJAH, WANT TO FLEE FROM MY CALLING

2011-09-03T11:59:00.001-04:00

Excerpts from Matthew Henry's Commentary on First Kings 19:9-14

The visit God paid to [Elijah] there and the enquiry he made concerning him: The word of the Lord came to him. We cannot go any where to be out of the reach of God's eye, his arm, and his word. Whither can I flee from thy Spirit? Ps. 139:7, &c. God will take care of his out-casts; and those who, for his sake, are driven out from among men, he will find, and own, and gather with everlasting loving-kindnesses. John saw the visions of the Almighty when he was in banishment in the isle of Patmos, Rev. 1:9.
The question God puts to the prophet it, What doest thou here, Elijah? 5:9, and again 5:13. This is a reproof:

For his fleeing hither. "What brings thee so far from home? Dost thou flee from Jezebel? Couldst thou not depend upon almighty power for thy protection?" Lay the emphasis upon the pronoun thou. "What thou! So great a man, so great a prophet, so famed for resolution—dost thou flee thy country, forsake thy colors thus?" This cowardice would have been more excusable in another, and not so bad an example. Should such a man as I flee? Neh. 6:11. Howl, fir-trees, if the cedars be thus shaken.
For his fixing here. "What doest thou here, in this cave? Is this a place for a prophet of the Lord to lodge in? Is this a time for such men to retreat, when the public has such need of them?" In the retirement to which God sent Elijah (ch. 17.) he was a blessing to a poor widow at Sarepta, but here he had no opportunity of doing good. Note, It concerns us often to enquire whether we be in our place and in the way of our duty. "Am I where I should be, whither God calls me, where my business lies, and where I may be useful?"

The account [Elijah] gives of himself, in answer to the question put to him (v. 10), and repeated, in answer to the same question, v. 14.

He excuses his retreat, and desires it may not be imputed to his want of zeal for reformation, but to his despair of success. For God knew, and his own conscience witnessed for him, that as long as there was any hope of doing good he had been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts; but now that he had laboured in vain, and all his endeavors were to no purpose, he thought it was time to give up the cause, and mourn for what he could not mend. Abi in cellam, et dic, Miserere mei—"Away to thy cell, and cry, Have compassion on me."
He complains of the people, their obstinacy in sin, and the height of impiety to which they had arrived: "The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, and that is the reason I have forsaken them; who can stay among them, to see every thing that is sacred ruined and run down?" This the apostle calls his making intercession against Israel, Rom. 11:2, 3. He had often been, of choice, their advocate, but now he is necessitated to be their accuser, before God. Thus John 5:45, There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, whom you trust. Those are truly miserable that have the testimony and prayers of God's prophets against them. He charges them with having forsaken God's covenant; though they retained circumcision, that sign and seal of it, yet they had quitted his worship and service, which was the intention of it. Those who neglect God's ordinances, and let fall their communion with him, do really forsake his covenant, and break their league with him.

At last he perceived a still small voice, in which the Lord was, that is, by which he spoke to him, and not out of the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. Those struck an awe upon him, awakened his attention, and inspired humility and reverence; but God chose to make known his mind to him in whispers soft, not in those dreadful sounds. When he perceived this,

He wrapped his face in his mantle, as one afraid to look upon the glory of God, and apprehensive that it would dazzle his eyes and overcome him. The angels cover their faces before God in token of reverence, Isa. 6:2. Elijah hid his face in token of shame for having been such a coward as to flee from his duty when he had such a God of power to stand by him in it. The wind, and earthquake, and fire, did not make him cover his face, but the still voice did. Gracious souls are more affected by the tender mercies of the Lord than by his terrors.
He stood at the entrance of the cave, ready to hear what God had to say to him. This method of God's manifesting himself here at Mount Horeb seems to refer to the discoveries God formerly made of himself at this place to Moses.

[1.] Then there was a tempest, an earthquake, and fire (Heb. 12:18); but, when God would show Moses his glory, he proclaimed his goodness; and so here: He was, the Word was, in the still small voice.
[2.] Then the law was thus given to Israel, with the appearances of terror first and then with a voice of words; and Elijah being now called to revive that law, especially the first two commandments of it, is here taught how to manage it; he must not only awaken and terrify the people with amazing signs, like the earthquake and fire, but he must endeavour, with a still small voice, to convince and persuade them, and not forsake them when he should be addressing them. Faith comes by hearing the word of God; miracles do but make way for it.
[3.] Then God spoke to his people with terror; but in the gospel of Christ, which was to be introduced by the spirit and power of Elijah, he would speak by a still small voice, the dread of which should not make us afraid; see Heb. 12:18, &c.

The comfortable information God gives him of the number of Israelites who retained their integrity, though he thought he was left alone (v. 18): I have left 7000 in Israel (besides Judea) who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Note:

In times of the greatest degeneracy and apostasy God has always had, and will have, a remnant faithful to him, some that keep their integrity and do not go down the stream. The apostle mentions this answer of God to Elijah (Rom. 11:4) and applies it to his own day, when the Jews generally rejected the gospel. Yet, says he, at this time also there is a remnant, v. 5.
It is God's work to preserve that remnant, and distinguish them from the rest, for without his grace they could not have distinguished themselves: I have left me; it is therefore said to be a remnant according to the election of grace.
It is but a little remnant, in comparison with the degenerate race; what are 7000 to the thousands of Israel? Yet, when those of every age come together, they will be found many more, 12,000 sealed out of each tribe, Rev. 7:4.
God's faithful ones are often his hidden ones (Ps. lxxxiii. 3), and the visible church is scarcely visible, the wheat lost in the chaff and the gold in the dross, till the sifting, refining, separating day comes.
The Lord knows those that are his, though we do not; he sees in secret.
There are more good people in the world than some wise and holy men think there are. Their jealousy of themselves, and for God, makes them think the corruption is universal; but God sees not as they do. When we come to heaven, as we shall miss a great many whom we thought to meet there, so we shall meet a great many whom we little thought to find there. God's love often proves larger than man's charity and more extensive.

Commentary First Kings 19, Matthew Henry

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc2.iKi.xx.html

The RAsburry Patch: Refute Evolution - Rather Quickly

2011-08-27T12:30:00.000-04:00

The RAsburry Patch: Refute Evolution - Rather Quickly: Short, sweet, and right to the point ... as well as right on target: From Check This Out! (a DVD or download featuring six warp-speed v...

A Prayer Amidst the Undulation of Joy and Sadness

2011-08-27T11:04:00.000-04:00

Ever is a peril near me,

Ever have I grace to cheer me,

Ever in my woes I sigh,

Ever see I Jesus nigh.

Ever do my sins upbraid me,

Ever Jesus comes to aid me,

Ever woes around me throng,

Ever am I full of song.

Now I seated am in gladness,

Now I fall and lie in sadness,’ ..

Often weary and distrest,

Ever find in Jesus rest.

Thus is grief linked-to my gladness,

Sweet and bitter, joy and sadness

Fill the cup that I must drain

In this life of joy and pain.

But, 0 Jesus, ‘mid life’s sadness,

Grant that faith’s true joy and gladness,

Over sin and grief that quail,

Ever, ever may prevail. Amen.

Kingo: Aldrig er jeg unden Vaade

L 272 HCH 207 tr. C. Doving.

337. Trinity 11 - Saturday

Book of Family Prayer - Laache.

Why whining over our crosses tends to ring hallow!

2011-08-25T12:17:00.000-04:00

Does anyone really know or comprehend the magnitude of Christ’s Cross and the suffering and sacrifice it brought to Him? Consider:

Countless images and pictures can be created depicting the outward appearance of Christ’s sufferings, but not one of the inward pain and bitterness or the invisible causes of them.
How many people have replicas in all shapes and sizes of the accursed tree, but no replica of the Law that made it so?
How many have painted, and more will yet paint the blessed Savior bearing His cross to Calvary, yet no one has painted the Christ bearing the sins of the whole world.
The nails piercing our Lord's sacred flesh has been described with the utmost clarity, but who with equal clarity is able to describe the divine justice that pierced both His flesh and spirit.
We may give the most accurate account of the spear piercing the Savior’s side, but who is able to give any such an account of the sorrow that pierced His soul.
How well we may know and taste, yet today, the cup of sour vinegar wine our Savior tasted, but cannot have such knowing or tasting of the cup of God’s wrath which our Lord drank completely to its most bitter end.
We may with great display and depiction, express the derision of the Jewish leader, but with what might we display and depict the desertion and abandonment of Almighty God forsaking His Son, so that He might never forsake us.

This does not diminish the suffering our crosses bring, but it does make some things quite clear:
Whatever the level of our suffering, it never exceeds our Lord’s suffering.
Whatever we may be suffering through, we are never without our Lord and His resurrection victory assuring us of where the cross always leads.

- pmwl

ORIGINAL SIN'S DISPOSITION TOWARD SELF

2011-07-25T11:51:00.001-04:00

The first Sin of Adam and Eve - was an act of Hatred toward self.

Hatred understood NOT as an emotional response toward self - but as an ACT OF REJECTING self.
In their sin, Adam and Eve hated/rejected not just God and His will, but they also hated/rejected themselves and their purpose as God had made them in favor of an illusion of a "better" them, a better "self", a better “me”.
As consequence of this Original Sin – each person is born pre-disposed to hate/reject not just God, but themselves and their purpose as God has created them, knit them together in their mother's womb. (Ps 139).
Each person is born hating/rejecting of themselves in favor of some other self that is perceived to be better.
Each person is born hating/rejecting their God given purpose in favor of some other purpose that is believed to better reflect and express who they really are.
Inasmuch as each person is born spiritually dead under the power of sin -

They cannot stop this hatred/rejection of self.
While they may desperately search for a more favorable self and purpose, their search and discovery can never reach beyond the bounds of themselves and others like them.
This limitation enhances and escalates their hatred/rejection of everyone else.

Our sinful nature drives 24/7 to deal with this hatred of self and save ourselves from ourselves in primarily three ways:
First - we seek to overcome this hatred of self by appealing to others in the hopes that they will somehow pass favorable and affirming judgment on us so that we might like, let alone love ourselves.
The evidence in our appeals is made via looks, abilities, and possessions, all of which are used in the hopes of influencing the jury of our peers.
Second - we seek to save ourselves from this hatred by projecting it on others. This method of coping with our predisposition is perhaps the most often used, especially when the first method fails. When we cannot overcome the hatred of self by appeals to others, we ascend quickly to the judge’s seat. Nothing new needs to be learned here, it’s the same hatred, now it’s turn away from us and toward others. Such outward hatred turned toward others is easily sanctified by pointing out all the ways they have rejected us and others by their words or behaviors toward us or others. In this means of saving ourselves from the hatred of self - we not only sanctify ourselves, we also comfort ourselves as victims of these hateful people from whom we must isolate ourselves in our private self-made sanctuary where we nurture our victimhood into near saintliness made of hatred.
Third - we seek to save ourselves from this hatred by using others and all things in this world to so intoxicate ourselves with sensual pleasure. The level of sensual pleasure will determine the level to which one is no longer conscious or aware of his or her hatred/rejection of self. Yet like any narcotic, the level of sensual pleasure will have to escalate so that the heart and mind are turned off by the ever increasing feelings/emotional gratification which are pitted against the hatred of self. "Let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." (Is 22:13; 1Co 15:32”
While we are born with Original Sin's pre-disposition to hate/reject self, it is a weakness that our Lord uses in us toward His goal of our salvation.
Without this hate/rejection of self there can never be a hunger, a thirst for another self, a new and better self.
Here is where the stewardship of the Law serves to turn us from self. Hence the call to “repent” turn back to God. Sin pre-disposes us to turn from ourselves, God calls to us in repentance gives direction and His power to turn to Him. The key in this call to repent is that without the Gospel, without the Word of Christ descending into our personal pits of hatred, so magnificently on display in passion and death of Christ, we can have neither a new or better self. For apart from Christ - all the other selves out there are neither new, nor better - they are just like us - bound in sin and it's hatred.
Baptism is our Lord’s personal entry into each of us where He unites this self-hatred to Himself as He received it on the Cross and unites His death in this hatred to us – putting us to death and resurrected us in Himself as a new person.
Untied to Christ - the self that is bound in sin and hatred is put to death by the power of His death.
United to Christ – we are created as a new self in Christ with the same purpose that Adam and Eve were creates with – doing good to all as they had opportunity and thus ability according to the relationships God has created for them.
United to Christ – our new self in Christ with a predisposition to love/choose to Christ and His will for us by believing in Christ and receiving Him through His Word and the sacrament of His Body and Blood.
United to Christ – our new self in Christ resides along side of our old self in sin with his predispositions to hate self and others. Yet the new self/life we are given in Christ does not live by our ability to overcome the old self – but by faith in Christ whose love/choice of us in forgiveness is greater and will never be separated from us.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 1 John 3:19-21 (ESV)
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword … For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35, 38-39 (ESV)
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb 13:7-8 (ESV)

The quest to love self – can only end in defeat. Yet it is a quest that many believers, like unbelievers, set out upon over and over.
How often we are told that before you can truly love someone - you must first love yourself. Sounds reasonable, but it is a sanctified way of keeping ourselves the issue, not others. Notice that such a quest justifies devoting ourselves to saving ourselves from our own self-hatred.
The reality each of us suffers under is that we cannot turn back, let alone cope with original sin's predisposition to hate ourselves. Any and every attempt to love ourselves will crash and burn when we run into our own faults, failures and sin.
Many Christians seduced into undertaking this same quest. They believe that because Christ and saved them and they are born again, they can somehow finally achieve the love of self. Such a beliefs and arguments that arise from them are all based on the same god talk that Job's friends offered him. It all sounds “godly”, yet none of the talk is God's but rather our talk of what we imagine is godly. Those who pursue this quest will end up as Job ended with his friends – not comforted. For all their words to Job and all their tears and time with him, Job was never comforted by them. Job was not comforted until God spoke and what God spoke did not answer Job’s questions, it simply reminded Job that God was God his God and Job was not God, but God’s child. Note that God sternly rebuke Job's friends because in all their god talk - they never spoke of God what was right (Job 42:7-9).
Nowhere in Scripture does the Lord ever give us a command to love ourselves. He does give us a command according to the purpose we were first created with: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:37-40). How is the love of self defined for the purpose of loving neighbor? "Do under others as you would have them do unto you." (Mt 7:12).
The only way to rightly love self is to rightly love/believe in Jesus Christ, whose own kind of love sought and redeem us when there was no reason to in us.
To rightly love self is to love/to believe in Christ for to believe in Him is to reach by the Holy Spirit beyond yourself that you might receive Him and His redeeming mercies to yourself.
The goal of your life is not to love yourself - Jesus does that for you and for God the Father. Your goal is to believe in Him and from Him, through Him and in Him - be the you He redeemed you to be for sake of those around you.

• God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Eph 2:4-10 (ESV)

Grasping the truth that we cannot rightly love ourselves because we are bound in hatred/rejection of ourselves is very freeing for the believer. A person may not "feel" good about themselves, but that person can be "glad" that they are loved by someone (Jesus Christ) whose love is not only greater than their hatred of self and Him, but whose love sets them free in forgiveness, from living to deal with their hatred to living to love/chose the good they am able to do and doing it for whoever needs it.

- pmwl

The Law demands wrath for everything. Christ grants mercy for everything.

2011-06-30T10:23:00.000-04:00

The Law demands punishment for everything and everyone. But in Jesus Christ is forgiveness of sins for everything and everyone.
The Law demands wrath for everything. Christ grants mercy for everything.
With Christ all works are done, all punishment suffered, all righteousness fulfilled. Therefore he says: “Come, for all things are ready.”
No one has so such terrible and weighty sins that they could outweigh the blood of Christ to carry them away.
No one has so many sins that they could be worth more than the meritorious work of God’s Son.
No one is so corrupt that Jesus cannot cure him.
No one is so deeply fallen that Jesus cannot still and willingly raise him up.
But come to Him with everything that troubles your conscience, your soul. He takes it all away.
What does this mean but to be justified before God.
What does it mean to be justified?
ANSWER: If I believe, God receives me in grace, “accounts to me Christ’s righteousness, frees me from sin and its punishment, and regards me in Christ as if I never sinned.”

Edited - Nils Jakob Laache.
263. Trinity 2 – Thursday – Book of Family Prayer.

When creation is no longer God's creation ....

2011-05-26T09:14:00.000-04:00

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" - God Job 38:2

"When we adopt a human-centered approach [to the Scriptures, preaching/teaching/worship] that assimilates God to our own experience and happiness, the world is no longer God's creation; it too, like God, exists for our own personal well-being. Everything that exisits is there for us to consume for our happiness"
Michael Horton
- Christless Christianity p. 56

When the gospel doesn’t need to be denied, because it is beside the point.

