PUT FALSE WAYS FAR FROM ME ...

Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! Psalm 119:29
A confessional petition in the first part of this verse. With these words, the Psalmist asks the Lord to do for him what he cannot do, put false ways far from himself.
This begs the question: “Where do these false ways come from?”
It would be easy to point to any number of false teachers, prophets, and the like. If this were true, one would only need to flee such bringers of false ways.
No, the false ways that I, like the Psalmist, would have the Lord put far from me, are not the ways of others, but the way of me, myself and I.
Sinful from the time my mother conceived me (Ps. 51), I find that sin, my sinfulness, is always right here with me, taking me captive to its false ways. It matters not how much I may know the ways are false, nor how much I may know the way of truth. No amount of knowledge or understanding of my condition or situation, will ever enable me to sever myself from my false ways. I need to be rescued from my own falsity in sin (Rm 7).
The first petition in this verse is a cry for such a rescue. In praying that the Lord put false ways far from me, I, like the Psalmist, am praying that the Lord deliver me from me, put me far from me, keep me far from me, save me from me.
It is only because the Lord has graciously taught me His Law, that I am able to know myself and pray for such deliverance. It is the Law of the Lord that reveals truth from falsity, and it is that same Law which teaches me I need the Lord to do for me, what I cannot do for myself.
No place does the Lord teach me the fullness of His Law for me so graciously, as He does on the cross. For it is on the cross the Lord Himself reveals what the Law says about me and to me, as He suffers its fullness to put it and my falsity far from me.
But in regards to this petition, how far as the Lord removed me and my false ways from me? As far as Jesus.
Yes, it may seem as if the distance is no farther than a film of water and a word, but Jesus is that Word, and by it, He is in that water coming between me the sinner, and the new me He has created in Himself and His ways.
Yes, it may seem as far as if the distance is no farther than the thickness of a piece of bread, a sip of wine, and a word, but Jesus is that Word, and by it, He is in that bread and sip of wine, getting between me the sinner and the me He’s made to live in Him.
And what distance can the words of a man put between me, my sin, my falsity and the me that He has made in Himself? The full distance of Himself, for Jesus has called that man to put Him between me the sinner, and the me He’s set free to live in Him.
Wonder of wonders, that Jesus, the Son of God, humbles Himself unto my humanity and my falsity on the cross, so that in my humanity I might live in Him Who is the way and the truth and the life – for me.
How far has he delivered me from my falsity and false ways? - as far as the east is from the west, as far as life is from death, as far as eternity is from time and as far as the truth is from the false.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

YOU CAN HELP HAITI - LCMS WORLD RELIEF

I'm sure that many of you have heard of the destruction in Haiti. There is large Lutheran population there and many are suffering. Please keep all in your prayers and if you'd like to help, remember that our LCMS- World Relief and Human Care is even now responding to help and they could use your support. 
Follow this link to help as you can.  God bless you!!

http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=16375

A Prayer to look for the Lord only in His Blessed Masks

Gracious Lord, how my eyes long to see You and Your work in my life and the world around me.
Guard me from attempting to satisfy my longing by my own reason or senses.
Grant that when I hear and see Your Word rightly taught, Your absolution freely declared, Your sacraments rightly administered, and Your will rightly done – I may boldly say,
“This day I have seen God’s Word and God’s work!
I have heard God Himself!
I have seen God’s hands at work as He baptized, as He fed me and others with the body and blood of His Son!”
When I am tempted to doubt Your presence and Your work because of the mask You have chosen, blind my earthly eyes and give sight to my eyes of faith that I may see You and receive You in all Your saving work.
Grant that I may never seek to separate You and Your Work from Your Word or the offices You have chosen for me as my Creator, my Redeemer, and my Sanctifier.
Console me and all believers with the understanding that when we are brought to heaven’s shores - we will see and behold You and Your work without masks and coverings that now protect us from the fullness of Your glory.
For now, allow that I, my brothers and my sisters in the faith may stand in the place that You have chosen for us.
We see You and Your work as we see the sun behind and through the clouds.
To this end, grant that inasmuch as we long to have and behold You in heaven, we may have and behold You through Your chosen masks which are the mission, substance and work of Christianity – the Word rightly proclaimed and Your Sacraments rightly administered in Your Church.
If ever I would like to rightly know how it is between me and You, my Lord, and whether my way pleases You, grant that I may pay close attention only to Your Word and Your works in all their fullness.
This I ask and pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Studying & Praying God's Word - A Simple Guide

