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Lead Story

“Back to School”

COVER STORY – CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

It’s just a loaded, emotive phrase, isn’t it? “Back to school.” Individual reactions vary wildly, depending on your station in life and how you are wired. Kids who love school get excited, those that don’t, not so much. Some parents tend to hear the phrase with relief, others with a sense of regret, even guilt—“Where did the summer go? We should have carved out more family time.” Teachers get that old familiar knot in their stomachs and, like pretty much every other occasion in life, retailers hear cash registers.

“Back to school” also means something else. 

To go “back” means that you first had to step away. Have you ever wondered how or why our current custom of summer vacation started? The standard answer is that it was agrarian-based; school went into recess for three months in the summer because children were needed on the farm. Anyone with any association to farming knows that obviously wasn’t the reason. The busiest times on the farm are planting and harvest (spring and fall) when kids are back in school.

Read More »“Back to School”

Remember Your Baptism

“See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

(Acts 8:36)

When the Ethiopian heard the message of Jesus as the Christ, Who willingly gave His life for the sins of the world, he desired to be baptized into Jesus’ name. Would anything hinder him from receiving this great blessing and from being received by God? Would the color of his skin, his nationality, or his past sins make him unacceptable to the Lord? What joy and relief when Philip took him down into the water and baptized him! Nothing would hinder him from receiving the grace of God in Baptism and being made a child of God. No wonder “he went on his way rejoicing.” (Acts 8:39)

Do you want to go on your way rejoicing today, tomorrow, every day? Then remember your Baptism! Whether you can actually remember the day you were baptized or simply know that you were baptized as a child, remember the fact that you were baptized. For that is the day when you were connected with Jesus and everything He did for you.

Whenever you sin you deserve to die, for “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Remember your Baptism and rejoice, for that is when you were united with Jesus in His death. “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death.” (Romans 6:3-4) His death counts for you, and all your sins were paid for.

Your Baptism also connected you with Christ’s life. “We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (verse 4) We now have a new life with Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)Read More »Remember Your Baptism

Called by Christ to Be Servants of His Servants

“‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.’ . . . And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

(Ephesians 4:8,11-13)

The day was Maundy Thursday. The location, an upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus was gathered with His disciples to celebrate the Passover. At the outset of the evening’s festivities, He stooped over, took a towel, poured water into a basin, and started washing the disciples’ feet. Peter tried to stop Him, thinking that this act of service was beneath his Master’s dignity. Jesus told Peter, “What you don’t understand now, you will later.” After completing the chore, He told His disciples, “I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:15, for the full account see vv. 1-17)

Jesus was teaching a spiritual lesson that He wants His believers of all times to take to heart: He calls us to serve Him in those around us by kindhearted deeds. This is to be a response to the work of love He performed for us all by washing us clean of our sin by His blood shed on the cross. We rejoice to know that He views the acts of loving service we do for others as having been done for Him (see Matthew 25:40).Read More »Called by Christ to Be Servants of His Servants

True Pentecostalism

COVER STORY – PENTECOST

Pentecostalism has gained popularity in recent years. While it uses the name of one of the church festivals, Pentecostalism is not biblical. It is an idea that searches for proof of God’s power outside the means of grace. Adherents pray for gifts of speaking in tongues or divine healing based on the strength of their faith in God. While true Lutheranism is focused on the principle of Scripture alone, Pentecostalism looks for God outside of the Bible. It’s a completely misguided idea that appeals perfectly to our selfish sinful nature.

Let us instead consider Pentecost as it is revealed in Acts 2. 

Many people had gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks (Leviticus 23:15-22). The twelve apostles (Matthias had replaced Judas Iscariot) were gathered together as they heard the sound of a rushing wind. They had tongues of fire rest upon them and were “filled with the Holy Spirit,” (Acts 2:4) Who enabled them to speak in foreign languages. Clearly the Holy Spirit was poured out on the apostles and other early New Testament Christians in a special way as they spoke in tongues, healed others (Acts 3), and even raised the dead (Acts 20:8-10).

