Immanuel Lutheran Blog

Who is the one true church? Those strengthened by the Lord

Do you like Christmas music? I love it, and right now WNIC plays all Christmas music all the time. In truth when else will secular radio play songs about Immanuel, or about the Lord coming to ransom all those in the dark. It is a great time to witness, and it is a very smooth transition for us as believers to be able to talk to someone about Jesus. Doesn't everyone have an opinion on when Christmas music should be played? What a reason to resoundingly say "Yes it should be played".
Be strengthened through prayer to witness through the Word of God to someone this year! God's Word must be proclaimed, and He gave it to us to do just that!
God Bless your witness and singing.

Who is the one true church? Those who are blessed

What does it mean to be blessed? Often times we think blessings are things in this life. God those reminds us that in this life the things of this world are not a blessing, He reminds us that His attention and rewards are true blessings. The life we live here is temporary, but the true blessing will be the eternal life that is given to those who walk with God.
Real blessings is walking as and being a child of God. This is true blessings. God then calls those who are blessed to view His love in real blessings! To view His presence as real blessings, and to view everything that comes in this life as being a blessings because we go through all things with God at our side, and sometimes carrying us through that which we could not bear. This is blessings...today you are blessed!
Matthew 5:1-12...blessed beyond belief.

Who is the one true Church?

Martin Luther 490 years ago changed the world as we know it with his posting of the 95 theses. Luther called for the church to reform to the true teachings of Jesus Christ. He pointed us to look to Scripture alone, through faith alone, given by grace alone.
Today, I encourage all of us to look at our beliefs and lives and evaluate them based on Scripture alone, through faith alone, given by grace alone.
The reformation changed the church...and may it today, reform us to what God intends us to be.

Did Jesus really say that? Have faith like a mustard seed

Have you ever seen a mustard seed?  Some day go into the grocery store and look in the spice aisle for mustard seed...pick one up and look at it.  They are tiny.  Jesus tells us that faith as tiny as a mustard seed will be able to throw a mulberry bush into the sea (Luke 17).  What!  What! What! 

Jesus says that with faith we can do the unthinkable.  We can forgive when we think we can't, we can love when we know there is no love left, we can share when we don't want to speak!  We can do these things because our faith is not in ourselves, but in the one who did the unthinkable for us.

Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for you and for me.  That is unthinkable, that He would die for us when we shouted to Him to die!  Jesus loves us in spite of ourselves and our rebellion to Him.  Jesus does the unthinkable and is capable of using you to do the unthinkable for other...all it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed. 

God can do anything, put your faith in Him, and see what He blossoms from you!

Did Jesus really say that? You can't serve God and money!

Jesus in Luke 16:1-13 tells a story of a manager who watches over the account of a wealthy man.  When the manager is called to account for his work, he can't make account for it all and is promptly fired.  The man then shrewdly calls in the debts and lowers them so that people would pay promptly.  The owner commends the dishonest servant for his shrewd ways. 

Jesus, notes that people of greed and this world work easily with their own kind and struggle to work with children of the light.  Jesus goes on to explain to us that we are to use the resources that are given to us in a plentiful way are to be used to "make friends" in order to bring them to know Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. 

The difficult part for us is that our money is not for our purposes but for the purposes of God.  God has given us plenty (anyone living in America is wealthy, in worldly standards), so that we can use the resources to share His love!  To make sure that the world would know who He is and how much He loves them. 

We can't have both, the money can't be hoarded and not used to expand His kingdom...God desires for you to focus on the true wealth which is found in eternity and heaven.  Use the earthly wealth to focus others on His great love and blessings in store for us for all time!

Did Jesus really say that: the unsaved are more important than the saved!

Jesus came to this earth saying: "it is the sick that need a doctor, not the well".  Jesus also in Luke 15 told three parables of things that are lost.  The lost sheep, lost coin and lost son!  Jesus was deeply concerned with the lost.  Jesus has a heart and a passion for those who are currently standing outside the kingdom of God, and thank God for this passion and heart! 

Because He has such a care, He saved you and I, but now His focus is on those who still have not responded to His call.  Jesus still has a passion for those who don't know of His great love and will for them and their life. 

Jesus sends you and I out as those who are found to go out into the world and search for the lost like He searched for us.  Jesus sends us out to tear the earth upside down searching for those who would not be saved if He came back this moment.  How many are still lost, well according to research studies 2/3rds of the world still doesn't know who Jesus is as the Lord and Savior of all.  That is 4 billion people!

Who is the Lord sending you to today to search out and tell about what it means to be found by the Lord.  Jesus has a passion for them, and He calls on you and I to have the passion for them as well.

God Bless your searching and finding this week!

Did Jesus really say that? If you don't hate your family you can't be my disciple

Jesus spends some time talking about what it means to truly be a follower of His.  In the book of Luke, we see that Jesus called on people who were listening to Him to hate their families.  Initially you and I ask ourselves, does Jesus really say to hate someone? 