Studying God’s Word

1. What is God teaching me (what am I to learn)?
  - about Himself – Father/Son/Holy Spirit?
  - about me/others?
  - about life/death?
  - about faith/belief/unbelief/doubt?
  - about other things?
            GOD HAS TAUGHT ME …

2. What is there in this text that I should thank God for?
            I CAN REALLY THANK GOD FOR …

3. How have I failed or sinned in light of what I have learned in this text?
  - Is there something God would have me do that I have failed to do?
            I REALLY HAVEN’T BEEN …
  - Is there something I have been doing that God would have me to stop doing?
            I HAVE BEEN …

4. What would God have me do differently in my life according to this text?
  - What would God have me think, say, or do differently from what I am currently doing?
            GOD WOULD CHANGE THE WAY I … BY …
  - What would the Lord have me start thinking, saying, or doing that I wasn’t before?
            GOD WOULD HAVE ME BEGIN …

Praying God’s Word
From the answers to the series questions, you’ll begin to find the next by product – the substance of your prayers.

1. WISE HEAVENLY FATHER, IN WHAT YOUR WORD HAS TAUGHT ME,
    GRANT ME YOUR WISDOM THAT I MAY . . .
2. GRACIOUS AND GIVING LORD, IN WHAT YOUR WORD HAS TAUGHT ME,
    I THANK YOU FOR . . .
3. MERCIFUL AND FORGIVING LORD, IN LIGHT OF WHAT YOUR WORD
    HAS TAUGHT ME, I CONFESS TO YOU THAT . . .
4. HOLY SPIRIT AND GUIDE, IN LIGHT OF WHAT YOUR WORD HAS TAUGHT ME,
    GRANT THAT I MAY NO LONGER . . .
    AND GRANT THAT I MAY BEGIN TO . . .

A Prayer For The New Year

A prayer on this New Year's Eve for the coming New Year.
from St. Ambrosia, the 4th century


We pray you, O Creator of everything,
at this hour preceding night,
that you be clement and watch over us.
Let dreams and phantoms of the night be scattered.
Keep us safe from our enemies and make us pure!

Jesu!! look on us when we fall;
One momentary glance of yours
Can from her guilt the soul recall
To tears of penitence divine.

Awake us from false sleep profound,
And through our senses pour your light;
Be your blest name the first we sound
At early morn, the last at night.

–from the hymn "At Cock-Crowing"

YET I AM NOT ALONE ...

YET I AM NOT ALONE, FOR THE FATHER IS WITH ME. John 16:32 (ESV)