2011-05-16T10:22:00.000-04:00

It is becoming more and more obvious that many of the ears of today are listening for the spiritual but are unable and therefore unwilling to hear the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. What they would call a spiritual quest is in truth an emotional quest – cast in spiritual terms. The contours of both their spiritual struggles and the solution to them are determined purely by subjective feelings and sensations of peace and wellness. Michael Horton writes in Christless Christianity: “Once you make your peace of mind rather than peace with God the main problem to be solved in your life, the gospel becomes radically redefined.” (p.39). Where the Gospel is redefined, so also must sin and sinfulness also be redefined.
What is forgotten in this quest for peace of mind or sense of wellness, is the very captivity of the mind to sin, which is hostile to God (Rom 8:7; Col 1:21). If I as a sinner cannot make peace with God, why am I so easily deceived into believing I can make peace with myself? At this point, self has become the almighty I must answer too rather than God the Almighty.
The deeper reality of this deception is that where I have made my own peace of mind or peace within the main issue and purpose of my life, there I have made my sinful self the god to whom I and all others must answer. Having made God in my own image, I must go in search of those preachers and pastors who will shepherd not me, but the things I have done, the things and people around me and what they do so that I may have peace of mind and a happy heart.
Horton describe the sad consequence of this quest. “‘How can I, a sinner, be right with a holy God?” is simply off the radar … Once the self is enthroned as the source, judge, and goal of all of life, the gospel need not be denied, because it is beside the point.’” (p.40)
How gloriously merciful our Lord is in that He makes us new creations born not of our wills, our works, or ourselves but born of God in Jesus Christ (John 1:12-13; 2 Cor 5:17). We are reborn in peace by and therefore with, Almighty God.
As we have been set free from making peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, we are equally set free from making peace with ourselves. Inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ has made full and glorious peace for me with the true God through His passion, death and resurrection, He also gives me His peace in the midst of the hostility of my sinful self, because it has been crucified with Christ.
Our Lord does not call us to make peace with ourselves, but to simply “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” (Col. 3:15).

- pmwl

Barnum & Bailey Lutheran Church

2011-05-13T19:14:00.000-04:00

May 12, 2011 by Pastor Riley's Blog

The Church Growth Movement and Lutheran Worship
Ernie V. Lassman
Concordia Theological Quarterly, vol.62, 1 (Jan. 1998).
Do we use worship to evangelize people or do we evangelize people so they can worship? Is worship primarily for believers or unbelievers? Is worship primarily for the “churched or the “unchurched? How one answers this question has significant implications. If worship is primarily for believers who already belong to the Church, then one would expect the worship form to reflect this. This would mean that language, concepts, symbols, and music would have an “insiders” feel. Such an approach would have an “alien” feel to an “outsider,” that is, one who is not yet a believer and a member of the Church, because it would result in a form that reflects knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. The form/style would be in keeping with Paul’s exhortation to be mature and to put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:ll; Ephesians 4:13; Hebrews 5:14). But if one uses worship to evangelize the non-Christian there could be a temptation to have a format that is lower in its expression of Christianity – the lowest common denominator, so to speak. For example, we hear these days of “seeker services.” For whom are such services designed? If they are designed for non-Christians, there can be no worship format at all since they cannot worship God without faith in Jesus Christ. This is carried out to its logical conclusion in Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek Community Church, which purposefully omits the cross from the building, striving instead to look like a concert hall or movie theater lobby. However, if most of the attendees are already professed Christians, what is the purpose of offering a “seeker service” to them? And if these services are held on Sunday morning, will not such services actually confuse what worship is for the “seeker” and for many members of the congregation?
In addition, the phrase “seeker services” has the sound of revivalism, which is foreign to the Scriptures and to the Lutheran Confessions. Revivalism was one aspect of American Lutheranism as promoted by Samuel Schmucker. Revivalism is a distinct American phenomenon shaped by the culture of the nineteenth century. Speaking of the negative consequences of revivalism Mark Noll says “the combination of revivalism and disestablishment meant that pragmatic concerns would prevail over principle. What the churches required were results – new adherents – or they would simply go out of business. Thus, the production of results had to override all other considerations.” And this is part of the problem for these same forces are loosed in the church growth movement. Thus, a part of our current crisis is “Americanization.”
If one shapes the worship format according to the lowest common denominator, one is not only restricted in the use of the best of Christian expression, but opens the door for secular ideas and concepts to shape the worship service apart from God and his Word. I have been at pastors’ conferences and heard Lutheran speakers say that the problem is our members who resist change because they do not want to grow. Church growth experts tell us we should be more concerned about meeting the needs of the unchurched person than meeting the needs of the very people who believe in Jesus Christ and support the Church with their faithful and regular involvement and monies. It is true that our democratic society is unfriendly to the idea of “outsiders” and “insiders,” yet this is inherent in Christianity. Jesus made the distinction between “outsiders” and “insiders” when He was telling parables. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples (the “insiders”): “The secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables” (Mark 4:ll). And Paul refers to “outsiders” and “insiders” in at least four different texts: 1 Corinthians 5:12-13; Colossians 4:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:5; and 1 Timothy 3:7. The very name “Church,” ekklesia, means “those called out” and implies this outsider/insider tension, as does Paul’s familiar phrase “When you come together” (1 Corinthians 11:18).

http://thefirstpremise.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/barnum-bailey-lutheran-church/

Prostituted Worship????

2011-05-09T11:35:00.000-04:00

"Whenever the method of worship becomes more important than the Person of worship, we have already prostituted our worship. There are entire congregations who worship praise and praise worship but who have not yet learned to praise and worship God in Jesus Christ."
Judson Cornwall
Worship As Jesus Taught It. Tulsa: Victory House Publishers. 1987. pg. 70.

he that craves for this thing and that thing, as a token for good at the hand of the Lord, stands in danger of perishing from want of faith.

2011-04-28T10:58:00.000-04:00

"But [Thomas] said to them, 'Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.'” John 20:25
Dear friends, if you began to seek signs, and if you were to see them, do you know what would happen? Why, you would want more; and when you had these, you would demand still more. Those who live by their feelings judge of the truth of God by their own condition. When they have happy feelings, then they believe; but if their spirits sink, if the weather happens to be a little damp, or if their constitution happens to be a little disordered, down go their spirits, and, straightway, down goes their faith.
He that lives by a faith which does not rest on feeling, but is built upon the Word of the Lord, will remain fixed and steadfast as the mount of God; but he that craves for this thing and that thing, as a token for good at the hand of the Lord, stands in danger of perishing from want of faith.
He shall not perish, if he has even a grain of living faith, for God will deliver him from the temptation; but the temptation is a very trying one to faith.
Crave, therefore, no sign. If you read a story of a person who saw a vision, or it you hear another declare that a voice spoke to him—believe those things, or not, as you like; but do not desire them for yourself.
These wonders may, or may not, be freaks of the imagination. I will not judge; but we must not rely upon them, for we are not to walk by sight, but by faith.

A Sermon (No. 2061) C. H. SPURGEON

"Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.' Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!' Jesus said to him, 'Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'" John 20:27-29

If I do not know the one in whom I place my trust ...

2011-04-19T17:26:00.000-04:00

“No faith is grounded in the self and is thus an ‘absolute’faith;3 instead,
- there is only a faith that is grounded outside one’s own self,
- grounded outside the self,
- a faith grounded outside the center of one’s being,
- a faith that is in this sense is determined by its content.
It has its basis in the object: ‘Jesus Christ, my Lord,’ through whom, as his Son, God conveys himself as Father through the Holy Spirit and allows himself to be addressed.
Faith is in fact completely an act of trust, but it is a trust that is grounded and connected.
If I do not know the one in whom I place my trust and what I entrust to him, then faith relationship – no matter how sincerely and earnestly it may be – remains empty and aimless.
Luther’s explanation to the first commandment in the Large Catechism thus does not call attention primarily to the preparedness of the human heart, to observe one’s striving, as such, but from first to last it deals with that upon which I can place my trust …
One is reminded here of what Luther said in his interpretation of Jonah 1:5: the sailors’ prayer of faith, which showed that they all knew about God, ought not be any less intensive and upright than the faith of the Christian; but the sailors do not have a ‘certain God’ and thus they also have no certain faith.”

3 … Luther confesses that he would not choose to have free will, even if it were possible, since the certainty of salvation can be grounded only in God himself – not in the human subject.’

From “God’s Presence: The Holy Spirit” in Martin Luther’s Theology by Oswald Bayer
Eerdmans - English Translation 2008

Please know, I have bolded sections for emphasis.
- pmwl

Battle Hymn of the Reformation

2011-04-08T10:22:00.000-04:00

- enjoy!!! - pmwl

While in the way of wickedness, it can never be seen as wickedness

2011-04-07T09:38:00.000-04:00

Why is it that when caught up in some sin or powerful desire to sin, we are unable to see it for the sinfulness of what we are doing or desiring?
SIN IS ALWAYS BLIND TO ITSELF AS SIN.
This excerpt helps answer this question.

"Untruth remains undiscovered because, as Paul says, truth is held down and suppressed in unrighteousness. Being in untruth conceals untruth. The same applies to evil. It is of the essence of wickedness that it cannot see itself. In this, it resembles stupidity. Stupidity cannot see itself because some unattainable intelligence is needed to see it, to confess knowledge of one’s own ignorance. That wickedness cannot see itself but must be opened by the Pneuma (Holy Spirit) to do so finds striking expression in its constant justification, exculpation, and validation of itself. In its own eyes it is not wickedness. A related fact is that the demonic power behind wickedness shares this fate of invisibility, or better, initiates it. It is a power in the background and not in the objectifiable foreground. People never see the devil even when he has them by the throat."

-Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith Vol. 3
reposted here from Robert Bennett post on facebook - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 11:03pm.

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A method to ordering thoughts and desires in prayer based on the Litany

2011-03-31T21:01:00.001-04:00

“Lord teach us to pray...” Luke 11:1

Prayer is the only thing the disciples ever asked the Lord to teach them.
I don’t know about you, but when I take time to pray, I find that my words and thoughts get somewhat jumbled and gummed up by all the conflicting thoughts, concerns and desires I have for them. Many times, my prayers became a time of frustration as I tried to maintain focus and get all my thoughts together.
As part of my Lenten Journey, I took President Matthew Harrison up on his challenge for us to pray the Litany each morning during Lent. What a blessing this has been, for it revealed to me the way of focused and blessed prayer.

I offer these draft examples of how the Litany has taught me to order my thoughts and desires in prayer for myself, others, the church, etc. In no way do I want you to give up the Litany, as I pray this to conclude my prayers.
For MY SINS AND MY SINFULNESS -
...that I may be forgiven of my sins of thought, word and deed,
...that I may be cleansed of my guilt;
...that I may by the power of the Spirit amend my life;
...that the old man in me may be drowned and die;
...that that the power of sin be broken in me;
...and that my thinking, my speaking and my actions may be set free to honor and serve God and my neighbor:
Lord have mercy upon me and graciously forgive me for the sake of Christ. Amen.

For MY FAMILY -
...that they may be protected from all evil;
...that they grow in the Word;
...that they may grow in their faith;
...that the Holy Spirit may sanctify them with His gifts;
...that they may be faithful to the Lord;
...and that each of them may share the love of Christ in all they say and do:
...Lord have mercy upon them and be gracious to them for the sake of Christ. Amen.

For MY CONGREGATION –
...that they may be blessed with a pure preaching and teaching of the Word,
...that they worship the true God in spirit and in truth,
...that they may hunger for and rightly receive the Sacrament of our Lord’s body and blood,
...that they may manifest their faith in the vocations of their lives,
...that they may rightly support the work of the church with their time, their abilities, and their monies,
...and that they may enjoy and share the blessings of being the baptized people of God:
...Lord have mercy upon them and be gracious to them for the sake of Christ. Amen.
For _______________________________________
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... Lord have mercy upon __________________ and be gracious to ___________________ for the sake of Christ. Amen.

I hope that this method of ordering and expressing your thoughts and desires in prayer may be of benefit to you.
This method has brought me real joy, peace and blessings in my time of prayer.

- pmwl

Anfechtung 4 ... everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleaned.

2011-03-30T16:49:00.000-04:00

At this point, the parables of the gospel shed light on the problem. First, the one about the Samaritan [Luke 10:29–37] who placed the half-dead man on his beast, poured wine and oil into his wounds and asked the innkeeper to take care of him. He did not straightway cure him altogether. Similarly, we too are not entirely cured by baptism or repentance, but a beginning is made in us and the bandage of the first grace binds our wounds so that our healing may proceed from day to day until we are cured. For this reason, St. James says in James 1[:18], “God has given us birth through his word, out of his sheer gracious will, without our merit, that we should be a first fruit of his work or creatures.” This is as if to say, “So long as we live here on earth, believing in his word, we are a work that God has begun, but not yet completed; but after death we shall be perfect, a divine work without sin or fault.”
The second parable is written in Matt. 13[:33]. It tells of the leaven which the woman mixes in three measures of meal until it is thoroughly leavened. The new leaven is the faith and grace of the Spirit. It does not leaven the whole lump at once but gently, and gradually, we become like this new leaven and eventually, a bread of God. This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.
To bring the matter to a conclusion, the Lord’s Prayer alone is enough to show that all of us are still sinners, for all the saints must also pray, “Hallowed be thy name, thy will be done, thy kingdom come,” etc. Here they actually confess that they do not now adequately hallow God’s name; nevertheless they could not even offer this prayer if the Spirit had not already begun to hallow this name. Thus they confess that they do not yet fulfil the will of God and yet they could not pray this petition had they not already begun to fulfil it. For those who have not made a beginning care nothing about the name and will of God, pray for nothing, and show no interest. Nor can it be said that in these petitions the saints pray only over their past sins and not their present and remaining sins. For there is a special Petition in the Lord’s Prayer that deals with past sins which says, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” These other Petitions, however, obviously refer to the other sins which are now present. For this reason, they ask that in the future God’s name be honored, the divine will be obeyed, and the kingdom of God be attained. These are the prayers of men who are still partly in the kingdom of the devil, partly disobedient, and partly guilty of dishonoring the name of God.

Career of the Reformer II.
(Luther's Works 32), S. 32:24

... the noble contents of the Word, must divide souls from the world and bring them near to God.

2011-03-30T16:30:00.000-04:00

IN PRAISE OF PREACHING
by Wilhelm Lohe

Among the means which the church uses to save souls, preaching stands first. It is the means by which those are called who stand afar off, and those who have been called are rendered steadfast in their calling and election.
In preaching, the church does not aim to support the holy Word by human art, but the chief matter is not to hinder its power and operation and not to impose upon the Word any kind or manner of operation which does not befit it.
The preacher proclaims salvation in Christ Jesus with the consciousness that not what he does, but the noble contents of the Word, must divide souls from the world and bring them near to God.
Of course the preacher believes and therefore speaks, and it is a detestable contradiction to preach and yet not to believe; but a true preacher will not try to recommend the truth by imparting his faith and experience; that would be only to recommend himself; rather does he seek to bring his people to say with the Samaritans: “Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.” [John 4:42]
An upright preacher does not purposely withdraw himself, nor does he purposely make himself prominent, but he comes with the Word and the Word comes with him; he is a simple, faithful witness of the Word, and the Word witnesses to him; he and his Word appear like one thing.
All his preaching is based upon holy peace. Even when he rebukes, and zeal for God’s house eats him up, it is not the wrath of the restless world, but the wrath of the unapproachable God of peace, that burns within him.
It is not he that speaks, but the Lord speaks in him and through him, and his execution of his office is worthy of the Lord.
The churchly preacher always may be known by his manliness and maturity.
In great confidence in the divine Word he therefore despises every sort of machinery. He has a method, the method of simplicity.
He does not seek to win friends for the Lord Jesus Christ by means of human eloquence, nor by exciting the feelings, nor by a meretricious excitement of the nerves.
His object is not a disturbed awakening, but the transformation of divine thoughts.
Just as vocation goes on to enlightenment, and all progress in the inner life is conditioned by the progress of knowledge; so he seeks before all else to make the holy thoughts of the divine Word rightly known and to bring them before the memory, contemplation, will and inmost being of his hearers.
He does not despise the feelings of men, but he awakens them by holding before them the heavenly light, or rather he sets up this light and is assured that with its ray warmth also will proceed from it.
His watchwords are not Awake and the like, but those words of Scripture which refer to the gradual, silent growth of the divine mustard-seed.
His insistence and compulsion are not the insistence and compulsion of human impatience, but a just patient waiting on the Word.
He gladly waits, knowing that precious fruits do not grow in a night.
And he waits upon all his sheep, for he knows that the Lord has his own hour, his own haste, but also his own delays.

Three Books Concerning the Church,
tr. By Edward T. Horn (Reading, Pa.: Pilger Publishing House, 1908), pp. 181 ff.

Anfechtung 3 "God in his mercy ordains their sufferings and difficulties for them..."