No...not the meaning of the word hate as you and I understand it...Jesus here is saying priorities.  The word in the context of the cultural times means that the family can't be the focus.  In the days of Jesus the family was the focus of one's life.  The family connection was placed over any other relationship, including the relationship of God!  Jesus seeing this was saying that the family had to come second, and the will and work of the Lord must come first.

Jesus calls us to this today.  Our family status and relationship cannot trump our relationship with our Lord.  God cannot come second to our kids schedules and lives, our God cannot come second to our relationship with our spouse, our God cannot come second to our relationship with our family.  If the question is "Family or God", God must come first.  We must choose to worship Him, to make following Him in our hearing and doing the priority, and be ready to tell family they are second.

This is a difficult challenge for the people Jesus was talking to and a difficult challenge for you and I as well.  Today, I believe that Satan is working through our families and calendars to draw many people away from Jesus.  When I talk to people about why they are not in devotion, prayer or worship, many times the answer comes out that it is because of time or sports events, or work, or something in their family schedule.  This is Satan making something other than God our priority and focus.  This is what Jesus is warning us against.

Our prayer this week is that all of us would be focused on making God primary in our lives.  He is our primary relationship and focus as our vision is on heaven.

Did Jesus really say that: Don't invite your friends, but the poor and crippled

Jesus came for the oppressed and the weak.  He really came for you and me as those who were on the outside looking in.  Jesus came to bring to us compassion, grace and love.  Jesus told the establishment, the "righteous" that they had become disenfranchised with God, and had begun to tell God what He desired instead of listening and following what He had said.

Jesus came to open up the kingdom of God to all people, to the gentiles, to you and I.  Jesus though also then gave us the responsibility to carry on as His people His message and His mission.  To have compassion for the weak and the oppressed.

There is a video that we are going to be using in our worship services this weekend, and it is entitled "Do you see the need".  It is a clip of a man that walks past the oppressed and the weak, the hurting and the hungry.  He walks past them all, seeing them, but not seeing their need.  The need of care and compassion in the love and service of our savior.

Our Lord reminds us that often times we want to be around the 'socially' popular and our friends and people who make us smile, but our Lord reminds us to remember and meet the needs of the socially unpopular, those who need to be made to smile.

As you go this week, go thinking, seeing and meeting the needs of others.

Did Jesus really say that? I don't know you get away from me!

Jesus tells us in the Scriptures (Luke 13:22-30), that with His arrival the Kingdom of God is here, which means that the judgement of God is here as well. In the Scripture the question that is posed to Jesus is "Are only a few to be saved". The reason the question is posed is because only a few people really follow Jesus. Jesus had been teaching town to town and great multitudes had come to hear what He had to say, but only a few actually took His teachings to heart and became a follower of Jesus.
In answering the question, Jesus spends His time talking about those who do not follow. He talks about the urgency of the action that is needed to be standing in the Kingdom of God. The action is to hear the teachings of Jesus and then to put them into action. To live out the fatih!
Jesus reminds us that we are to actively live for Him. I like to use the word believe and think of that word really meaning being alive! They almost sound the same. To believe in Jesus with hearing and doing means to really being alive! Alive in Christ, alive in eternity. Also, if you not the end of the section of Luke 13:22-30, we see that Jesus does spend time reminding us that the heavenly banquet will be filled with Gentiles...from the North, South, East, and West!
The question was Will a few be saved? The answer is, spend time searching and proclaiming to the Lost...and know that the kingdom of God will be filled with a great multitude to high to count (Revelation) of believers who heard and did the work and will of our savior!

Did Jesus really say that? I've come to bring division not peace

Many people today talk about world peace and use Jesus as a person that would only promote love and good feelings, never hurting anyone's feelings, never being one of controversy.  Many people think of Jesus as the ultimate politically correct person.  The thing about Jesus is that he is the anti-thesis of this!

When we study the Scriptures we see that Jesus is controversial.  There is only black and white with Him when it comes to the lives of His people and the will and ways of the Lord.  You're either with Him in Heaven or your not.  Jesus called us to be radically different from our former way of life.  He calls us to leave everything we value behind and make our priority to worship, serve and love Him. 

Jesus reminds us that we will be divided from our family possibly.  We will have loved ones who will choose to live for this life and themselves which will bring division from us.  We will be divided with those who refuse to know who Jesus is in His revealed truth, we will be divided with those who continue to follow the ways of man instead of the ways of God.

The truth is that Jesus came to solve division, not division between humanity, but division between God and His creation.  Jesus brought peace and eternal life for those of His "flock", and He brought division between the followers of the way and those who don't know the way.

Peace for Christ and His followers will come later and it will be eternal, division is now but temporary.