Many of the redeemed find out often through difficult and lonely experiences that living out our beliefs often demands extreme sacrifice on many different levels and often multiple levels at the same time.
Living by the faith and growing in that faith may well mean that I lose the companionship of certain people or a time. Such losses often bring about a deep and painful sense of aloneness or loneliness. Even so, if I am to move forward in faith, or fly like the eagle flies, high and higher into the brighter light of the Lord, I have to be willing to potentially suffer an increasing amount of aloneness and loneliness.
No bird lives as solitary a life as does the eagle. It never flies in a flock, a most there might be two together in flight or perched, and this togetherness is but for a short time. While my faithfulness to the Word of God, and thus my growth in faith may cost me the companionship of others, I am never left alone. As the companionship of others decreases, the companionship of the Lord increases for me.
It is to such divine companionship, such heights of faith that the Lord calls all people. No one ever realizes how sweet the Lord really is, until they have had to walk or fly alone with Him. No person in the Scriptures, from Abraham to Paul, ever matured in their faith, or soared as high as they did without each of them having had to be alone with the Lord. The Lord had to isolate them, even as He isolated Jonah, so that they might learn the up look, learn to look to the Lord above in all things. Each instance of this isolation is a part, a glimpse of how the Lord is at work in all things for the good of those who love Him and have called according to His purpose (Rm 8:28-29).
Such isolations are much like a furnace that is used to purify gold (1 Pt 1:6-7). Through these isolations, the Lord seeks to purify our faith. Just as gold increases in its purity and value by the removal of what is not gold, so faith increases in its purity and richness by the removal of all that is not of saving faith.
Such isolations help to free us from our dependence upon others to sustain us. While such companions are valuable as they support and encourage us in our journey of faith, they can become obstacles to us in reaching the heights the Lord has called us to. They become obstacles as we place undo affection and faith in them for the comfort and safety they have provided to us. Our companions may well be all around us, but these isolations are of such an inner nature that they bring us to that place where we cannot share it with them. Moreover, even when we try, our companions and their comfort, no longer comfort. Then we are left alone, apart from human held, and it is in this aloneness, that we learn what true comfort really is and Who our true Comforter really is – the Lord and His Word.
When the Father has finished His work through some event or experience that has isolated us from others for a time, He often returns us to our companions. These companions are in no way loved less, but in fact are loved in a better way. For when my love for my companions is motivated by my dependence upon them, I love them for selfish and self-serving reasons. My isolations from them, serves to train me in the way of faith and dependency on the Lord alone, that I might love Him and my companions all the more selflessly, and thus rightly.
If I am to follow St. Paul, and press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14), then I must be willing, and welcoming, of those times when I must be alone and isolated with the Lord.
In time, the Lord will make it clear whether my isolation is of the Father or of myself and my faithfulness to my personal preferences.
Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Lord You have made me to fly, bear me up as on eagles wings to Your upward calling. Amen

IN OUR DARKNESS …

by Pastor Mark W. Love

In our darkness, where we rightfully abide,
The Lord of life, would not leave us hide.
In our darkness, where we justly grope,
The Lord of life, would not leave us without hope.
In our darkness, where we sinners love to be,
The Lord of life, would not leave us there eternally.
In our darkness, bound by sin to remain,
The Lord of life, in our flesh gladly came.
In our darkness, caught in guilt’s mighty power,
The Lord of life, comes to his helpless natal hour.
In our darkness, held by the chains of pride,
The Lord of life, comes to begin his saving stride.
In our darkness, lost from the Lord and each other,
The Lord of life, comes with flesh as our brother.
In our darkness, rejected by the righteous law,
The Lord of life, comes wrapped in swaddling cloth.
In our darkness, cast forever into death,
The Lord of life, come to breath our life’s breath.
In our darkness, yes are we, and for a time shall dwell,
The Lord of life, has come to be our Immanuel.

GRANT ME LIFE, COMPASSIONATE LORD ...

Excerpts from the Prayer 2 of St. Narekatsi

Grant me life, compassionate Lord.
Hear me, merciful Lord.
Be charitable to me, forgiving Lord.
Save me, long-suffering Lord.
Protect me, defender Lord.
Be generous, all-giving Lord.
Free me, all-powerful Lord.
Revive me, restoring Lord.
Raise me again, awe-inspiring Lord.
Enlighten me, heavenly Lord.
Cure me, omnipotent Lord.
Grant pardon, inscrutable Lord.
Bestow gifts, bountiful Lord.
Adorn me with grace, generous Lord.
Let us be reconciled, healing Lord.
Be accepting, unvengeful Lord.
Wipe away my transgressions, blessed Lord,
so that on that Day of Misery,
when I stare at the abyss on either side,
I may also catch sight of your salvation, my hope and guardian,
and on that terrifying journey your angel of peace may sweetly guide me.

Endow me, Lord, on the day my breath is finished
with a clean spirit raised in light among the joyful heavenly host,
with gifts of your love overtaking me.
Grant to my wayward soul an unexpected kindness on that day of despair.
Do not assign, blessed Lord and Savior, a wild beast to guide your sick sheep,
but grant me health, for I am dying of sin,
grant me salvation, for I am ruined by transgressions.

When Death Seems Untimely ...

