In his preface to the book of Romans, Luther defines faith saying,"Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times" (LW 35.370). What is faith? It is a certain trust in God's grace toward us. Faith is...
Luther asserts the work of the Holy Spirit in the 3rd article of the Apostle's Creed and declares that there is no better title than the word, "Sanctification." Luther writes of the work of the Holy Spirit saying, "Neither you nor I could even know anything of Christ, or believe in Him and take...
The account of Naaman in 2nd Kings is a fun one. Naaman goes to Israel to be cleansed of his leprosy. He first goes to the king and the king thinks that the king of Syria is trying to start a war with him. Before Naaman can go back to Syria, he is told to go to the prophet Elisha. Naaman went to...
The last few weeks have been very draining. Anticipating Hurricane Harvey was an emotional drain. We didn't know how bad the storm was going to be, but we knew that it was going to be bad. The aftermath of the storm left houses destroyed, people dead, material goods lost, and emotions drained...
Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor...
St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth saying, "For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's Word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ" (2nd Corinthians 2:17). I, and all my brother pastors, get you when it comes to your sin. We...
God, through His servant St. Paul, spoke to the churches in Corinth saying, "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" 91st Corinthians 13:13). The Lutheran Confession assert this verse saying, "Yet one is not to imagine a kind of faith that can...
Luke 11:24-26 says, "24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in...
The Augsburg Confession asserts the doctrine of repentance saying, "Our churches teach that those who have fallen after Baptism can receive forgiveness of sins whenever they are converted, and that the church ought to impart absolution to those who return to repentance. Properly speaking...
President Harrison, in his Little Book on Joy, says, "The Gospel of free forgiveness in Christ frees us to expect mistakes, forgive them, and to find the humor in them after the fact" (Little Book on Joy 69). We live as if everyone is always going to love us, improve their behavior, and...