2011-03-25T13:53:00.000-04:00

Let us ask further whether, when everything goes wrong [in the believer’s life] with their life, their goods, their honor, their friends, or whatever they have, they still believe that their works are well-pleasing to God, and that God in his mercy ordains their sufferings and difficulties for them, whether they be small or great.
The great thing in life is to have a sure confidence in God when, at least as far as we can see or understand, he shows himself in wrath, and to expect better at his hands than we now know.
Here God is hidden, as the bride says in the Song of Songs [2:9], “Behold there he stands behind our wall, gazing in through the windows.”
That means he stands hidden among the sufferings which would separate us from him like a wall, indeed, like a wall of a fortress.
And yet he looks upon me and does not forsake me. He stands there and is ready to help in grace, and through the window of dim faith he permits himself to be seen. And Jeremiah says in Lamentations 3[:39–33], “He casts men aside, but that is not the intention of his heart.”
These people know nothing at all of this kind of a faith, and they give themselves over to thinking that God has forsaken them and is their enemy. They even lay the blame on other men or on the devil, and have simply no confidence at all in God. For this reason, too, their suffering is always an offense to them and harmful. And yet they go on doing their good works, as they think, quite unaware of their serious unbelief.
But they who in such suffering trust God and hold on to a good, firm confidence in him, who believe that he is well-pleased with them, see in their sufferings and afflictions nothing but pure and precious merits, the costliest treasures which no man can assess.
For faith and confidence make precious before God all that which others think most shameful, so that it is written even of death in Psalm 116[:15], “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” And just as confidence and faith are better, higher, and stronger at this stage than in the first, so the sufferings which are borne in this kind of faith excel all works of faith. Therefore there is an immeasurable difference between such works and sufferings, and the sufferings are better.
Beyond all this is the highest stage of faith, when God punishes the conscience not only with temporal sufferings but with death, hell, and sin, and at the same time refuses grace and mercy, as though he wanted to condemn and show his anger eternally. Few men experience this as David did when he complained in Psalm 6[:1], “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger.”
To believe at such times that God is gracious and well-disposed toward us is the greatest work that may ever happen to and in a man, but of this the work-righteous and the doers of good works know nothing at all. For how would they know to expect God’s goodness and grace in these circumstances when they are not certain about the works they do and have doubts at the lowest stage of faith?

Martin Luther - The Christian in Society I.
(Luther's Works 44), S. 44:27

... it would be nice if a small group kind of magically happened in our living room

2011-03-14T12:46:00.000-04:00

Saying you’re having a hard time “connecting” at church.
March 3, 2011

This church isn’t very friendly. Have you noticed that? We might need to change to a new church, because we’re having a really hard time connecting at this one. We’ve been coming here for six months, sitting in service, not talking to anyone, then immediately sprinting out of the building and going home. And no one has connected with us. Rude!
We haven’t met anyone in small group either. We didn’t sign up for one, but still, it would be nice if a small group kind of magically happened in our living room, on a night that was convenient for us and someone brought banana pudding. Not box banana pudding, but like the kind your grandmother used to make. Is that so much to ask for?
Probably, considering that this church doesn’t really seem to reach out to people who have spent six months attending Sunday morning service and not participating in any other activities.
No one even called us and asked why we weren’t at the fall festival. Sure, we’ve never given them our number, but google it. And then help us connect.
I thought this church was going to be different. I thought it wouldn’t be like the last three churches we attended. Remember those three? Always saying, “Please stay for lunch and learn about the church. Please let us know if you have any questions. Please come to our first time visitor’s luncheon.” So annoying.
What’s that you say? Where are we serving at the church? Serving is a great way to get connected and plug into a place that is ultimately a two way street of people loving and giving and growing together? Even something as simple as handing out bulletins can jump start new relationships with new people? Ugh, that sounds like a lot of work. Quit judging us.
And start connecting us.
We’re having a hard time connecting at this church.

- Jon Acuff

http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2011/03/4551/

Anfechtung 2 - ... caught up in the complex spiritual dynamics of sin at war with the love of God.

2011-03-13T19:54:00.000-04:00

While the author speaks of sin at work in the unbeliever, the same soul struggle takes place with the believer as his old man and Satan attempt to him take control of his sin and guilt.

“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.” Proverbs 18:1 (ESV) According to this text, a person first becomes estranged or “isolated” – that is, a close relationship is broken, so that love is replaced by hatred or indifference.

The person who is estranged then looks for “pretexts” – excuses, rationalizations, arguments, and other masks that cover up the real problem. The person uses the “pretexts” to “break out” against the truth.

When friends hurt our feelings, their objective faults, which never bothered us before, stand out in glaring clarity.

It is true in our relationship with God. When we become “estranged” from God (that is, when we sin), we often start to manufacture a whole range of excuses by which we can “break out” against the truth of His Word. In fact, there seems to be a pattern of unbelief, a cycle that can be seen in the lives of many unbelievers. It goes something like this:

A young man is raised in a Christian home and has some measure of belief in Christ. He then becomes involved in some overt sin. This can be any sin-pride, covetousness, addiction, dishonoring of parents, worldliness. It is often a sexual sin. He has the honesty and presence of mind to realize that his favorite sin is incompatible with the Christian faith. He has the moral sensitivity to experience guilt.

There are two ways he can respond. He may repent of the sin and turn to Christ to receive full and free forgiveness. Or he may hold on to the sin, treasure it, and refuse to give it up either overtly or emotionally. He starts to center his life around the sin, to seek from it consolation, help, and escape, to find in it, in effect, the meaning of his life.

But what about the guilt? If he is not interested in repenting and being forgiven, then there is only one way to end the torment: To reject whatever it is that brands his life as evil. If what I am doing is not really wrong, then I can “feel good about myself.” If there is no objective standard of right and wrong, I can do as I please. If there is no God, then I am not a sinner.

At this point, the “pretexts are discovered. There are many reasons not to believe in God. They become extremely persuasive to someone who does not want God to exist. The arguments with the most force become those that turn one’s own moral failures against the Judge, so that the person’s own sinfulness is projected onto God Himself: “I can never believe in God because He allows so much evil in the world.”

God becomes imagined not as the source of good, but as the source of evil.

The moral crusade becomes directed against Christians in general – a narrow mined, intolerant, hypocritical lost – and against the Church in particular. The moral zeal creates a feeling of self-righteousness, a precious feeling to someone who has been tormented by guilt.

But his confidence is not totally secure. The very smell of Christianity or the very mention of Jesus Christ triggers his defenses. He lashes out at anything or anyone that represents the old belief that is still so accusing him. He “breaks out” with startling emotion and aggressiveness against something that, supposedly, he does not even believe exists. He may lose himself in humanitarian causes. He may develop new theologies. He may become one of those professors in a university who delights in tearing down his students’ faith. But there is a presence that will not go away, something looming in the background that he must always either fight against or give in to.

This psychological pattern can be broken at any point by the Word of God, by the devastating truth of God’s Law and the penetrating grace that is offered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who died to save sinners.

The unbeliever is not playing an intellectual game but is caught up in the complex spiritual dynamics of sin at war with the love of God. For a Christian, this pattern illustrates the slippery slope of unrepentant and rationalized sin.

pp. 78-80

LOVING GOD WITH ALL YOUR MIND

Thinking as a Christian in a Postmodern World.

Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

The Anfechtung - The Soul Turmoil of The Christian Life - 1

2011-03-09T17:09:00.000-05:00

Anfechtung - the painful turmoil and struggle of a believer’s soul that takes place when worldly events and experience seem to wholly contradict the Gospel message of our sure victory in Jesus Christ.

“I will give an example to confirm this faith and console that evil eye which suspects God of injustice. As you can see, God so orders this corporal world in its external affairs that if you respect and follow the judgment of human reason, you are bound to say either that there is no God or that God is unjust. For look at the prosperity the wicked enjoy and the adversity the good endure, and note how both proverbs and that parent of proverbs, experience, testify that the bigger the scoundrel the greater his luck. “The tents of the ungodly are at peace,” says Job [Job 12:6], and Psalm 72[73:12] complains that the sinners of the world increase in riches. Tell me, is it not in everyone’s judgment most unjust that the wicked should prosper and the good suffer? But that is the way of the world. Here even the greatest minds have stumbled and fallen, denying the existence of God and imagining that all things are moved at random by blind Chance or Fortune. The prophets, however, who did believe in God, had more temptation to regard him as unjust—Jeremiah, for instance, and Job, David, Asaph, and others.
Yet all this, which looks so very like injustice in God, and which has been represented as such with arguments that no human reason or light of nature can resist, is very easily dealt with in the light of the gospel and the knowledge of grace, by which we are taught that although the ungodly flourish in their bodies, they lose their souls.
In fact, this whole insoluble problem finds a quick solution in one short sentence, namely, that there is a life after this life, and whatever has not been punished and rewarded here will be punished and rewarded there, since this life is nothing but an anticipation, or rather, the beginning of the life to come.”

- Martin Luther (Luther's Works 33), S. 33:291

Blessed Lent & An Invitation To Prayer

2011-03-09T14:49:00.003-05:00

Lent is a time for step back from the world and take time to get on our knees and repent and pray to the Lord. Pres. Harrison, who wishes us a Blessed Lent and invites us to pray the Litany daily with him in the video below:

Blessed Lent from VimeoLCMS on Vimeo.

It is my goal to daily take Pres. Harrison up on his invitation and begin each day throughout Lent by praying the Litany (LSB 288-89). I will further close each day with Suffrages (Responsive Prayer 1 or 2 LSB 282-84 / 285-87).

I invite you to take this journey in prayer.

- pmwl

Living according to a reality greater than your plans

2011-03-01T10:18:00.000-05:00

LUTHERAN WITNESS June 21, 1887 pg. 14 - Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=GMEpAAAAYAAJ&dq=lutheran&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=false

We do best when all is against us

2011-02-28T06:54:00.000-05:00

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, IF NECESSARY, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
First Peter 1:6-7

In the history of the Church. - When has she made her greatest number of adherents? When her pulpits have been filled with eloquent preachers, and her aisles crowded with fashion and wealth? No; but when she has been driven to the dens and caves of the earth, and her sons have been proscribed outcasts. The real triumphs of the early Church were in the first centuries of opprobrium and persecution; her decline began when Constantine made Christianity the religion of the State.
In the history of each earnest soul. - It is rarely the case that we make much spiritual headway when winds and currents favor us. We do best when all is against us. We grow quickest in the dark. In times of persecution we realize the security, and comfort, and joy, which are in Christ Jesus our Lord; and as God goes the round of the world, it is in chambers of pain, sickness, and bereavement, that He beholds the multiplication of the choice graces of holy character and temper. The affliction, which is for the moment, is working out an exceeding weight of glory.

F.B. Meyer

Pastor Walther's Meditations: There Are Times...

2011-02-24T09:08:00.000-05:00

An excellent reminder to each of us as the ruler of this fallen world, Satan presses us to despair and let loose of Christ. We have been given God's Word - Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected over Satan and anything with which he might press or crush us. Thanks be to God that this Word holds us and resurrects us daily through faith.

Pastor Walther's Meditations: There Are Times...

that ‘economy of salvation,’ ‘in which the rich, noble, righteous bridegroom Christ takes as spouse the poor, shamed, evil little whore.

2011-02-21T11:23:00.000-05:00

An excellent excerpt from ‘Through the Son, Our Lord’: God as Mercy and Love in Martin Luther’s Theology by Oswald Bayer -

“God action of salvation cannot be described in any other way; it use intense wording and takes place on the edge and the point of the rupture, as

‘[that] happy exchange, in which the rich, noble, righteous bridegroom Christ takes as spouse the poor, shamed, evil little whore[cf. Hosea 1-3] and acquits her of all evil, decorating her with all good things. Thus it is not possible that the sins will damn her; now they lie upon Christ and have been swallowed up by him. She thus has such a rich righteousness from her bridegroom that she can survive once again against all sins – even if they would lie upon her. Paul speaks about this in 1 Corinthians 15:[57; 55; cf. Hosea 13:14]: “Praise and thanks to God, who has given us such a conquest in Christ Jesus, in which death is swallowed up, together with sin.”’ (WA 7:26.4-12;LW 31:352)

This passage cited from On the Freedom of a Christian is placed within a context in which Luther states three times what is meant by the unio (union) of the ‘Word of God’ and ‘soul,’ about God and the human being in faith. …. that ‘happy transaction,’ and ‘economy of salvation,’ ‘in which the rich, noble, righteous bridegroom Christ takes as spouse the poor, shamed, evil little whore.’”

pp. 329-230

Only the Lord's Word has the power to call a thing what it is ...

2011-02-21T10:38:00.000-05:00

CAUGHT AND NOT CAUGHT

Monday - Epiphany 7 - 1 February 2011

from Esther 7:1-10

It seemed like a good idea when a policeman pulling second shift decided that he'd stretch out in the back seat of his police cruiser and take a little nap during his break. He fell right asleep, and slept well. When he woke up he remembered a funny thing about the back seat of police cars. The doors don't open from the inside. Sometimes people are too clever by half. They are caught by their own good plans, which don't work out so well. I had planned to use PowerPoint to make a presentation on the church's lectionary in Bible class on Sunday. However, I was thwarted by the technology that suffered a delaying glitch. So I had to ad lib the first part of the presentation without the visuals. It would have been better if I had not depended on the technology, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. We can be thwarted by our own craftiness.

Our heavenly Father thwarts the worldly wise by catching them in their own craftiness (1Co 3:19). The story of Haman in the Old Testament book of Esther certainly falls into this category. Haman plotted an ancient Kristallnacht for the Jews of Persia to destroy them. However, his wicked plan was turned upon him when Esther, having found favor in his eyes, begged King Ahasuerus for her life and the life of her people. The very slaughter Haman had planned for the Jews was visited upon his own head. "For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and to destroy them. But when it came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows" (Est 9:24-25). His wicked plan not only failed but was the source of his own miserable demise. If God's wise foolishness will not suffice, then your own foolish wisdom will have to do; and with predictable results. If God's strong weakness is not good enough for you, then your own weak strength will be just enough.

Yet, we find ourselves easily enamored of the world's wisdom. Look how powerful it is! Worldly wisdom has now produced a super computer that can defeat the Jeopardy champions. Soon they will say that Alex Trebek could be replaced by a computer! Worldly wisdom has created such beautiful people with plastic surgery and airbrushing that we doubt their reality, but still we are enamored of such persons, listening to their empty-headed advice and buying the worthless products for which they are shills. This kind of brilliance is not wisdom. This kind of beauty is quite shallow. Yet, in our spiritual laxity we are attracted by it and trapped by it. We can't recognize its poverty and weakness by ourselves. God, in His true wisdom must warn us of its empty power and discourage our following it. Only the divine Word can disclose the true meaning of the world's wisdom because it is the divine speech. Only the Lord's Word has the power to call a thing what it is; to call worldly wisdom foolishness. Only He rightly knows the foolishness of the seeming wise; and calls it futile. This Word must catch us if we are to avoid being caught by our own craftiness. Only the Lord Jesus Himself can catch us so that we are not caught.

John Chrysostom

"Paul urged men to withdraw themselves from worldly wisdom. He adds the reason, saying, 'For the wisdom of this world is folly with God' (1Co 3:19). For it not only contributes nothing, but it even hinders. We must then withdraw ourselves from it, because it is doing harm. Paul carries off the spoils of victory with a high hand, having proven that, so far from benefiting us at all, worldly wisdom is diametrically opposed to the faith.

"He is not content with his own arguments, but he has also added testimony: 'For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness"' (Job 5:13). By 'craftiness,' he means their own arms get the better of them. For seeing they made use of their wisdom so that they would do away with all need for God, through this need, and no other thing, He refuted them by showing that they were especially in need of God. How and by what method? Because by human wisdom having become fools, by this worldly wisdom, as was appropriate, they were caught. For those who supposed that they did not need God were reduced to so great a difficulty that they appeared inferior to fishermen and uneducated persons; and from that time forth were unable to do without such people. Therefore he said, 'In their own craftiness' God caught them. For the saying 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,' (1Co 1:19) was spoken to show it introduced nothing useful; but this, 'He catches the wise in their craftiness' was spoken with a view of showing the power of God.

"Next, he declares also the mode by which God caught them, adding another testimony: 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile' (1Co 3:20; cf. Ps 94:11). Now when the Wisdom which is boundless pronounces this edict concerning them, and declares them to be such, what other proof of their extreme foolishness do you need? For human judgment, it is true, in many cases fails; but the decision of God is absolutely beyond our comprehension and is incorruptible."

John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 10.3

from Memorial Moments by Rev. Dr. Scott Murray
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=gxf7b9bab&v=001VJlu5GGZPDShskItU8JnKKVVeAoByxdfxBV_9pGctvek1K77SmouHetkSfLRJPy-u4SnEfLfouTJ77gTrdDbrO3T4VkRBqK3YhHPK7Dhx8o%3D

... to justify and demand that all the arrows in this world ... must point toward and be about me.

2011-02-17T10:46:00.001-05:00

Theology during the time of the Reformation, and throughout most of the period known as “modernism," suffered from the “magisterial” use of reason. Where human reason/thinking and comprehension are given authority over the Biblical texts, there will be the limitations on what God actually is, what He actually says and what He actually does. How much has the full truth, and thus the full salvation and thus the full comfort of God been denied to those who deal with God’s Word, and thus God Himself, according to the tyranny of their human limitations.