For many of us the idea of our death and the power of death is so far beyond us to deal with and grasp, but nothing is further beyond us and even more overwhelming to us than the death of those we love. This is especially true for those who die at what seems like an untimely age. For those who do not know Christ, death is the final word for them and there are no words for those they leave behind. Not so for those who are in Christ and those they leave behind.
Through His prophet Isaiah, the Lord speaks a better word to those who die in the faith and their loved ones. Whatever the age, the better word is “RESCUE!”

The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness. Isaiah 57:1-2 (ESV)

For those who are in Christ, death at any age has become a rescue mission.
With regard to their earthly journey, we know not what lay ahead for those now gone from us at such a young age. This better word tells us that our all knowing Lord did know, and according to His mercy, chose to rescue them from some calamity, some evil, that was to great for them.
As the blessed Savior who would lose none of us, Christ makes rescue of those who are His.
He answers the prayer He taught us, as His Kingdom comes and forever delivers our loved one from calmity that was to much, to great for them.
Thanks be to God who gives them and us the victory, the rescue, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO ...

Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
Who seek him with their whole heart,
Who also do no wrong,
But walk in his ways! Psalm 119:2-3

The blessing announced threefold upon those who keep, those seek, and those who do no wrong, declares the certainty of my Lord’s blessings upon such as do these things.
But …
Who are these, that their keeping of His testimonies has brought them the blessing of God, the favor of God?
Who are these that have kept His testimonies, that have kept the Lord's whole counsel of commands, doctrines, and promises?
I must confess that I am not among them, for whatever I have kept of His testimonies; my keeping was but poor and self-seeking.
I must confess that whatever the form of my keeping of the Lord’s testimonies, both the form and my keeping lacked the “always” which the Lord's Law demands of my keeping.
Who are these that seek the Lord with their whole heart?
I must confess again, that I am not among those who have sought the Lord with their whole heart.
For my heart fractured and fragmented at best.
I have no heart that seeks the Lord, for my heart is unable to seek He whose whole heart longs for me.
Even in my seeking of the Lord, my heart’s bondage to sin would allow me to only seek and find a lord of my making.
Inasmuch as my heart is sinful and bound in sin, any seeking on my part would lack the ever required “always.”
And who are these that do no wrong?
Whoever these are, I must again confess that I am not one of them.
For having been conceived and born in sin, I am born wrong and bound to all that is wrong.
Even in the most right thing I might do, my wrongness in sin contaminates it so that in the lens of God’s Law, it, like me, is wrong.
Surely it is only in my wrongness I have achieve the illusive “always.”
Who are these that walk in his ways?
Again I am forced to ask who these are, for I am not among them and no matter the length or pace of my walking, I have never walk “always” in all His ways.
And in all my walking, surely I am "always" tripped up by the iota, the dot of the law that can never pass away.
So I stand before the Lord with my whole unwholesome heart, needing some other word from the Lord lest I perish for lack of blessedness.
In testimony of His love for me, the Lord sends His Testimony to take on my flesh, my life, my living under the Law, my guilt, my condemnation, my punishment, my hell and my death.
Surely it is on the Cross that the Lord Jesus allows Himself to be found among me and my companions of sin, guilt, wrath, and death.
Surely, it is on the Cross that the Lord Jesus willfully and wantingly remains as a companion to me among consequences of my sin.
It is in His Living Testimony – Jesus Christ, that all of God’s testimonies find their constant “Yes!” – For me!” (2 Cor. 1:20-22)
Only in His Living Testimony, in Jesus Christ, will I ever “always” be offered and given His blessedness for “always” keeping God's testimonies, “always” seeking God with His whole heart, “always” doing no wrong, and “always” walking in God's ways.
And if all this were not comforting enough, my Lord does not leave me to acquire all this to myself, but by His Testimony with the water, unites me to His Living Testimony – Jesus Christ.
By uniting me to His Living Testimony, I am by God’s grace, placed in Jesus Christ and I am born of God with a new life and a clean heart.
In His Living Testimony I am given a faith by which I receive and live in Jesus Christ – who has become my Testimony, my Heart, my Doing No Wrong, and my Way – “always!”
How true is that blessed revelation of the Lord that neither I, nor anyone else, lives by bread alone, BUT BY EVERY WORD, EVERY TESTIMONY THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF THE LORD!