The current quote, is on our Home Page. May each quote pique your interest and help you to draw near to God. The Bible, James 4:8, tells us if we do so God will draw near to us.
Sunday, January 3, 2021
“When we reach out to God in prayer, we always make immediate personal contact. We are heading toward a personal meeting with our God, who guarantees His full attention and His loving understanding. He anticipates our conversation and will welcome us with open arms. He is ready and willing to hear whatever we have to say. In fact, before we ever address Him, He tunes into our thoughts and feelings, gets involved in our lives behind the scenes, and is just waiting for us to notice Him and speak to Him. That is how seriously He takes us. That is how much we mean to Him.”
(Rudnick, 18)
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Sunday, January 10, 2021
“People often think that worship is about what we do for or toward God. The reality is quite different. In the Divine Service, God is providing His service for us. In the reading, the preaching, and the proclamation of His Word and in His Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, God comes to us. In worship, God gives His grace and then we respond with thanks and praise.”
(Kinnaman, 4)
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Sunday, January 17, 2021
“Paul knew that for Christians the Law was no longer a thing that comes from the outside but is now embedded in us by the Holy Spirit. Paul expected these words would take root in our hearts and shape our lives. God would change us through them and conform us to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29).”
(St-Onge, 49)
Read Romans 8:29
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Sunday, January 24, 2021
“The resurrection of Jesus is God’s grand statement that life is the goal of this creation. The resurrection of Jesus proclaims that all creatures find the goal of their existence in life. Just as God raised Jesus from the dead, so we learn that God treasures life over death.”
(Harrison, LCMS)
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Sunday, January 31, 2021
“It follows self-evidently that, since everything that we possess as well as everything in heaven and on earth is daily given, sustained, and preserved by God, therefore we in turn certainty owe it to Him to love, praise, and thank Him without ceasing and, in short, to serve Him wholly and completely, as He requires and enjoins us to do in the Ten Commandments.”
(Luther, LLC, 69)
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Sunday, February 7, 2021
“Luther realized that God’s righteousness was the joyous gift of faith. Faith produces devotion, not dread. Following Jesus comes through faith, not fear. Luther called this gift passive righteousness. Our standing before God is not earned or merited by any human effort. Rather, our standing before God (coram deo) depends on Christ’s righteousness gifted to us through the Holy Spirit. We do nothing to deserve it. It is purely by the grace of God.”
(Sutton, 35-36)
Sutton mentions coram deo and coram mundo on pager 36. “Lutheran Theology: An Online Journal” says, “The church coram deo lives from the Word of God, and coram mundo it lives to deliver the Word of God to others.” See the article here
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Sunday, February 14, 2021
“Sin is much more than thinking, saying, and doing things that are wrong. It is a terminal disease. We are all conceived and born in sin; we inherit it from our first parents, Adam and Eve. The disease of sin can be overcome, but only by one medicine: the cleansing, healing, and forgiving blood of God’s own Son.”
(McCain, 31)
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Sunday, February 21, 2021
“Jesus is the arm of the Lord and the right hand of God. The heavenly Father gave all authority to Jesus (Matthew 28:18); “in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). … Lent is a time of returning. It should also be a time of thanks. We can return only because the arm of the Lord has grasped us and turned us back toward Himself.”
(Rottmann, 9)
Read Isaiah 52:10 Read Isaiah 53:1
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Sunday, February 28, 2021
“To live by faith is to look first to God for all good and then to look to serving your neighbors. ‘Whatever your hands find to do…do it with your might (Ecclesiastes 9:10), simply because your neighbors need it done, and God put you here to do it and would love them through you.”
(Sias, 73)
Read Ecclesiastes 9:10
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