What of the theology in our day? The human attribute of reason has been tossed to the curb in favor of another human attribute. This “magisterial” use of this human attribute has been elevated far above and beyond that of human reason. So great is the authority given to this human attribute that it can completely displace the Word of God and thus God Himself, in favor of that which satisfies the demands of this attribute.
What is this attribute? Emotion. Anything in the Scriptures, anything commanded of God, promised of God, and decreed by God, all must bow before the majestic use of emotion. Where emotion reigns, the validity of who and what God is, is determined not by what He is or says, but by how one feels about Him. Where emotion reigns, the validity of others in our lives and our responsibility to them is subject to how one feels.
Theology then becomes full blown “Meology” under the guise of “spirituality”. This meology by any other name would be called narcissism.
The “magisterial” use of emotion is just another manifestation of what St. Augustine identified as the root problem of humanity - Incurvatus in se – “curved in on itself”. What I refer to as the “magisterial” use of emotion is nothing more than an attempt to justify and demand that all the arrows in this world, all the people in one’s life, the church and even God Himself - must point toward and be about me.
Feelings are so much like Satan it is terrifying. Feelings offer us much and entice us to much, and if given completely up to them, leave us destitute.
Many would contend that our post-modern world is more open to the Gospel than ever before. I disagree. While our post-modern world has lost its love affair with reason, this same world has fallen head over heels in love what provides the feelings it wants. The opening of the Gospel will come only when one has been so ravaged and tormented by the unfaithfulness of feelings, that one loses faith in the ability of feelings to determine what is true and to rule over what really is true.
"... preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." 2 Timothy 4:2-5

- pmwl

Where the resurrected flesh of Christ is present, there is no room for human flesh or it's works.

2011-02-17T09:48:00.000-05:00

An excellent post from Luther on why the fleshly resurrection of Christ is such a blessing as that same flesh is also omnipresent. Thanks to Dr. Kilcrease for posting this.

Great Steven Paulson Quote on the Absolute Omnipresence of Christ

From his excellent book Luther for Armchair Theologians, my out teacher Dr. Steven Paulson writes on the absolute omnipresence of Christ:
"Luther is even willing to pause for a minute and talk about Christ's body being wherever Christ is- and that means everywhere present! Of course, this makes human reason and its buff, free will feel crowded out of the world."
In other words, human reason that lusts for self-justification through imaginary free will, is "crowded out" of the world when it recognizes that Christ is all-present "for you." If the gracious God found in the flesh of Jesus reigns and is present everywhere, the human person loses all their power to establish themselves before God by their good works. There is no distance from this incarnate God within which they can use their free will in order to move towards him. They can only accept in faith that Christ is all-present and gracious pro nobis.

Posted by Dr. Jack Kilcrease at 6:07 AM
http://jackkilcrease.blogspot.com/2011/02/great-steven-paulson-quote-on-absolute.html?showComment=1297953550737#c3766523589211954060

Who was St. Valentine???

2011-02-14T09:55:00.000-05:00

He was medical doctor and priest who lived in Rome while the Emperor Claudius II ruled.

Valentine and Marius assisted the martyrs during the persecution under Claudius II.

Valentine was captured and when he would not renouce his faith, was beaten with clubs, and afterwards, he was beheaded on February 14, about the year 270.

The church began to commemorate his death in 496 AD, when it was added to the western church's official Calendar of Remembrance.

Tradition holds that that on the day he was executed for his faithfulness to Christ, he left a note to encourage his prison guard's son. This not was written on an oddly shaped piece of parchment/paper.

Tradition further contends that this note of encouragment and the odd shape of the parchment/paper is where the current Valentine's Day pattern for the expressions of love, encouragment and devotion came from.

Everlasting Extras: Theology of the Cross

2011-02-11T12:40:00.001-05:00

The difference between living by faith in God according to what God says despite what I experience (theology of the Cross) and living by a faith in God according to what my experience says God is saying (theology of Glory).

It is your philosophy that is tormenting you, not your theology ...

2011-02-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

"With all my heart I hate those cares by which you state that you are consumed.

They rule your heart, not account of the greatness of the cause but by reason of the greatness of your unbelief.

The same cause existed in the time of John Hus and many others, and they had a harder time of it than we do.

Great though our cause is, its Author and Champion is also great, for the cause is not ours.

Why, then, are you constantly tormenting yourself?

If our cause is false, let us recant.

But if it is true, why should we make Him a liar who has given us such great promises and who commands us to be confident and undismayed? ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord,’ (Ps. 55:11) says he. ‘The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him.’ (Ps 145:18).

Does he speak like this for nothing, or to beasts?

It is your philosophy that is tormenting you, not your theology …

What good to you expect to accomplish by these vain worries of yours?

What can the devil do more than slay us? Yes, what?

I beg you, who are so pugnacious in everything else, fight against yourself, your own worst enemy, for you furnish Satan with too many weapons against yourself.

Christ died once for our sins. He will not die again for truth and just, but will live and reign.

If this be true, and if he reigns, why should you be afraid for the truth?

Perhaps you are afraid that it will be destroyed by God’s wrath. Even if we should ourselves be destroyed, let it not be by our own hands.

He who is our Father will also be the Father of our children

God, who is able to raise the dead, is also able to uphold his cause
when it is falling, or to raise it up again when it has fallen, or to move it
forward when it is standing.

If we are not worthy instruments to accomplish his purpose, he will
find others.

If we are not strengthened by his promises, where in all the world are
the people to whom these promises apply?"

Martin Luther’s letter to Melanchton

Monday after St. John’s day, 1530

Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel

T.G. Tappert - p. 146-147

Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison: "The Gospel is the end of all religions." Sasse

2011-02-05T21:42:00.001-05:00

An excellent explanation as to why many who come into the church, quickly leave the church. To remain in the church where Christ alone is life and salvation would require and end to their own self-directed self-focused faith.

Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison: "The Gospel is the end of all religions." Sasse: "Under no circumstances will the world understand that the church has any other task than to bring her message to the world. In any event ..."

Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison: "The Gospel is the end of all religions." Sasse

2011-02-05T21:42:00.000-05:00

Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison: The Primary and Secondary Functions of the Church....

2011-02-03T22:21:00.000-05:00

Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison: The Primary and Secondary Functions of the Church....: "Contemporary Christianity is well known for its tendency to confuse the primary [word and sacrament] and secondary functions [charity] wi..."

... to lose the magnitude of the privilege of prayer

2011-02-02T22:51:00.000-05:00

While there are many definitions and ideas about prayer, most are often high-jacked by subjective self-serving ideas.

When people are exhorted to pray, the motive for daily prayer is often couched in terms of personal gain or advantage to the petitioner as they wrangle things out of God.

It seems as if the exercise of prayer is often carried out in the context of personal discomfort or need. In this context prayer’s purpose is often merely a matter of describing one’s symptoms to a divine doctor, in hopes he has some miracle cure to what discomforts or inconveniences the petitioner.

To pray according to such an understanding and practice of prayer is to lose the magnitude of what the Lord has given each believer in privilege of prayer.

To pray is put the realities of the moment into the context of eternal realities.

To pray is to put the values of the present into the context of eschatological values.

To pray is to put that which bound yet in sin into the hands of He who Son has set them eternally free.

To pray is to set the aspirations of life for the day into the context of the certain hope of eternal life.

To pray is to release that which I have no hold on into the hands that He who holds all things together.

To pray is to bring what is worldly into the Kingdom that shall have no end.

To pray is to be fully human in the presence of He who is God for us, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

- pmwl

Prayer: ASKING FOR GOD’S PRESENCE IN EVERYTHING

2011-01-31T10:29:00.000-05:00

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26

In the prayers we pray, we ask for many things. We pray for a sick brother, for a dying mother, for a struggling newborn, for help with our troubles, for inspiration, for strength, and for many other things. Most often we pray for ourselves and our immediate needs. St. Francis of Assisi reminds us that in all the things we are praying for, we are praying above all else for God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. St. Francis wrote: “The heart of prayer is not asking God for something, but asking for the presence of God in everything.” When we ask for “daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking for more than those things which provide for our earthly welfare. We are asking for Him, for Almighty God’s presence as we receive and partake of these gifts thankfully.
Many people are so often disappointed when their prayers go unanswered or the answers are other than they wanted. Yet God tells us that His presence is enough. In Psalm 46, God tells David: “Be still, and know that I am God.” This simple instruction is so often misunderstood. David was dealing with many concerns, fears, and needs. In his fear and worry, David was addressing all these to the Lord in his prayers. David had prayed and prayed and it seemed as if the Lord was not answering David according to His needs. God’s response, God’s answer to David’s needs, his worries, and his fears is for him to “be still, and know that I am God.”
How does David hear God’s answer? What does it mean for David in the face of all his needs, all his fears, and all his wants and prayers? What is it that David heard and we should hear in these simple words of God?
God is telling David and us, “IT IS ENOUGH THAT I AM YOUR GOD WITH YOU.” IN ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU WANT AND NEED, WORRY ABOUT, AND FEAR – IT IS ENOUGH FOR YOU TO BE CONFIDENT AND AT PEACE – THAT I AM GOD WITH YOU AND FOR YOU.
St. Francis reminds us in our prayers we are asking for what God told King David was enough: THAT HE IS GOD AND HE IS WITH US AND HIS PRESENCE IS ENOUGH.
This is reflected in Jesus teaching us to pray – THY KINGDOM COME – be with us, first and THY WILL BE DONE – among us as it is in heaven, second, and then GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD.
In our life as Christians, we pray for what God gave us in baptism, the presence of God in everything, because it was and is by the presence of Jesus Christ in them, that He can fill them with His grace and life which will perfect us and all things for us. Our new life was born of God’s presence in the waters of Baptism, our new life is nourished on God’s real presence in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. Our new life of faith grows and is strengthened, as the Lord’s presence comes to us in and through His Word.

- pmwl

because of the engagement ring of faith ...

2011-01-26T23:16:00.000-05:00

An excellent excerpt from ‘Through the Son, Our Lord’: God as Mercy and Love in Martin Luther’s Theology by Oswald Bayer -

“Luther speaks impressively about the ‘happy exchange,’ [Freedom of a Christian] about a transfer, and uses this biblical marriage metaphor, and the way it is used, to characterize the mystique of the bride. This is expressed paradigmatically in On the Freedom of a Christian, section 12: faith ‘binds the soul with Christ, just as the bride with the bridegroom. By means of this secret (as the apostle teaches [Eph. 5:32]) Christ and the soul become one flesh.’ [WA 7:54.3f.; cf. LW 31:351]

‘Since Christ is namely God and human in on and same person, who not only has not sinned, not died, and is not damned, but instead neither can sin, nor die, nor be damned, and because his righteousness, his life, his salvation is unconquerable, eternal, almighty—because, I say, such a person become one with the sins of the bride, her death and her hell because of the engagement ring of faith, and in fact makes them his own, and acts in no other way than as if they are his own and as if he himself had sinned – going through great exertions, dying, and descending into hell – so that he could overcome everything and, because sin, death, and hell could not swallow him up, everything therefore is swallowed up in him [“absorbed,” 1 Cor 15:54] by means of a battle between two that awakens astonishment. For his righteousness is spread out over the sins of all, his life is stronger than every death, his salvation is more invincible than any hell. In this way the believing soul is freed from all sins by the dowry; its faith in Christ, its bridegroom, is safe in the face of death, and is protected from hell, because the eternal righteousness as well as the eternal life and salvation of its bridegroom Christ are all given to it as gift. Thus he creates himself a magnificent bride without spot or wrinkle, since he purifies her in the bath with water through the Word of life [Eph. 5:27, 26], that is, through what is worked through faith, which comes through the Word, through life, through righteousness, and through salvation. Thus he betroths himself to her in faith, in mercy compassion, in righteousness and judgment, as it is stated in Hosea 2[:19-20].’ [WA 7:55.7-23 (Translation of the Latin version)] ”

pg. 225-226

pmwl

In Changes that humble you

2011-01-19T08:50:00.000-05:00

As you deal with the changes and reverses of this life that often come at a time not of your choosing, let God's Spirit lead you in Christ, remembering these words of wisdom from the Book of Sirach:

Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you be patient. For gold is tested is tested in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Trust in God, and He will help you."

Book of Sirach 2:4-6
Apocrypha -

When your own emptiness is painfully forced upon your consciousness

2011-01-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

Please note that I have updated some the wording of this excerpt and edited it with bracketed additions[].

“By all the castings down of His servants, God is glorified, for we are led to magnify Him when again He sets us upon our feet, and even while prostrate in the dust our faith yields Him praise.
[For it is here that we gain a proper perspective of ourselves, who by our sin have reduced ourselves to dust.] It is here that we speak all the more sweetly of His faithfulness, and are the more firmly established in His love.
[The great champions of faith] could scarcely have been produced if they had not been emptied from vessel to vessel, and made to see their own emptiness and the vanity of all things round about them.
Glory be to God for the furnace, the hammer, and the file. Heaven shall be all the fuller of bliss because we have been filled with anguish here below, and earth shall be better tilled because of our training in the school of adversity.
The lesson of wisdom is, be not dismayed by soul-trouble.
Count it no strange thing, but a part of ordinary [living the faith] experience, [as St. Paul testifies of it in Romans 7].
Should the power of depression be more than ordinary, think not that all is over with your usefulness.
Do not cast away your confidence, for it has great recompense of reward.
Even if the enemy’s foot be on your neck, expect to rise and overthrow him.
Cast the burdens of the present, along with the sins of the past and the fears of the future, upon the Lord, who does not forsake His saints.
Live by the day, and yes, by the hour.
Put no trust in frames and feelings.
Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement.
Trust in God alone, and lean not on the reeds of human help.
Be not surprised when friends fail you: it is a failing world.
Never count upon immutability in man: you may count on inconstancy without fear of disappointment.
The disciples of Jesus forsook Him; be not amazed if your [friends an even family leave and forsake you, for they never belonged to you and your life is not found in them.] [A]ll is not gone from you with their departure.
Serve God with all your might while the candle is burning, and then when it goes out for a season, you will have the less to regret.
Be content to be nothing, for that is what you are.
When your own emptiness [or nothingness] is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you ever dreamed of being full [or something more], except in the Lord [Jesus Christ].
Set small store the rewards [this world today]; be grateful for [the divine promises and works of God through His Word and Sacraments along your] way, [and] look for the recompensing joy hereafter [in the place Christ has prepared].
Continue with double dedication to serve your Lord when no visible result is before you.
Any simpleton can follow the narrow path in the light: faith’s rare wisdom enables us to march on in the dark with infallible accuracy, since [faith receives the hand] of our great Guide.
Between this and heaven there may be rougher weather yet. Nevertheless, it is all provided for by our Head, [Jesus Christ].
In nothing let us be turned aside from the path that the [Word of God] has urged us to pursue.
Come fair or come foul, the [life of faith is our station, and living the faith is our way] when we cannot see the face of God, [so that we might trust in Him all the more while dwelling] under the shadow of His wings.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Minister’s Prayer Book
John W. Doberstein - Pg. 226-227

The definitive work in justification is outside us, not inside us.

2011-01-03T10:03:00.001-05:00

For those who seek to better understand what justification really is and why it has to be outside of us.

Excerpts from "CHRIST HAVE MERCY How to Put Your Faith in Action" Pgs 58-60
by Matthew C. Harrison, LCMS President.

I highly recommend this book to all!

Please note that all bracketed [] sections are my additions for further exposition, not by way of saying what President Harrison failed to say, but saying what I want the reader to grasp about the reality of our constant need for the salvific justification - completely other than and outside of ourselves.

"We are justified “for Christ’s sake,” not because we changed something within ourselves. It may be easy to conclude that we are better people under the Law because faith does create love and motivate good works. However, though we do grow in grace, no matter how we grow, “the Law always accuses us, always presents an angry God to us. ... Afterward, we begin to keep the Law …. In the flesh we never satisfy the Law.””

