“For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” 1 Timothy 4:4 There is a scene in the baseball movie For Love of the Game, where the star pitcher Bill Chapel says, “I’ve lost 134 times.” His love interest says, “You count...
“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Luke 7:47-48 When Jesus ate at the home of one of the Pharisees, a sinful woman came to anoint...
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through...
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for...
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1 One of the best assignments that I was given at the seminary was the task of relating different articles of the Augsburg Confession to Article IV on Justification. Everything always...
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” —Colossians 3:12-14 Few of...
But 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. —Ephesians 2:4-5 A Navy Chaplain recently described the challenges and the joys of the spiritual...
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered.”—Psalm 32:1 Adam and Eve heard the sound of God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day. There had been no separation between God and His perfect creation before the fall. God and those whom He had created dwelt...
An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. —Proverbs 31: 10-11, 28 However, let each one...
“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” —2 Corinthians 4:5 One faithful Lutheran school teacher once told me that everyday he would tell the students in his classroom that Jesus died on the cross and rose again for the forgiveness...