"Hear this, Christian: Your count of your own fruit will always be low. It is not yours to number. If it were, you’d always be off. You would count some things as fruit which God does’t, and many others you wouldn’t count at all as God does. The Vinedresser, God our Father, counts and harvests … Continue reading Faith Alone Works…with Imperfections Perfected in Christ
Faith Alone Works…In Freedom and Delight
God has given us great Freedom by faith in Christ and works in us a new Delight in the Law of the Lord. These two he joins together: Christian Freedom and Delight. Yet some separate them from one another, with devious and dismal result called Antinomianism. Antinomianism ends up denying the identity of God and … Continue reading Faith Alone Works…In Freedom and Delight
Faith Alone Works…To Bear Much Fruit
See, the truly pure, good works of God don’t flow from your anxious conscience. Your worried conscience only twists them all up, because you’re not focused on Christ and His cross, but totally looking at yourself. The good works God bids you bring forth don’t come out of your guilty conscience. His Holy works don’t … Continue reading Faith Alone Works…To Bear Much Fruit
Faith Alone Works…
God doesn't need our good works, but our neighbor does. Now the 2017 Lenten season arrives in this 500th Anniversary year of the Lutheran Reformation. Martin Luther restored the pure preaching of the Gospel to the people of God: that we are saved by grace, through faith in Christ alone--apart from works of the Law. … Continue reading Faith Alone Works…
What a Blind Man Wants
Which is better, do you think: to be the only blind person in a crowd of those who all see? Or the only One who can see in the crowd of those blind all their lives, never able to look past this very moment to the next which must follow? Jesus stops and goes out … Continue reading What a Blind Man Wants
Why Tithing Will Never Impress Jesus
This isn't a Sunday School lesson about money. This is about Jesus, and the generosity of faith. The quote above is often ascribed to Luther, though I was unable to trace down the exact source. Authentic or not, the principle holds that a genuine faith in Jesus changes more than our personal philosophy or sentimental … Continue reading Why Tithing Will Never Impress Jesus
A Word to Uplift Fearful Eyes
What does it take to make you to fall on your face? Many things cause us to fall now and then. Someone trips us up or knocks us down, and we fall. Sometimes we stumble on our own. During times of crisis, we may know we need help. But it takes a Word from Heaven … Continue reading A Word to Uplift Fearful Eyes
Even the Wind and Sea Obeys Him
All disciples of Jesus suffer recurring bouts of "little faith." It's one of the traits Jesus recognizes in them time and again. Doubtless, we're in the same boat! But Jesus abides with his disciples through all the symptoms: the anxiety of near empty hands, the terror of storms, the peril of death, the helplessness to … Continue reading Even the Wind and Sea Obeys Him
Forgiveness and Life in The Aftermath of Evil
Review of Sunday School lessons on 2 Samuel 12:1-23 for Sunday, 29 January 2017 The Bible simply allows no room for pretense that God's people are inherently better than others. Still, some promote a sort of Christian fantasy life. They teach a cartoon version of our faith, a fairy tale lie often boldly told in … Continue reading Forgiveness and Life in The Aftermath of Evil
Isaiah 50:4 Blues 