Thus justification is not a one-time event. God, “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5). To be just, we must also always be “ungodly” under the Law. And the text that demonstrates this dual saint/sinner, justified/condemned, Gospel/Law nature of being a Christian is Romans 7, which is presented by the apostle Paul in the present tense: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing …. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand …. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through ; Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:19, 21, 24-25).
[Notice the constancy of sin in us, “the evil I do not want is what I KEEP ON DOING.”
This testifies to the constancy of our need for justification. There is never a moment in this life where we are not the “wretched man” in need of constant need God's eternal justification. The more one strives against this reality the more entraped one becomes in their helplessness to free themselves from it. Many do not like this truth because it is humbling and humiliating. Yet it is a truth that is constantly knocking at our door. We may ignore the knocking of our wretchedness for a time, but it is a truth of the Law dthat will kick in the doors of our lives and rightly rob everyone their treasured illusions and ideas of themselves as good people. Only then will we look outside of ourselves.]
We are justified [that is made holy and blameless, i.e. un-wretched, in God’s sight because of what God has done in Christ (Eph 1:3-14)], not because of something that has changed “within us.
Adolf Koberle’s book “The Quest for Holiness” demonstrates how perpetual attempts at self-justification occur along three persistent paths: attempts at perfecting the mind, the will, and the emotions.
In real life, it works out this way:
[Those seeking to perfect their mind, their thinking, their thoughts, i.e.] the intellectual, seeks to comprehend and define the divine.
[Those seeking to purify their mind, their speaking and their doing, i.e.] the moralist, strives to possess pure moral thought and action.
[Those seeking perfection of the inner self, i.e.] the mystic, seeks to empty himself of everything that is not “god” and seeks to feel god by his ecstatic presence.
All three of these are fruits from the same tree [of self-justification or a self-awareness of their justification apart from its forensic declaration of God’s Word in Christ].
All of this is the antithesis of, [the complete other and contrary to] grace. “For Christ’s sake” we are just.
The definitive work in justification is outside us, not inside us.
This work was performed by Jesus Christ, not us, and it occurred on Golgotha more than two thousand years ago. “It is finished!” Jesus cried out from the cross (John 19:30).
The apostle Paul explains: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19) [not to yourself or the world].
This act transcends all of history. It was justification for me and for everyone who ever lived before and after Jesus. Peter testifies, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
We are justified by grace through faith.
In justification (God declaring me not guilty) faith is passive; it only receives the gift.
• If salvation is by grace, then it is free and not our doing.
• If salvation is for Christ’s sake (because of His work), then its cause and source are outside of us, that is, apart from us.
• Faith is nothing in and of itself. It merely lays hold of Christ, His accomplished work, and the forgiveness of sin.
There is no stepping forward in the glare of the Almighty and pleading, “Look at my faith! I have faith. I have made a decision to believe.” If that were so, then justification would no longer be free and by grace. St. Paul writes: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this [faith] is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8-9). To plead that one has Christ is very different than to say that faith lays hold of Christ. No faith, no Christ. His promised grace is itself a gift, and because it is a gift, it is sure.
George Spenlein had been in the monastery with Luther for four years. In April 1516, Luther wrote to him because Spenlein was suffering under the weight of his own sin to the point of despair:
My dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say:
• “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I all thy sin.
• Thou has taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine.
• Thou has taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not:’
Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will I not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only, in sinners. Theodore G. Tappert, ed. And trans., Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, Library .. of Christian Classics 18 (Philadelphia and London: Westminster Press and SCM, 1955), 110.•
There is no middle ground. Justification by grace for Christ’s sake through faith–or self-justification.
Wilhelm Lohe wrote, “Where there is a false security and the illusion of self-righteousness, there the gruesome air of death blows across deathbeds.” (Holger Sonntag, trans. Lohe on Mercy, (St. Louis: LCMS World Relief and Human Care, 2006).

- pmwl

Press On

2011-01-02T07:20:00.000-05:00

A GREAT WAY TO BEGIN THE YEAR, THE DAY, THE TASK AND EVERY MOMENT!

To have Him walk in the darkness of my face ...

2010-12-30T12:02:00.000-05:00

Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O LORD, in the light of your face … Psalm 89:15 (ESV)

God my God, my Father God,
I must confess to Thee that too often I am like those who does not know the festal shout.
Surely I have heard it from Thy servants!
Surely I have read it from Thy sacred Scriptures!
Surely I have proclaimed this festal shout!
Yet just as surely, I have not known this shout!
For too often my itching ears long for some other shout that will say and save what my sinful flesh hungers for.
And I have made my walk, not in the light of Thy face, but in the light of men’s faces,
Hoping that in the light of their faces I shall hear the shouts that will set me free to indulge myself and forget my responsibilities to God and my neighbor.
Yet, I find that in the light of their faces and in the sounds of their shouts –
there is no light, no shout that can that set me free from me and the darkness that is mine in sin.
How sadly do I lament that so often it is only here, in the bondage of my own sinful darkness,
that I long to hear and know that festal shout.
How sadly do I lament that too often it is only here,
in the darkness that all human light brings,
that I long to see the “light of your face”,
let alone walk in it.
Yet it is here, in this darkness that I fear the festal shouts,
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11 (ESV)
What God, what a glorious God is He who has loves us, loves me!
What God is so loving that He sends His Son,
to have Him know my sinful shout,
and know the deafening silence of God against my sinful shout,
that I might forever hear and know the festal shout of God’s forgiveness in His Son.
What God is so loving that He sends His Son,
to have Him walk in the darkness of my face and walk in the darkness of God’s face against my darkened face,
that I might forever walk the light of Lord’s forgiving face upon me in His Son.
What is the Festal shout?
What is the light of God’s face?
Surely it only and always the Lord Jesus Christ,
only begotten Son of God and Son of man.

Give me ears to hear Thy festal shout!
Lead my heart to walk in the light of Thy face!
Make my spirit to exalt in Thy name!
Exalt me in Thy righteousness,
because Thou art the glory of my strength,
and by Thy good favor, my horn is exalted.
Exalt me in Thy righteousness,
because my shield belongs to Thee O Lord,
my King, my Holy One, my Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. (Ps 89:16-18)

- pmwl

Power to still all that storm tosses ...

2010-12-29T19:57:00.001-05:00

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalms 46:10-11 (ESV)

When all seems as if you will fly to pieces because of some inner storm or turmoil,
Hear His words and heed them well, "Be still, and know that I am God."
With these words He declares to you in no uncertain terms,
“It is enough for you, for your storm, for your turmoil, that I am your God.”
“If it was enough for you that my Son has quelled the turmoil of your sin and my wrath against you for your sin, how much more so is enough for you and all that is surely less than these – that I am your God?”
“Be still, and know that I am your God and thus greater than you or your troubles.”
Let these words put both you and your turmoil into perspective that you might have real peace even in the midst of them.
This word has power to still all that storm tosses you within or without.
This word made flesh for you, this Lord of hosts is with you and He is your strength and your stillness in perfect peace.

- pmwl

How December 25 Became Christmas Day

2010-12-25T09:17:00.000-05:00

by Andrew McGowan

TALKBACK Add Your Comment

Click to view a slide show of larger images and captions.

On December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday?

SEE THE REST OF THIS GREAT ARTICLE @ http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp

... no believer ought expect another person to make it possible for them to live their faith ...

2010-12-18T13:36:00.000-05:00

Just as you cannot make out of the gospel a sacrifice or a work, so you cannot make a sacrifice or a work out of this sacrament [of the Lord's Supper]; for this sacrament is the gospel.
Therefore, in this matter no one can achieve anything for another person.
Each one must believe for himself just as I must believe all the Gospels for myself.
I cannot hear or believe or keep for anyone else so much as a single letter of the gospel, even as I cannot be baptized for anyone else.
In living the faith, no believer ought expect another person to make it possible for them to live their faith.
What wolves in sheep’s clothing put conditions upon others which must be met before one will worship and serve with such fellow believers.
Nothing manifests the falsity of one’s faith more than the conditions they set upon other or the church before they will do what saving faith freely and gladly does.
This is a rejection of the faith and Christ because it is a rejection of right worship and service out of love for God our Savior.
Yet when it comes to good works, that is serving,
I can always do to another person and for another person.
Indeed, I have to do them for somebody else or they are not good works.
For example, I can pray for you, serve you, work for you, suffer for you, and so forth.
There is a great difference between faith and good works, just as vast as the difference in value between the tree and the fruit.
Fruits disappear and return each year, but the tree remains always.
Faith also remains always, but works disappear. ...
Be careful, therefore, to stay on the track.
Don't let anyone pull you away from the Word through any statement of man … [Gal. 1:8].
"The elect will be led astray," says Christ [Matt. 24:24].
Therefore we cannot build on the mere word of one of the elect saints, without Scripture.
Christ has warned us faithfully enough, and our own experience has probably taught us, that saintly men can make mistakes and have made mistakes. ...
No good work can free us of our sins or give us grace or life or salvation.
But this sacrament [of Lord's Supper] does give life, grace, and blessedness, for it is a fountain of life and of blessedness.

-Martin Luther
The Adoration of the Sacrament Vol. 36]

THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY

2010-12-17T10:57:00.000-05:00

How Shall I Journey By Faith?

2010-12-12T15:18:00.000-05:00

How shall I journey by faith?

Live baptized soul, live in repentance and faith each day until the last day.

Never in days of ease feel too secure, never so sure, but walk in Godly fear.

Never in days of defeat in sin, believe all is lost, for yet again you shall praise the Lord as He visits you with His salvation.

Walk with King David and John the Baptist, becoming lower and lower in your own eyes.

You have learned to lay your sins on Jesus and you have found healing under His wings.

Never abandon your first love [Rev 2:4].

Live by the Spirit’s enlightening through the Sacred Word, then you shall see yourself more and more clearly and grow in a deepening awareness of your need for grace.

Trials, troubles and worldly temptations shall not be lacking as tutors in your daily wakening to your weakness and your need for the hollowed humblings that follow.

By the hand of Christ you shall be led from the judgment hall to the way of sorrows toward Golgotha.

Turn not away from this journey oh baptized soul, let the journey take you deeper into a fellowship with His sufferings, and deeper into the sweet communion of His grace!

This is the journey that leads to the mount of the Ascension.

This is the journey of faith by which our Lord will bring you with unveiled eyes you shall see the Lamb on throne who makes all the saints rejoice with eternal joy.

Live baptized soul, live in repentance and faith each day until the last day.

- pmwl.

A prayer when there is too much

2010-12-10T08:57:00.000-05:00

Blessed Father, there is much I need to do this day, much I would like to do, and much that I cannot do. As You are able to do much more that I can possibly the think or imagine, let Your much be sufficient to do for me, in me and through me, all that is pleasing in Your sight. In Christ. Amen.

O LORD, I AM EMPTY – LEND ME....

2010-12-09T15:41:00.002-05:00

An Advent prayer according to our emptiness and the fullness our Lord brought, brings today, and will bring.

O Lord, You and You alone are full, and the fullness of all that was, is, and ever will be.
O Lord, I am empty of all that is good and by myself can only remain empty.
O Lord, I have a fullness, that fills my every thought, word, and deed with what is sin and vice.
O Lord, of my sinful fullness, I cannot ever make myself empty of it.
O Lord, You allowed Yourself to be filled with the fullness of my sin so that my fullness might be emptied by the fullness of God’s wrath against me and my fullness.
O Lord, You emptied Yourself of Your fullness that You might meet me in my emptiness and there fill me with Yourself.
O Lord, empty me of my sinful fullness that I might be filled with You.
O Lord, even in their perfection, Adam and Eve were created to live as borrowers of all things, Your image, life, and all that Your perfect creation provided for them.
O Lord, being so empty in sin, how much more must I surely borrow from You, if I am to be full.
O Lord, lend me Your goodness, for I have no goodness of my own that works good in all things.
O Lord, lend me Your truth, for I have no truth of my own that is eternal truth.
O Lord, lend me Your love, for I have no love of my own that is a saving love.
O Lord, lend me Your wisdom, for I have no wisdom of my own that is proved by its children.
O Lord, lend me Your passion and death, for I my passion and death is not sufficient for my sin.
O Lord, lend me Your life, for I have no life of my own that lives in God my Redeemer.
O Lord, lend me Your Word, for I have no words of my own that speak of God my Savior.
O Lord, lend me Your grace, for I have no ability of my own to do that which is necessary to be right with God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
O Lord, lend my prayer the name of Jesus so that it might acceptable and pleasing in Your sight. Amen.

- pmwl

Selah - Rose of Bethlehem

2010-12-03T15:40:00.000-05:00

Praying to He who has come, comes now, and it coming again.

2010-12-03T10:12:00.001-05:00

Petitions to, and according to, He who has come, comes, and is coming again.

Blessed Jesus, Word of the Eternal Father, convert me.
Teacher of Truth, teach me that I may learn.
Only Prince of Peace, give me Your peace.
Eternal Refuge, receive and secure me.
Good Shepherd, feed my soul and shepherd me.
True Consolation, comfort me.
Pure Patience, wait for me.
True Humility, humble me.
Truly Meek, give me peace in my humiliation.
Blessed Redeemer, save me.
Everlasting Truth, instruct me.
Source of Life, make me to live in You.
Sure Support, strengthen and sustain me.
Just Judge, judge me.
Divine Grace, justify me.
Mediator From On High, reconcile me to Your Father.
True Physician, heal me and make me whole.
Holy Justice, pardon me.
Sovereign King, rule over me and in me.
Sacred Sanctification, make me holy.
Abyss of True Goodness, grant me Your good.
Living Bread from heaven, feed and nourish me.
Oldest Brother of the prodigal and his older brother, welcome me.
Eternal Joy that the world cannot give, make me joyful.
Peace that the world cannot give, make me peaceful.
Holy Help, aid, assist and help me.
Perpetual Protection, defend me.
Sure Hope, fill me with confidence.
Fountain of mercy, refresh me.
Sacrificial Victim, atone for me.
The End of All in Glory, be my end in all things.
Glory of the Father, glorify me in You.
True God, lend me my all.
All in All, possess all of me.
THE Savior, save me and be ever saving me, for I am a sinner in need of Your constant salvation.
Name Above all Names, Jesus Christ. Amen.

-pmwl

Christ empties Himself to fill my emptiness with His eternal fullness

2010-11-30T09:18:00.000-05:00

In this Advent season, we do well to ponder this Christ who has come, is come, and is coming again.
On such point to ponder, I offer you from Ephesians 1:23 “… the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Bound in sin, I have no fullness, I am bound in emptiness. Christ empties Himself to fill my emptiness with His eternal fullness. What is my part in this? Repentance and faith! Repentance through which I am emptied of myself and faith that I might receive His filling and fullness. Emptiness and fullness is the echo of Christ’s journey in my salvation and my journey in His salvation.

CHRIST WAS:
Emptied of heaven to fill earth,
Emptied of pure divinity to fill humanity,
Emptied by divine justice to fill us by divine justification,
Emptied of God’s presence to fill us with God’s presence,
Emptied in death to fill us with eternal life,
Emptied from a tomb to fill us with resurrection,
Emptied physically from us to be fully in us spiritually through His Spirit.

WHERE WE ARE:
Emptied by sin, He fills us with His forgiveness.
Emptied by despair, He fills us with His hope.
Emptied by fear, He fills us with His courage.
Emptied by rejection, He fills us with His invitation.
Emptied by pride, He fills us with His humility.
Emptied by perversions of thought, He fills us with His pure and holy thinking.
Emptied by the words of others or our own, He fills us with His Words of eternal life.
Emptied by weakness, He fills us with His strength.
Emptied by death, He fills with life ever-lasting.
In Christ, we have no fullness that His emptiness cannot receive.
In Christ, we have no emptiness that His fullness He cannot so fill that our cups, our lives shall surely run over.

pmwl

Giving Thanks that Our God has neither brim or bottom

2010-11-24T20:18:00.000-05:00

How good is our God whose mercies never come to an end.
Our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has neither a brim that He might say, “Enough for you!”, nor a bottom that He might say, “There is no more for you!”

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Psalms 106:1

A Blessed Thanksgiving to all through Jesus Christ!

pmwl

The Face of the Church is the face of one who is a sinner, troubled, ...

2010-11-22T19:54:00.000-05:00

“The church, which, as he demands again and again, should be believed, is ‘invisible’ in exactly the same sense as all the other constituents of faith are invisible.

It must be believed contrary to all appearances.

What can be seen of the church is anything but ‘glory’.

‘The Christian Church cannot be without suffering, persecution, and dying, yes, not without sin either’ (WA 7, 684, 9).

‘The face of the church is the face of one who is a sinner, troubled, forsaken, dying, and full of distress’ (Erlangen edition ex. lat. 18, 213).

Nevertheless, faith sees the opposite, the saint, the ‘glory of God’, the ‘glory of the Christian brotherhood’.”

Elert, Werner: The Structure of Lutheranism. 262

LIVING BY FAITH IN GOD'S WANT TO DO A DEED "IN" ME

2010-11-19T10:57:00.002-05:00

Luther is often quoted as saying: "Let no one give up the faith that God wants to do a deed through him." Whether this is what Luther said or not, there is an inscription on an archway at Wittenberg seminary that reads almost the same, but with one word changed. "Let no one give up the faith that God wants to do a deed in him."
This change may seem as a trifling thing, yet it is so critically important. How often do both pastor and people get themselves sideways in their faith to the point of despair because they are living only for the deed the Lord would do through them. When such people fail to see the deed they would accomplish come to fulfillment, they quickly descent into despair and depression. All this because their faith is fixed first and foremost on what they think the Lord ought to do through them, and when He doesn’t, they jump to the false illusion that the Lord has thrown them off and has no further use of or for them.
As the redeemed, we live by faith in Christ and His redeeming grace that daily rescues us from our sin and our sinfulness. We have been saved by God’s grace to do the good works that He prepared in advance for us to do. Let us not be so foolish to believe that He who has accomplished all that is necessary for our eternal redemption, is somehow ignorant of when, where and how best to use our redeemed lives in and for His Kingdom. If you would know what is the will of God for you as His redeemed child, look not to what you would do for Him, but look His Word, to His 10 Commandments, here you will find more than enough to occupy your time and your faith.
In all that the Lord gives you to do and in all that He has set you free from doing – make sure that you do not take to yourself what He has not given you. In what He has given you to do, rejoice in both the opportunity to serve and the boundaries that come with it. In what the Lord has relieved you from doing, rejoice that it sets you free to do more in your given areas of service and it sets you free for the potential of new opportunities of service.
The great hazard of taking to ourselves to do what our Lord has not given us is that it will only get in the way of doing what He has set us free to do in Jesus Christ. This will then only escalate our sense of uselessness and frustration and make us a willing and prime target for the illusions of Satan.
Inasmuch as “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever.” (Heb 13:8), His want to do His saving deed in us is eternally almighty today as it was before time began. So almighty is our Lord’s want to work His saving grace in us that, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lam 3:22-23
Wherever you would look for the deed our Lord would do through you, look first and always to the deed our Lord is doing in you and you will always have hope.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalms 42:11

The peace and blessings of Christ be with you!