The Spirit equipped them for the task at hand. Gathered at Pentecost were the same apostles who had deserted the Son of God as He was led to the cross. Yet now, less than two months later, they boldly proclaimed the name of Jesus, no longer afraid to speak on their Savior’s behalf. These men, some of them former fishermen, found their sea legs in their new role as fishers of men. The Holy Spirit filled them with much-needed courage.Read More »True Pentecostalism

Jesus, the Good Shepherd

Communication requires two things: a sender and a receiver. The most powerful transmitter in the world is worthless if no one turns on a radio, and all of the radios in the world are of little use if no one is broadcasting.

The same holds true with human interaction. Someone has to send, someone else has to receive. If either one is missing, communication fails. Wives tend to understand this, since husbands tend to have their “radios” turned off a lot. Kids too, for that matter. And yet wives and moms just keep transmitting . . . .

Why is this general topic so important? Because as Christians, you and I are in the communication business. That’s our job, that’s our calling, that’s our mission—and it ought to be our passion. When we listen to God’s Word, we are supposed to be the radios, receiving and actually hearing God’s message to us. But our life’s work is to be transmitters. In leaving us with His Great Commission, our Lord commanded us to center our lives upon the communication of the Gospel, which we all agree is the key to eternal life. The message we are to broadcast is very simple: Whoever believes that Jesus paid for the sins of the world through His sinless life and innocent death on the cross will be saved.

Understand that this is not part of our life’s work; this is our life. 

It is the sum and substance. Failure in every other secular pursuit is as nothing if we but succeed in our calling to “go and make disciples” for Jesus Christ. You and I are supposed to be the “senders” of the information—the transmitters. If Christians fail in this critical mission, Gospel communication fails. No one is saved by what they don’t hear. If Gospel communication fails, it must never be the transmitters who fail. Our communication can take many forms. Our actions often speak louder than our words. But while our actions might make those around us curious, it is always and only the Word of God that can convert and save, for through that Word alone the Holy Spirit works.Read More »Jesus, the Good Shepherd

A Day of Deliverance and Hope!

“Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.”

Genesis 8:4

What a joyful day of deliverance and hope. It had to have been a terrifying five months being tossed about in the torrential flood. For five months the angry hand of God was destroying every corruption of mankind together with every living thing that lived on dry land. Now at last the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. The fierce judgment of God was past, and the ark was now back on solid ground. It would be another seven months before Noah and the others could leave the ark and make a new life in the new world, but landing on solid ground gave them the promise and hope of the new life that lay ahead.

What does this have to do with Easter? Ask yourself why God identifies the specific day the ark landed. Is there anything special about the “seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month”? The Children of Israel left Egypt in the seventh month. Moses told Israel, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.” (Exodus 12:2)  Every year after that they were to sacrifice the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of that month. Jesus and His disciples, together with all Israel, sacrificed and ate the Passover lamb according to the command on the fourteenth day, the Thursday of Holy Week. Count it out! Friday was the fifteenth, Saturday the sixteenth, and Easter Sunday—the day Christ rose from the dead—was the seventeenth day of the month. Yes, Jesus rose from the dead on the very same day that the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat.Read More »A Day of Deliverance and Hope!

Christ Loves You with a PASSION

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:34, NIV84)

What’s your passion?

Is there a hobby you especially enjoy doing? Cooking? Playing piano? Fixing cars? Long distance running? Most folks have a set of activities they choose to include in their schedules depending on their interests. It’s good to have such diversions. They have a way of adding spice to life. They can also revitalize us for the respective callings in life which the Lord has given us (in the home, at work, at church, and so on).

Speaking of “callings,” we will soon enter the season of Lent.

It’s the time of year when we ponder in a special way the calling God gave to His Son, Jesus. We are reminded how Jesus’ one burning desire—His passion—was to finish the mission His Father assigned to Him for our eternal blessing. For Jesus it was, of course, more than a hobby. It was THE reason He was born into the world. As we meditate on His work for us, it saddens us to think how it was our transgressions that brought such woe on Him. At the same time, it makes us happy. The basis for our happiness could be pictured by an acrostic on that word PASSION, as follows:

The P in “PASSION” stands for PREDICTED. We hear again and again in the passion account that everything took place so the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled (for an example, read Matthew 26:55-56). This is important because it proves that Jesus is our true Messiah, chosen by God to serve us in love.Read More »Christ Loves You with a PASSION

Unto Us a Child Is Born

A birth announcement can be one of the more joyful tasks a married couple may complete. Whether the news is published online, with an old-fashioned picture, or with a card in the mail, everyone wants to hear the details—boy or girl? How much did he weigh? How long was he?  What’s the name? Who does the baby look like?