... the “Word,” as the organ and transmitter of ...

2010-11-11T21:20:00.000-05:00

For Luther the “Word,” as the organ and transmitter of the Holy Spirit, as the “life and substance of the church” (vita et substantia ecclesiae), is, in the strict sense, a sacred element of the church.

As a word spoken by human beings it is a piece of the world—and yet not the word of the world, but God’s Word. It not only consecrates the acts of Baptism and Holy Communion, but it also imparts a spiritual character to all “worldly things” with which it has to do (umgeht).

Accordingly, it gives them a character that is not worldly. By constantly re-creating and preserving the church it impresses on it a sacred character.

Elert, Werner: The Structure of Lutheranism. CPH, 2000, c1962, S. 263

... to see what spirit you follow:

2010-11-10T10:55:00.000-05:00

When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” Matt 17:24-27 (ESV)

If Jesus is God's Son, He should hardly have to pay tax to the Temple which is His Father's. Yet by what Jesus says here, He testifies about His divinity. Thus by what Jesus does, He shows in deed His almighty power and His omniscience by telling Peter to take a coin from the fish’s mouth. But Jesus, who is God's only-begotten Son, the Almighty Lord, who did not have to pay tax, pays the tax.

Christ's love is the spirit of true humility and peace forming and strengthening society. In this love He has given to His people, the members of His body, so that His spirit in us conquers over the flesh and the unlawful spirit of the devil at work within us.

If you would be a Christian in more than name only, then examine yourselves, so see who you really follow.

Search yourself and your ways to see what spirit you follow: Christ's spirit of obedience and humility or the power seeking / " my way or the highway" spirit of the world.

Do you follow Christ's love which willingly bears the burdens of your companions or the spirit of selfishness and self-serving which murmurs and complains because others refuse your vision or way of how things ought be done?

How many people who stand on their Christian freedom, stand on this freedom not for the sake of humble service to those whom God has joined them or obedience to those God has placed over them, but the sake of escaping any true forms of humble service or obedience.

Such people who talk a great deal about Christ and the freedom they have in Him, are so far from the humble obedience of their Savior and the true freedom that the Christian uses to love and serve their Lord and neighbor. They are enslaved and toil under the yoke of self-will and are controlled by a perverted spirit of freedom which divides and tears apart both the church of which they are a part and human society.

“If you want to belong to my kingdom," the Lord says: “then deny yourself. If you want to rule with me, then put on my humility and my servitude and my obedience. If you want to wear a crown of glory there in heaven above, then bear the cross here and walk in my footsteps of humble service."

The freedom of faith in which we follow Christ can never be used to turn away from Christ in His Word. The one who uses this freedom to turn away from Christ as He gives Himself in Word and Sacrament, has turn away from the very faith that receives Christ and His salvific work.

Many are the times when we so misuse our Christian freedom, thanks be to God that if we be faithless, He remains ever faithful (2 Tim 2:13).

So draw me to you with a repentant heart, Lord, and let me be led in Your humble way. Give me grace through faith, to put on Your mind and to follow You faithfully. Let me be a faithful member of Your holy church on earth which You established – and in heaven a blessed member of the Church triumphant, to which You gather all Your saints. Grant this grace to me and to all who call upon Your name most merciful God. Amen.

Nils Jakob Laache

Book of Family Prayer
Lutheran Synod Book Company - Mankato, MN
Editing and additions by Pastor Mark W. Love

All Sizzle, No Substance

2010-11-03T14:57:00.000-04:00

By Rev. Scott Murray - Memorial Lutheran Church - Houston, TX
Tuesday of Pentecost 23 - 2 November 2010

Worry transgresses the first commandment. Yes, of course. We should believe that God is in charge and that there is nothing to worry about. When we worry, we are ultimately saying that God can't take care of us. But there are far more destructive kinds of worry than our garden variety worries about money, home, family, and future. The worst kind of worry is the worry that church leaders often exhibit about the church and her future. Church leaders agonize when it appears the church is dying because its adherents are defecting to the world. It is easy to suffer this worry, when all that we read and see shoves into our face the declining membership in Christian churches today. The very leaders of the churches themselves are constantly beating the dead horse of declining church membership in the churches. The result of these beatings is that we begin to think we had better do something about this weakness and decline in our church body or congregation. If we would just do something, we could reverse the trend and grow.
This is a far worse idolatry than garden variety worry. This is worry that attributes to God the inability to care for, watch over, and guard His church. He needs us to help Him do that of which we think Him incapable. This kind of worry drives us to try to fix what is not under our control. This kind of worry motivates us to employ the manipulative marketing methodologies of the world to woo the "dying" church back to life. The church's life cannot be created nor maintained by such methods. If we use these methods we will be treating the chaste bride of Christ as though she were an adulterous woman, who can be wooed by the techniques of the procurer. The church will suffer under the signs of death until the Lord who suffered and died returns in glory on the Day of Judgment. We dare not worry her out of those signs into the signs we prefer. We dare not deck her out in the glad rags of the adulterous woman. She is our mother, not our girlfriend.
No matter how much people rave about the latest techniques by which they think they can "grow the church," we must not succumb to them, but faithfully testify to the power of Christ to preserve His church and save His people though the divine Word alone. Such techniques were foisted on God's people as a better way to reach people with the Word, but in such situations, the "better way" finally overcomes the word and the sizzle substitutes for the meat. One of the restaurants near my office is "Ruth's Chris Steak House," which advertizes that their steaks arrive at your table on a sizzling 1,200 degree plate. What if they began serving the plate without bringing the steak on it? The sizzle would fail to feed and satisfy the restaurant patron and very soon the restaurant would be empty. I am hearing a great deal from people who are attending Christ-less churches where Christ is not preached for fear of offending the congregants. This is the triumph of sizzle over substance.
The church needs to be committed to preaching Christ and His mercy for sinners, without counting the cost. Will some turn back and no longer walk with Jesus (Jn 6:66)? Yes, but that is God's business, not ours. We should not worry about making God more successful and let God be who He is, under the humble signs of the Word. Let God worry about His church. He can manage it.

Martin Luther
"This doctrine (of the cross) is especially necessary at the present time, when we see the pope and his accomplices raving and raging in a cruel manner. Many good and saintly men, together with their wives and children, are being driven into exile, stripped of all their goods, and atrociously slaughtered. Similarly, the Turk is also raging monstrously. Accordingly, we are in the midst of death, and the world is being driven to ruin, but the Lord still lives. Everything belongs to the Creator, who is the almighty Father. Therefore we should have no regard for the size of the calamities and for the power of those who persecute us. Nor should our own dangers or those of our wives and children make us afraid. Thus Joseph does not look at prison, disgrace, death, and the very sad and horrible things that befell him (Gn 45:7). No, he clings to the Word and believes in the almighty Father. What if the Turk or the pope swallow us alive? What are they doing? They are devouring our death, miseries, and tribulations, and are exchanging this calamitous life for eternal life, provided that we believe in the almighty Father.
"But you will say, 'Meanwhile, however, religion is being destroyed.' What will happen then? What of it? Let God rule. Let Him take care of this. The Lord will take care that the church and a holy seed are preserved on earth. Certainly Joseph was sent to the Egyptians, a barbarous and godless nation with no knowledge of God, where there was great danger that his tender soul would be seduced after being imbued with depraved dogmas and superstition. But the outcome bears witness that that very mission and danger was the cause of many blessings. Thus it is possible for God also to preserve some of us to be a nursery for the church when the Turk and the enemies of God have been destroyed. For He allows them to rave and rage so that they may be destroyed and perish. In the meantime, however, the light of the Gospel is gradually being propagated more and more. Only let us keep on believing, teaching, suffering, and dying; for they, too, will have to perish."

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THE TROUBLE OF A FADED IMAGE OF GOD

2010-11-02T14:13:00.001-04:00

“What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!” Job 15:14-16 (ESV)

We might say that according to this text man is as unholy as God is holy. But that would not be correct, for nothing can be compared with God’s holiness. “The heavens are not pure in His sight.” The light of the sun is completely clear, yet God’s light His sight.” The light of the sun is completely clear, yet God’s light must we look in His eyes? “How can he who is born of a woman be righteous? … Man, who is abominable and filthy, Who drinks iniquity like water!” And how do the Pelagians explain this text?
“Learn, O man, really to know what Adam’s fall and original sin are, that your filthiness cannot be expressed or understood. Learn to know yourself, what you have become by the fall into sin, that you were made in the image of God, but have become the image of Satan, with all his vanity and wickedness. For God’s holiness, purity, and all His deeds are just like His image. And just as man before the Fall was completely heavenly, spiritual, and pure as angels, so now inwardly he has become completely earthly, fleshly, and brutish. For isn’t your anger and cruelty like a lion’s? Your avarice and insatiable greed like a dog’s and a wolf's? Your impurity and gluttony like a pig’s? Yes, if ... I you really search your heart, you shall find in yourself a whole world, full of unclean animals, and just in one little member, the tongue, a whole mess of lizards and evil spirits, a ‘world full of unrighteousness’” (Johann Arnde).
This is Biblical teaching, almost like what Paul writes in Romans 3:10-18, truth for salvation. But why are there so few who hear it, and even fewer who recognize it in themselves? The trouble is that we have a faded image of God. Stand before Him who is “sanctified in holiness, awesome to praise,” before whom the seraphim hide their holiness, awesome to praise,” before whom the seraphim hide their hosts” [lsa 6:3]. Know Him from whom you cannot escape, who in His holy zeal did not even spare His only-begotten Son [Rom 8:32] when He took our sin upon Himself, but gave Him the full cup of wrath to drink, though He wept and prayed for pity [Mat 26:39]. Know Him, “our God who is a consuming fire” [Heb 12:29]. Then the dreams of your own piety shall vanish, so that you see your impurity and unrighteousness. One says: “Your affliction is incurable” [Jer 30:12]. But the same One says: “I am the LORD who heals you” [Exod. 15:26].

My God, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me [Ps 51:5], so my heart is only evil from my youth [Gen. 8:21]. Have mercy on me for Jesus’ sake. Forgive me, and heal me, that I may live and praise You. Amen.

Nils Jakob Laache
Book of Family Prayer
Lutheran Synod Book Company - Mankato, MN

REFORMATION SERMON NOTES/THOUGHTS 2010

2010-10-28T15:11:00.000-04:00

At our textual study this week I shared my thought of contrasting what our lives would be like without the Reformation. Working with this in light of the Epistle lesson (Romans 3:19-28) and the Gospel lesson (John 8:31-36), I gathered the following by contrasting of the reality of our condition, abilities, achievements and results under sin and the reality of God’s condition, abilities, achievements, and results in Christ for us.

Without the return to the Scriptures and the proper doctrine of justification that came out of the Reformation, we would be no better off than what is described in Romans 3:9-18, a people having the appearance of godliness, but denying its (His) power as we trust in our own.

Just my thoughts for your thoughts!

- PL

Our reality – UNDER SIN – Romans 3:9-18

No one is righteous in the eyes of God and therefore in the eyes of men
No one understands,
No one seeks after the true God
All have turned aside
All are worthless
No one does good, not even one
Everyone’s throat is an open grave;
Everyone uses their tongues to deceive
The poison of the asps is under everyone’s lips
Everyone mouth is full of curses and bitterness
Everyone’s feet are swift to shed blood
Everyone’s path or way of life is ruin and misery/
No one knows the way of peace
No one is affected in their living by a fear or dread of God’s judgment.

In these verses, the Lord reveals

our nature or condition under sin (unrighteousness v.10),
our corrupted abilities under sin (no one understands, seeks God, no one does good, ignorance of the way of peace) and
the most we are able accomplish under sin (deception, curses, bitterness, shed blood, ruin, misery, and way)
with the result that the fear or dread of God’s wrath against sin and sinner alike, has no effect on them or us.

The Law can repeated say to fallen man, “do this or that” and “do not do this or that” but inasmuch as these verses (9-18) speak of our fallen condition, fallen man will never be able to do the “do’s” and “do not’s” the Law demands.

Jesus describes our fallen reality succinctly in the Gospel lesson: “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34).

Romans 3:19 – “Now” introduces an “over and against” this reality of our condition, abilities, achievements and results under sin, God has Paul reveal the reality of:

God’s condition (righteousness),
God’s abilities (redemption in Christ by grace, to be just and justifier of the one who has faith),
what God can accomplish (to make propitiation by his blood),
with the result for all (justified by faith apart from works of the law).

Jesus describes our reality in Him as a result of the reality of God in the Gospel lesson: “if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

God allows us to perish as if He had forgotten His...

2010-10-26T23:00:00.000-04:00

God allows us to perish as if He had forgotten His promise

Who wrote that? Martin Luther. In his Genesis commentary.
Reading Luther's commentaries on Genesis is an amazing, fearful treat. Luther is brutal, honest and radically centered on the Gospel, radically focused on what it means, what it feels like, to live by faith.
Living by faith is no platitude for him. Some of the passages are breathtaking in their ferocity and Gospel centered-ness. Luther hones in on what it means to live by faith, that is, with no assurance for God or for his goodness, save a promise.
In this passage Luther writes of :
God pretending to exercise no care for us
God creeping into a corner
hiding behind a curtain
seeming to not know us at all
He allows us to perish as if He had forgotten his promise
He regards us as being rejected
Christians must "endure" the plans of God
Luther notes how we often feel as if:
God not only sleeps He snores
that it seems as if there is no God at all to care for us
Luther goes on :
God allows us to be tried to led down to hell, to be mortified
He sends no angel but opens the window for Satan to rage
Luther's answer to such a God who allows and perpetrates such things is alarmingly simple. There is no theologizing to get around it, no hop, skip and jumping around the Scriptures to try to build an apologia for God. He doesn't try to construct a system where it makes rational sense.
His answer is: the promises of God, the promises and sacramental proclamations. To all the evil and all the suffering, all the doubt and all the silence of God we experience, Luther says, we must stand on the Word of God. This is no rationalistic, Biblicistic stand; it is a life or death, Satan tearing at my flesh full of despair desperation cry to God, "I have your promise."
In fact Luther does not shy away from attributing all the action, all the doing of the affliction, doubt and despair directly to God. God drives us there on purpose. He abandons us, on purpose. He opens the window for Satan. All to mortify us, to kill us, to leave with us with nothing, absolutely nothing, but the promise. "I am baptized," is the cry of one who has nothing else to grasp.
One of Luther's favorite examples of this is death itself where the saint finally is literally killed and can do nothing but trust for he has no other abilities left.
In the next post I will post this passage of Luther's Commentary to illustrate what I am writing about.

incarnatus est: God allows us to perish as if He had forgotten His...: "Who wrote that? Martin Luther. In his Genesis commentary. Reading Luther's commentaries on Genesis is an amazing, fearful treat. Luther is..."

THREE THINGS THAT PLEASE GOD MOST

2010-10-25T11:21:00.001-04:00

St. Brendan once asked Ita what were the three works most pleasing to God, and the three works that were most displeasing to Him. Ita answered, "Three things that please God most are - true faith in God with a pure heart, a simple life with a grateful spirit, and generosity inspired by His charity. The three things that most displease God are a mouth that hates people, a heart harbouring resentments, and a confidence in earthly riches and possessions.
St. Brendan and all who were there, hearing that opinion, glorified God in His Chosen One.

from Celtic Daily Prayer
Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community.

THE LORD'S PRAYER - Loehe

2010-10-24T22:20:00.000-04:00

OUR FATHER

insuperable in creation,

sweet in love,

rich in every heritage!

WHO ART IN HEAVEN

a mirror of eternity,

the crown of joy,

the treasure of eternal salvation!

HALLOWED BE THY NAME

that it be like honey upon the tongue,

a harp unto our ears,

a devotion in our hearts!

THY KINGDOM COME,

joyfully, without perversion;

quietly, without sorrow;

safely, beyond possibility to lose it!

THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN,

that we hate whatever displeases Thee;

love what Thou lovest;

and fulfill all things that are pleasing to Thee!

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DIALY BREAD,

the bread of

- knowledge,

- penitence,

- pardon

- And every need of bodies.

FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US;

forgive us our trespasses against Thee,

against our fellow-men and against ourselves,

which we have multiplied either through the commission of wrongs or

the omission to do the good we ought to do,

As we forgive all who have despised or offended us –

- by word or deed,

- by giving or taking away from us,

- spiritually or temporally.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION,

of the world,

the flesh,

or the devil:

BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL,

both temporal and spiritual,

and from all sorrows in time and eternity.

AMEN.

Seed-Grains of Prayer

A Manual For Evangelical Christians

by Wilhelm Loehe

CHRIST ALONE BUILDS THE CHURCH

2010-10-23T15:55:00.000-04:00

For the church growth experts in how to build the church and for the pastors and people who struggle under the cross in faithfulness to what Christ has given them to use that He might build His church. - PL

It is not we who build. [Christ] builds the church. No man builds the church but Christ alone.
Whoever is minded to build the church is surely well on the way to destroying it; for he will build a temple to idols without wishing or knowing it.
We must confess – he builds.
We must proclaim – he builds.
We must pray to him – that he may build.
We do not know his plan.
We cannot see whether he is building or pulling down.
It may be that the times which by human standards are times of collapse are for him the great times of construction.
It may be that the times which from a human point of view are great times for the church are times when it is pulled down.
It is a great comfort which Christ gives to his church: you confess, you preach, bear witness to me and I alone will build where it pleases me.
Do not meddle in what is my province.
Do what is given to you to do well and you have done enough. But do it well.
Pay no heed to views and opinions.
Don’t ask for judgments.
Don’t always be calculating what will happen.
Don’t always be on the lookout another refuge!
Church, stay a church!
But church, confess, confess, confess!
Christ alone is your Lord; from his grace alone can live as you are.
Christ builds.

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer
As found in Treasury of Daily Prayer - Oct 23, 2010.
CPH 2008

CHRISTIAN RULES OF PRAYER - As Laid Down by Metthesius

2010-10-22T21:06:00.001-04:00

To true, Christian and beneficial prayer it is required –

1. That a man life up holy hands (2 Tim. 2) and offer his devotions with a good conscience; for God hears not sinners who are not repentant. (John 9).

2. That a man pray in every time of trial and need; for, the greater our need the stronger is our prayer. Therefore also God, in the 50^th Psalm, says: “Call upon me in the day of trouble.” (Always and everywhere is sufficient provocation to prayer if one will but realize it).

3. That a man pray, cry and sigh from out of the depths of his heart, without hypocrisy, anger, complaint or doubt, even as Moses prayed upon the shore of the Red Sea. Lip-service and mouth-work in which the heart does not participate, is a vain service to God. (Matt. 15).

4. That a man call upon the one, true and only God as He has revealed Himself at the Jordan River, as Christ teachers in the Gospel (John 16), and in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6; Luke 11).

5. That a man plead the name, merit, blood, death and intercession of Christ for help, and the support of the Holy Spirit. (John 4, and 15).

6. That a man pray with all boldness as Abraham prayed, Gen. 18; with a mighty faith, as the centurion prayed; without murmuring or impatience, continuing instant, as did the Canaanite woman; and with humility, as did Daniel. (Dan 9).

7. That a man persevere, as Sirach teaches, and set no limit or goal for God, as is said in Chapter 8 of the Book of Judith.

8. He that will thus pray needs first of all to believe, that he is reconciled to God through His Son, and must base his pleas upon baptism and the blood of Christ as well as upon God’s command and promise. He must embrace the promise of Christ and the example of all the saints; and remember that God has frequently helped others before us. (Ps 22:34).

If prayer is to be rightly offered all these things must be well observed and kept:

1. Holy hands and a good conscience.

2. Our need.

3. From the heart, without hypocrisy.

4. Calling upon the name of the One, Only God.

5. In the name of Jesus Christ, who is the soul of all prayer.

6. Boldly.

7. Preservingly.

8. In faith.

Such prayer pervades heaven, as Sirach says; and makes our joy perfect as Christ witnesses, John 16.

It attains help, gives comfort, joy, and a sure defense against all devils and evil men.

Seed-Grains of Prayer - A Manual For Evangelical Christians

by Wilhelm Loehe

Kyrie eleison

2010-10-14T21:22:00.000-04:00

EXCELLENT TO LISTEN TO WHEN READING THE PSALM OR MEDITATIVE PRAYER.

Where the heart stands idle and the Word is not heard, the devil breaks in and does his damage

2010-10-14T17:18:00.000-04:00

Since so much depends on God’s Word … that nothing is made holy without it, we must realize that God insists upon a strict observance of this commandment and will punish all who despise his Word and refuse to hear and learn it, especially at the times appointed.

Therefore this commandment is violated not only by those who grossly misuse and desecrate the holy day, like those who in their greed or frivolity neglect to hear God’s Word …. but also by that multitude of others who listen to God’s Word as they would to any other entertainment, who only from force of habit go to hear preaching and depart again with as little knowledge of the Word at the end of the year as at the beginning.

Remember, then, that you must be concerned not only about hearing the Word but also about learning and retaining it. Do not regard it as an optional or unimportant matter. It is the commandment of God, and he will require of you an accounting of how you have heard and learned and honored his Word.

In the same way those conceited fellows should be chastised who, after hearing a sermon or two, become sick and tired of it and feel that they know it all and need no more instruction. This is precisely the sin of indolence or satiety — a malignant, pernicious plague with which the devil bewitches and befuddles the hearts of many so that he may take us by surprise and stealthily take the Word of God away from us.
Let me tell you this. Even though you know the Word perfectly and have already mastered everything, still you are daily under the dominion of the devil, who neither day nor night relaxes his effort to steal upon you unawares and to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against all these commandments.

Therefore you must continually keep God’s Word in your heart, on your lips, and in your ears. For where the heart stands idle and the Word is not heard, the devil breaks in and does his damage before we realize it.
On the other hand, when we seriously ponder the Word, hear it, and put it to use, such is its power that it never departs without fruit. It always awakens new understanding, new pleasure, and a new spirit of devotion, and it constantly cleanses the heart and its meditations. For these words are not idle or dead, but effective and living.

Even if no other interest or need drove us to the Word, yet everyone should be spurred on by the realization that in this way the devil is cast out and put to flight, this commandment is fulfilled, and God is more pleased than by any work of hypocrisy, however brilliant.

Excerpts from THE THIRD COMMANDMENT – Luther's Large Catechism

Memorial Moment: True Joy

2010-10-14T10:12:00.001-04:00

Memorial Moment: True Joy#fblike

John Chrysostom was preaching to a world very much like our own. While preaching to the people of Antioch (he only later became bishop of Constantinople), he chided them for allowing the luxury of their community to crowd out concern for the gifts God bestowed on them in the mystery of Christ's body and blood. He exhorted them not to be absorbed by worldly concerns to the detriment of their faith, the Christian life, and the needs of other persons. He pleaded with them not to walk away from the feast of the body of Christ only to fall into the vices which are characteristic of affluent societies: drunkenness, undisciplined feasting, and carelessness about the needs of the poor. The Christians who have been nourished on the body and blood of Christ, cannot just fall back into the self-centered life of pleasure seeking.The church receives at the hand of Christ such great riches in the divine service. She has been married again to the bridegroom in the consummation of the altar. By partaking of His body we are united with Him so that His becomes ours and ours His. She has feasted at the altar set with royal care for the children of the King. She has sung honor to the Thrice Holy. She has received heavenly food under earthly means. A joy above all sadness has been bestowed upon her in this royal feast. But her children sometimes seek to prolong that joy using the means of this world to manufacture the prolongation of it. True joy is to be sought (Ps 4:6-7), but is not to be found in the luxuries of this world.This is not to say that luxury or riches per se are evil. On the contrary, if we have them we should live as if we did not. If we do not, as if we did (1Co 7:29-31). They must not be the guarantors of joy in our lives. Only Christ is the treasure in whom true joys are to be found (Mt 6:21). We must walk away from the altar with the fullness of joy that Christ gives. Only then will we no longer be enticed by the light and fleeting joys of this world.When you compare the joys of the feast of the Lord to those which are offered by the enticing world, the joys of the feast far outweigh those of the world. Thus the self discipline required of the Christian life is no burden to us or a thief of true joy. For our joy has been made full and complete in the Supper, which conveys the very body and blood of Christ to us. No one who partakes of this can ever walk away from it unchanged. It is the true luxury to feast at the royal banqueting table of Christ the King.

John Chrysostom
"Have you heard holy hymns? Have you seen a spiritual marriage? Have you enjoyed a royal table? Have you been filled with the Holy Spirit? Have you joined in the choir of the Seraphim? Have you become partaker of the powers above? Do not cast away so great a joy, waste not the treasure. Do not bring in drunkenness, the mother of dejection, the joy of the devil, the parent of ten thousand evils. For it is a sleep like unto death, and heaviness of head, and disease, and obliviousness, and an image of dead men's condition. Furthermore, if you would not choose to meet with a friend when intoxicated, can you tell me, if, when you have Christ within, would you thrust upon Christ Himself so great an excess?"Do you love enjoyment? Then, on this very account stop being drunken. For I too would have you enjoy yourself, but with the real enjoyment, which never fades. What then is the real enjoyment, ever blooming? Invite Christ to dine (Rev 2:20) with you. Give Him to partake of yours, or rather of His own. This brings pleasure without limit, and ultimately everlastingly. But the things of sense do not bring everlasting pleasure; rather as soon as they appear they vanish away. Whoever has enjoyed them will be in no better condition than he who has not, or rather in a worse condition. For the one is settled as it were in a harbor, but the other exposes himself to a kind of torrent, a besieging army of madnesses, and hasn't even power to endure the first swell of the sea."Let us follow after moderation, that these things do not happen to us. For thus we shall both be in a good state of body, and possessing our souls in security, shall be delivered from evils both present and future. From these may we all be delivered, and attain unto the kingdom, through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and forever. Amen."
John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 27.7

LORD have mercy, Christ have mercy

2010-10-02T22:23:00.000-04:00

An Excellent Exposure of Modern American Idolatry

2010-10-01T16:13:00.000-04:00

Thanks to my dear brother Michael Walther for this insight!!!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2010

Eat Pray Love

Ross Douthat wrote a great review of the movie Eat Pray Love in the September 20, 2010 issue of National Review. Here is a brief summary:

Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, is a memoir about her travels to Rome, India, and Bali in search of personal fulfillment. The movie version now stars Julia Roberts. Is this just another chick-flick/travelogue? Not at all. This book and film captures what is perhaps the most popular religion in America today, the religion of self. Suffering in an unhappy marriage because her husband is not as successful as he should be and won't accompany her on her journalist travel tours, Elizabeth falls on her knees and prays for deliverance.

What does God want her to do to be happy? First He wants her to divorce her husband. Then God wants her to have an affair that gets messy. Then God wants her to travel around the world eating, meditating and forgiving herself. Then God wants her to fall in love with a handsome, divorced Brazilian.

It is amazing how everything God "wants her to do" is the same thing a spoiled, self-indulgent woman with too much money would want to do. She finally arrives at this astounding theological conclusion: "God dwells within me, as me." One hundred years ago G.K. Chesterton spoke to this kind of religion: "Of all the horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within."

WHAT IS IT TO BEAR THE CROSS?

2010-09-29T12:13:00.001-04:00

The cross … is the dying of the old man in us as a result of our encounter with Christ.
The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ, our being one with Him by doing what He would do and have us to do.
When Christ calls a man to believe and live in Him, he bids him to come and die … It is this same death every time - death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man…so that the new man may live and serve God and neighbor.
Only the man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our worldly affections and lusts.
The struggle arises from the fact we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and … the baptism in the name of Christ … means both death and life … dying and living.
Baptism sets the Christian in the middle of the daily arena against sin and the devil … The wounds and scars he receives in the fray are living tokens of their personal participation in the Cross of the Lord …
While it is true that only the sufferings of Christ are the means of atonement, yet since he has suffered for and borne the sins of the whole world and shares with his disciples the fruits of his passion, i.e. forgiveness and eternal life, the Christian also has to … bear the sins, the scars of others.
Such a Christian would certainly break down under this burden, but for the support of him who bore their own sins and the sins of all.
The passion, that is the suffering of Christ strengthens the believer to overcome the sins of others by forgiving them, by giving them to Christ. In this way believer becomes the bearer of other men’s burdens – “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).
As Christ bears our burdens, so ought we to bear the burdens of our fellow-men. This is law of Christ … is the bearing of the cross.
My brother’s burden which I must bear is not only his outward physical needs, his natural characteristics and gifts, but quite literally his sin.
And the only way to bear the sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I share … forgiveness is the Christ-like suffering which it is the Christian’s duty to bear.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Witness, Mercy, Life Together.

2010-09-25T09:30:00.000-04:00

A simple, yet beautiful understanding of our purpose and life as the church - the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod! Enjoy

WISDOM UNDER GOD’S WORD vs. ABOVE GOD’S WORD

2010-09-24T10:12:00.000-04:00

“Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” James 3:13-18 (ESV)

Because the devil’s very nature is pride, we are all by nature vain, conceited, proud, selfish, self-centered and self-willed.
No one is born meek and gentle. However, some are wiser than others in their own eyes. When they are going through times of spiritual growth, i.e. dying to self and living in Christ, then God’s Spirit indeed can humble them and God’s chastisements can keep them humble. Unfortunately, many of those who are wiser in their own eyes will come forward with their own wisdom. Such wisdom is set forth as holy and righteous and is offered for the sake of the others and the church. What is unknown to such wise ones is that what they call wisdom; God calls foolishness and idolatry because it does not rest on the whole council of God. Inasmuch as it has not the unifying power of God’s Word, it soon begins dividing those God has made one in Christ. Such wise ones think that they alone have the eyes to see the both flaws and defects of the church and its members, as well as the good and right for all. They believe themselves called and obligated to correct and improve the church. So certain are they in their ideas and wisdom that if others do not follow where they lead, it confirms their wisdom rather than making them question it. Such wisdom is born of our sinful pride and as such creates “envy and self-seeking.” It causes many in the church to be tossed to and fro from this idea to that, causing “confusion and every evil thing.”
Such sages of wisdom are not easily persuaded; for while they would never admit it, their attitude, words and actions convict them of “knowing it all.” They appeal conscience, declaring that they cannot bear this or that. One must marvel as such a sensitive conscience! Yet one must ask to what is the conscience sensitized: to God’s Word or their own holy ideas?
What blessed meekness, gentleness and unity would be manifest if such wise ones consciences’ were sensitized to the peril of those caught in their sin? If such people took the sins of others in the church to their conscience with Christ’s love, they would have something to do besides complaining about others and sowing seeds of division, confusion and conflict.
The Lord tells us “do not boast and lie against the truth.” Such behavior is not “the wisdom that descends from above” for “that wisdom is pure,” not mixed with the devil’s spirit of pride that rules one’s sinful nature.
How does such withholding of fellowship and participation with the saints of which Christ has made them one – make for peaceful union in Christ and His bond of peace?
This text presses on to ask, “Is it reasonable, meek, gentle, or willing to yield” if one refuses to take part with the saints in worship and service of our Lord because the saints do not manifest enough holiness and perfection to warrant such participation?” Only sinful pride could blind such a person to the fact that they have no holiness or perfection apart from what is freely given them in Jesus Christ.
Does not the baptized believer willingly give God’s Word its right to speak, to have the final say in all matters of forgiveness, fellowship, unity, and participation in the Body of Christ? Is not the baptized believer willingly corrected by the Word of God that they may receive God’s forgiveness?
Only sinful pride prevents such reasonableness, meekness, and willingness to yield to the Word of God. Those who have this “wisdom that descends from above” live by faith in meekness and willingness. They sow peace and reap the blessed fruit of unity and fellowship in Jesus Christ.
What is so often forgotten is the glorious power of the blood of Christ to create this bond between God the Father and fellow believers. This blood of Christ cleanses each of us of our sins and sinfulness. This blood of Christ prefects all our good works. The blood of Christ saves us from our wisdom and that of the world. This blood of Christ seals us with the forgiveness and favor of God. This blood is the price paid to bring us back to God and back to each other. This blood is our life-blood with God and with one another. As there is no forgiveness of sins where there is no shedding of blood, neither is there unity and fellowship with this blood that bonds us to God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AND to one another.

Gracious and loving God, help each of Your children that none of us withdraw ourselves from Your grace, Your Word, Your worship. Let no seed of sinful pride sprout and grow up in us and create confusion and conflict, lest these works of the flesh harm us and others. Give to each of us the “wisdom from above”, let us by faithful and right behavior show our unity with You in the works of wisdom’s meekness and gentleness. All this is asked through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

FORMAL AND MATERIAL PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGY

2010-09-18T16:52:00.000-04:00

While at some meetings recently, I heard one of the main speakers complained because the Missouri Synod’s constitution was altered to make the Formal Principle and it perpetuation the first objective of Synod over the Material Principle. This speaker advocated that the Material Principle, i.e. evangelism, should be the first objective of the Synod and its congregations. While this speaker in no way dismissed the Formal Principle, I was amazed at his opposition to its priority of the Material Principle.
After much further discussion and thought, it seems to me that many choose to ignore, if not outright reject, the Formal Principle as the starting and stopping point in doing all theology. Such willful ignorance or rejection is born of the belief that all theology must begin with the goal of theology – i.e. the salvation of souls. In truth, the only reason for NOT starting and stopping all theology according to the Formal Principle, is that it would limit the means and the methods by which one would be otherwise free to use in achieving the ends of the Material Principle.
What is forgotten by such eager evangelists is that the Formal Principle is more than the starting and stopping point of all theology – it is the sole source of all theology and the sole means by which the Material Principle is accomplished. If one throws out the Formal Principle, the Material Principle of salvation by grace through faith alone will soon be altered to another outcome by another means. Lord have mercy.