When Jesus was presented at the Temple forty days after His birth, it was no mere birth announcement for the delight of relatives and the curiosity of strangers. Rather, it was a fulfillment of God’s Law and a pronouncement of Who Jesus truly is.

The period of Jesus’ life that we refer to as the “state of humiliation”

was continuing. He had been conceived by the Holy Spirit. He spent nine months growing inside of His mother until the proper time had come for His arrival. At eight days old, Jesus had already begun to shed His innocent blood, in the rite of circumcision. Now His mother and step-father brought Him to the Temple for His mother’s purification and His own ritual redemption.Read More »Unto Us a Child Is Born

“The Eyes Have It”

While that’s probably not the way you would normally see that sentence spelled (“The eyes have it”), it might well be the way Pastor Juan José Olvera would spell it these days. Pastor Olvera is a foreign affiliate of the CLC currently working in the Juárez area south of El Paso, Texas. He, like the Apostle Paul, helps to support himself and his family by sewing—until recently. His ongoing struggle with diabetes left him with serious vision impairment in both eyes. His condition required immediate surgery to correct the problem and to prevent it from leaving him permanently disabled. Thanks to a small gift from the CLC Mission Development Fund and an advance on their modest subsidy, Pastor Olvera had two successful surgeries that have, by the grace of God, restored his vision and allowed him to carry on both his secular and pastoral duties.

Pastor Olvera writes,

Dear Brothers in the Lord,

I give thanks to our God for the blessings I have received. Last week I had surgery on my left eye. All went well with the blessing of the Lord. I received all the necessary care and am very well. Thank you very much for all your prayers and support, both spiritual and material. These blessings make me redouble my efforts to continue talking with everyone in Mexico about the true faith that the Lord has given us. Soon I’ll be sending news of the students in our seminary and the Evangelistic crusades to reach more people for the Lord. Greetings to our brethren in other countries that day by day fight the good fight of faith, as well as our mother church, the CLC. May the spirit of the Lord guide their ministries. I pray always for you, in Christ Jesus.

Your brother and fellow servant in the work of Jesus,

Pastor OlveraRead More »“The Eyes Have It”

“Behold, I Am Coming Quickly!”

“He’s coming! I’m so excited! It was three years ago that we were engaged, then he was sent overseas. I think about him every day. We text and e-mail, but I long to see him face to face and hold him in my arms. Now he’s coming home. We will be married and live happily ever after! I just can’t wait!”

If you can imagine the excited anticipation of that fiancée, then you can understand the joy, excitement, and preparation of Advent. Your Bridegroom is coming! You were betrothed to Jesus Christ when you were baptized and brought to faith in Him alone for your forgiveness and salvation. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2).

Ever since your engagement, you have been physically separated from your Bridegroom. You think about Him daily and communicate with Him by reading His letters and talking to Him in prayer. In the approaching Christmas season you fondly remember how He came to this world to rescue you from the misery of sin and the bondage to Satan, and to unite you with God forever. During Lent you remember with great pride how He heroically went to battle for you and came out victorious on Easter morning. Then you think about how He ascended to take up His throne in heaven to rule everything in the world for your benefit. Doesn’t it give you a thrill to hear Him say that He went to prepare a place for you in the mansions of heaven, so you can live with Him there forever?

Now we hear, “Behold, the Bridegroom is coming!” (Matthew 25:6). Do you feel the excitement in those words? Your long awaited bridegroom is coming! And He promises, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” We don’t know what day He will come, but it will be soon. When He comes, we will be part of the greatest marriage celebration ever, and truly live happily ever after with Him in Paradise. John sees ahead to that day and says, “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Revelation 19:7-8).Read More »“Behold, I Am Coming Quickly!”