I offer the following as a guide as a refresher in this matter.
PL -

FROM: http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Formal_and_material_principles_of_theology

Formal principle and material principle are two categories in Christian theology to identify and distinguish the authoritative source of theology (formal principle) from the theology itself, especially the central doctrine of that theology (material principle), of a religion, religious movement, tradition, body, denomination, or organization.
A FORMAL PRINCIPLE refers to the authoritative texts or revered leaders of the religion.
A MATERIAL PRINCIPLE refers to its central teaching of the religion.
These categories were articulated, developed, and utilized by the Lutheran scholar, F.E. Mayer, in his The Religious Bodies of America in order to facilitate a comparative study of the faith and practice of Christian denominations in the United States.[1]

F.E. MAYER'S FINDINGS

EASTERN ORTHODOX BODIES –
- FORMAL Principle: the Holy Scriptures and "sacred" tradition.
- MATERIAL Principle: "Christ became man that we might become divine" St. Athanasius, i.e. deification of man.

ROMAN CATHOLIC BODIES –
- FORMAL Principle: Scripture, Tradition and Reason.
- MATERIAL Principle: "Man's soul, since it comes directly from God, is good and strives for reunion with God, realized in the beatific vision of God."[2]

LUTHERAN BODIES (which are still hold to and are bound by the Lutheran Confessional writings) –
- FORMAL Principle: the Holy Scriptures as the written Word of God (sola Scriptura, "according to the Scriptures alone"). (Mayer should have included "and the Book of Concord") find a reference to sola scriptura before the Prussian Union please.
- MATERIAL Principle: the Gospel of Jesus Christ that people are justified by God's grace through faith in Christ alone (sola gratia, "by grace alone," solo Christo, "by Christ alone," sola fide, "by faith alone").

ANGLICAN BODIES –
- FORMAL Principle: The Bible (66 books) are the only standard of doctrine.
- MATERIAL Principle:
           Low Church -- doctrine of God's grace,
           High Church -- corporate worship,
           Broad Church -- a life which conforms to the ethical teachings of Jesus.

REFORMED CHURCH BODIES –
- Calvin’s MATERIAL Principle: central concept is the glory of God.
- FORMAL Principle: the Bible is the standard for all conduct.

AMERICAN BAPTIST BODIES –
- MATERIAL Principle: The Absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ.
- FORMAL Principle: The sovereignty of the soul under God in all religious matters.

METHODIST BODIES –
- FORMAL Principle: Scripture, reason, teachings of the ancient Church.
- MATERIAL Principle: the perfected man, i.e. entire sanctification.

FOOTNOTES
1. ^ F.E. Mayer, The Religious Bodies of America, (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), passim.
2. ^ F.E. Mayer, The Religious Bodies of America, (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), p.47.

What is in your definition of "good and right" for your children?

2010-09-11T13:20:00.000-04:00

Do the same parents who desperately want the Lord to commit to their child's eternal salvation in baptism - want with the same desperation to fulfill their commitment to their child and God, that he or she above all else shall be brought up in the holy Christian faith through faithful teaching and preaching of the God's Word, worship and the Sacrament of the Altar?
Consider the following from Pastor Peter of Clarksville, TN

Responsibility and RESPONSIBILITY

Over the past few weeks we have had conversations in the church office about the declining priority of Sunday school and catechism classes among parents and families of the Church. It has included the usual frustrations of attendance, attention, and actions (meaning behavior). In that ongoing dialog we have noticed a few things worthy of a larger discussion.
It is not true that parents and students are unwilling or unable to make commitments and then follow through on them. At first this was where the conversation headed but then we noticed that kids are being hauled to sports practices and games, dance classes, extra-curricular events, and the like. Parents and kids are making commitments – but those commitments are not to the church, not to Sunday school and catechism, and not to the faith in general. The issue we must face is not why parents and families are not up to making and keeping commitments; they are and clearly do. Rather the issue is why the Church is no longer high on the list of priorities, responsibilities, and commitments in these homes.
It is not true that parents are not as involved in the lives of their children as other parents in other generations were. At first we thought the problem in the Church was related to a general distance parents have from their children but then we considered the amount of time they put in together at those sports practices and games (not to mention the travel time for some of these sports leagues). We paid attention to the amount of time parents were spending in the car transporting their children to dance rehearsals or music lessons and then to the performance events. Clearly they are spending a great deal of time together but it is also true that speaking, teaching, and sharing the faith has dropped down on the list of urgent priorities.
I spend several hours with parents prior to baptism and we include some discussion of the promises parents make to raise their children in the faith, to bring them to the worship services of God’s House, and to provide for their further instruction in the faith (what we call catechism classes). There does not seem to be much difference in their attention to this counseling or in their ability to understand and make this commitment while the child is still very small and very far removed from some of this. We talk about praying with their children every night as a discipline that bears rich rewards later when spiritual and life issues confront children and they look for people to talk to about them.
So what happens between those baptismal promises and the adolescent years when the parents have the most to do to make good on those baptismal promises? You can tell me because I do not have much of an answer. Parents still want to do right and do their best for their children but somehow the faith, the Church, and spiritual maturity in that faith are not connected with what is good and right and the best for their children. The great Dale Meyer video (Easter Showers) includes a line in which a lay teacher in the congregation complains about parents who will pay good money for Stride Right shoes for their children but then won’t come in for an hour of baptismal counseling [or bring them to worship and Sunday school and catechism classes]. Parents want to do right for their children but their definition of “right” no longer includes Church, Sunday school, or catechism classes. I wish I knew why.... and how to change it...

Pastor Peter
http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2010/05/responsibility-and-responsibility.html

Would you know the power of Christ's resurrection???

2010-09-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection. Philippians 3:10

Who wouldn’t want to experience this power?
Just think - being able to feel the power of resurrection!
Most of us probably think it must be a fantastic experience, being able to feel a heavenly, divine power fill our being.
To be covered by a new life with all its feeling of triumph and joy. It’s no wonder that Paul time and time again speaks about joy!
Yet in our daily lives, that’s not exactly how it goes, however.
When Paul talks about getting to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, he adds that he wants something else: “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).
To overcome death and our fear of death is all a part of becoming one with Christ, uniting with Him and becoming one of His members.
For us on earth this means that we must, In one way or another, be a part of His suffering.
Christ was rejected and killed. Belonging to Him means participating in His disgrace, daring to fail and allowing people to jeer at us or scoff. What we feel is oftentimes just that, a participation in His suffering.
Paul enumerates all the things a pious Jew or anyone else can do to form the basis for a secure feeling of having the correct attitude in life. Paul has learned to regard all of this as rubbish that can be thrown into the garbage can.
Paul knows that he has only one tremendous asset now: Christ, who died for him and has taken him into His service. That entails both suffering and joy.
However, how it may feel has no real significance. The only thing that’s necessary is Christ Himself
Paul wants to share everything with Christ - “that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:11). Reaching that is nothing we can regard as obvious.
Eternal life with God is nothing we get merely by dying. Neither is it something we’re sure to achieve because we, at some time, converted and came to the faith. It’s something that is a result of Christ. It comes from Christ.
We receive it if we’re united with Christ. Everything is dependent on me belonging to Christ, in life and in death.
Paul understands all this. There’s only one thing that’s really important him: that he becomes incorporated in Christ, that he really is connected to Christ.
And this connection may come to him through victory and success or suffering and death.
Either way, it still is joy, maybe not always emotionally, but still pure joy, what Paul calls joy in the Lord.

Bo Giertz
To Live with Christ - pg. 614-615 CPH
Italicized - my edits.

Mercy On Those Who Cling To The Phony

2010-09-10T06:06:00.000-04:00

Lord have mercy on those who have tasted the outward experiences of Christianity, and seem to have much that is real in our Christian life, but have not pressed on into this place of rest and of faith in Jesus Christ.
Lord have mercy on such who cling to the appearance and forms of godliness, yet refuse to cling to Christ alone, for these external evidences of Christianity are of no value to them.
Lord have mercy on such as cling to the appearances of Christianity, for if that is all they have, a time will come when these appearances will fail them, and then how much harder will it be for them to receive that which they have hardened their heart to.
Lord have mercy on such as cling to their self-invented forms of godliness and Christianity, for if they trust too long in the untrue, the unreal, the phony, there will come a day of desperation, when they will look for the true, and will they be able to find that which they have long rejected.
Lord have mercy on such as do not trust and believe in You, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Kyrie Eleison (Palestrina)

2010-09-08T21:58:00.000-04:00

Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison: Kyrie Eleison (Palestrina)

Kirie Eleison - Lord Have Mercy

2010-09-08T21:44:00.000-04:00

Where Reason Rules Faith - Christ Is Mocked!

2010-09-07T09:36:00.001-04:00

In the Scriptures, the Lord reminds us that "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked"(Gal 6:7). To mock God is to speak of Him or treat Him as if He is other than He has revealed Himself to be. This being the case, it would seem as if many in the name of Christ, mock Him as they treat Him as anything other than their only Savior and source of eteranl life. No place is this more manifest among the Church than in the apathetic and conditionalistic participation in Worship, reading of the Scriptures and prayer. If apathy and conditionalistic demands are what people are sowing, what are and shall the reap?
The following is an exerpt from Article IV of the Augsburg Confession that speaks of how this mocking of Christ takes place in the lives of many.

Here the scholastics (i.e. the supposedly educated and/or spiritually enlightened) … teach only the righteousness of reason — that is, civil works — and maintain that without the Holy Spirit reason (human mental/physical abilities) can love God above all things.

As long as a man’s mind is at rest and he does not feel God’s wrath or judgment, he can imagine that he wants to love God and that he wants to do good for God’s sake. In this way the supposedly educated and spiritually enlightened teach men to merit the forgiveness of sins by doing what is within them, that is, if reason in its sorrow over sin elicits an act of love to God or does good for God’s sake.9
Because this view naturally flatters men, it has produced and increased many types of worship in the church … someone has always been making up this or that form of worship or devotion with this view in mind.
In this point of view there are many vicious errors that would take a long time to enumerate. But let the intelligent reader just consider this.
If Christian righteousness, that is our rightness and perfection before God, is gained by the use of our reason, what difference is there between philosophy and the teaching of Christ?
If we merit/earn the forgiveness of sins and the favor of God by these elicited and made up acts of ours, of what use is Christ? If we can be justified by our reason and the works our reason tells us to do, what need is there of Christ as Savior or of regeneration/of being raised from death to life?
On the basis of these supposedly spiritual opinions, things have come to such a pass that many people ridicule us for teaching that men ought to seek some righteousness which comes from by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ, which is a righteousness that is beyond the philosophical.
We have heard of some who, in their sermons, laid aside the Gospel and expounded the ethics of Aristotle, political correctness, etc. If the opponents’ of righteousness through Christ alone are correct in their ideas, this was perfectly proper, for Aristotle wrote so well on natural ethics that nothing further needs to be added. We see that there are books in existence which compare certain teachings of Christ with the teachings of Socrates, Zeno, and others, as though Christ had come to give some sort of laws by which we could merit the forgiveness of sins rather than receiving it freely for his merits. So if we accept this teaching of the opponents that we merit forgiveness of sins and justification by the works of reason, there will be no difference between philosophical or Pharisaic righteousness and Christian righteousness.

Book of Concord - Apology of the AC Article IV
Italicized - my edits.

Lutheranism 101

2010-09-04T16:29:00.000-04:00

An excellent site that presents the basics of Lutheran Theology.
... being a Lutheran is being a person who believes in te truths of God's Word, the Holy Bible, as they are correctly explained and taught in the Book of Concord. To do so is to confess the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ....

Lutheranism 101

Confessing My Want To Be Worshipped

2010-09-03T10:56:00.001-04:00

I don't know how many struggle with this in their walk of faith, but it seems as if many of my struggles with sin come down this truth. I offer it for your reflection in prayer.

Gracious God in heaven, I confess to you my sin and all its wants and desires I give myself up to.
I confess that I am often consumed with …
my want to be recognized,
my want to be important,
my want to be valued,
my want to be wanted,
my want to be desired,
my want to be affirmed,
my want to matter.
In truth I want to be worshipped and adored.
And I want all these things from worldly sources.
Surely the world would absolve me of this declaring it simply a matter of being human. Yeah, fallen human!
What is so pathetic about me is that I reject all of these same things that have been demonstrated and purchased for me in Jesus Christ.
In Jesus Christ, God demonstrates his desire, recognition and want of me.
In Jesus Christ, God demonstrates my importance and value to him.
In Jesus Christ, me, my life and my living are adored and affirmed as the most important matter to God.
In Jesus Christ, I find God himself bending and bowing his life and living all the way into death to save me for himself.
What greater act of worship could I ever receive than Jesus Christ.
Yet despite or in spite of all this, my sin manifests itself in that I more crave the worship of the world than this loving and saving worship of God.
In the midst of this reality I bend and bow before you my Lord and my God, confess my sin and asking that, for the sake of Jesus Christ, You would bend, you bow the heavens and forgive your sinful miserable servant.
Cleanse me of my sin and renew a right spirit within me, I want to do better.
I confess and ask all this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

“ … if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. John 1:7-9 (ESV)

A Meditative prayer on Luke 14:25-35

2010-09-01T17:50:00.001-04:00

This is my way of meditatively reflecting and praying the lesson that I will preach on.
I offer it for you meditation and reflection and comment if you so desire.

Gracious Savior, I hear you speaking to those whom the Holy Spirit has turned by the Gospel to You as their Lord and Savior. In turning these people to you, the Holy Spirit has turned them to you as their source of life and salvation, their sole source of truth, their sole source of good, their sole source of God’s divine favor, forgiveness, comfort, consolation and hope.
In turning the believer to you alone for these things and much more, the Holy Spirit has turned the believer away from all other sources of such things. To live the faith is to live the daily repentance, the daily turning away from all other sources of such things and turning unto you. So desperate is our need to turn away from things worldly to you through whom all things were made that it requires a hatred, that is a rejection, of all things earthly as the true and sure source of our salvation and eternal life.
I give thanks to you that you have not prohibited me from loving my family, caring for them and doing the good you would have me do for them. Sure I may love them as you loved your mother and provided for her earthly and spiritual needs. Yet in your entire ministry and in even in your passion and death, you did not look to or cry out to your earthly mother but it was to your heavenly Father from whom you were begotten and from whom you had received all good things. It was not to your earthly mother, but your heavenly Father that you commended your spirit in death. And surely it was not your mother who raised you from the dead or seated you at the Father’s right hand, but God the Father himself.
As you received all things from the Father for the purpose of using and sharing all things to accomplish the good He had given you, so I as a believer, having received you and all good things in you, am to use these to accomplish the good that God has given me to do at home, at church, etc. Here is where my cross is to be found and it is here that I am to take it up and share in the work that is yours.
To refuse to bear this cross, that is suffer for doing the good given me, is to prevent myself from being your disciple. Surely bearing the cross does not make me a disciple, but inasmuch as I refuse to let Christ live through me, I have refused to follow and thus cut myself off from Christ who makes and keeps me his disciple.
In the desiring to build a tower, you set before me the baptismal desire to work out of the salvation you have given to me with fear and trembling. I can count the cost by the daily and hourly collapse of my own righteousness.
I see that the good that I would build, I have not built. I also see that the very thing I do not desire to work and build, that I have worked and built. In this I find that I have nothing with which to begin, to work or to complete this tower. Truly the building and the completion of this tower is as wholly dependent upon your grace as is the desire to build it. Build in me as you have built me into your holy house that I may be your tower, your servant.
I can make no fight for my failure to build, to carry the cross you have given me. The legions of my sins and your law against me are too great for me. By my sins I have removed myself a great way off, I therefore send before your throne that which you sent to make peace for me, your only begotten Son. He, with the delegation of his passion and death met your terms and asked your forgiveness for my peace.
Again, you remind me that as a disciple, there can be no building or completion in the faith, and there will be no peace giving rescue for me in my failures to meet your divine building codes, unless I give up everything else as the source of these wondrous blessings.
In speaking of the salt, you speak of be me as the baptized living by the grace of God through faith. Here you clarify the reality of what happens when I or any other believer turns elsewhere for these blessed gifts that are freely given through your Word and Sacraments.
Lord, by your grace I hear, help my hearing that I may hear and rightly believe that you alone are my tower and my peace. Amen.

Now great crowds accompanied [Jesus], and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Luke 14:25-35 (ESV)

Some Things To Consider About the Mosque at Ground Zero

2010-08-31T10:29:00.000-04:00

Statement on the Proposed “Cordoba House” Mosque near Ground Zero
Newt Gingrich
July 21, 2010 6pm

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.
The proposed "Cordoba House" overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks - is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites.
For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex.
Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to "symbolize interfaith cooperation" when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.
Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for "religious toleration" are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca. And they lecture us about tolerance.
If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.
We have not been able to rebuild the World Trade Center in nine years. Now we are being told a 13 story, $100 million megamosque will be built within a year overlooking the site of the most devastating surprise attack in American history.
America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could.\

Apathy or Passion for Christ's Passion

2010-08-30T10:33:00.000-04:00

A great devotion from Pastor Scott Murray on why apathy and indifference toward Christ and the faith have no place in the life of a believer.
"We are not going to be dispassionate in reception of such a great and powerful gift as God's grace. We will not look at the price tag upon the cross as though we are shopping for a cheap crucifix, but we will be shocked at the cost of the merit which Christ accrued for us to rescue us from ...

Memorial Moment: Our Passion for His Passion