The Mission Helper Program
The purpose of the CLC Mission Helper Program is quite simply to provide opportunities for members of the CLC to participate in our Savior’s Great Commission. It was twenty years ago, at the 1996 CLC…
Salem Lutheran Church Eagle Lake, Minnesota
It’s been said by some that south-central Minnesota has some of the most fertile soil on the planet. With rich, deep dirt, few rocks, and a general abundance of rain, it’s a prime area for…
Update on the Tanzania Church of the Lutheran Confession
The beginning of the CLC in Tanzania was very similar to our own beginning here in the United States. Both were formed out of already existing Lutheran Churches that were forced to leave their fellowship…
“BREAD OF LIFE” READINGS August 2016
Date Verse Reading Comments
Aug 1TLH 297Ecclesiastes 5:1-7Close your mouth and open your ears, for in His Word, God blesses you.
Aug 2 TLH 456 Ecclesiastes 8:10-17 We cannot know God’s deepest ways, but why must we? The important thing is that He knows us. Aug 3 TLH 203 1 Kings 12:1-20 [The Women Visit Jesus’ Tomb] Rehoboam foolishly rejected the word of his elders,
but the Lord used the incident to fulfill His own word.
Aug 4 WS 788 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Giving to those in need was an act of faith, an expression of thanksgiving to God for His own indescribable gift in Christ.
Faith Is a Gift from God
“I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord”
(1 Corinthians 1:4-8).
The Apostle begins many of his letters with thanksgiving to God for giving his readers faith in Christ and eternal salvation. How much more shouldn’t we thank and praise God daily for the faith which He has given us? Scripture emphasizes over and over that the faith which receives forgiveness and salvation in Christ is a gift of God’s grace.
Our conversion was worked entirely by God. It had to be, because by nature we were spiritually blind (Ephesians 4:18), but “The Lord opens the eyes of the blind” (Psalm 146:8). We were spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1), “But God . . . made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Ephesians 2:4-5). We were enemies of God (Romans 8:7) and could not receive the things of the Spirit, for they were foolishness to us (1 Corinthians 2:14), but “we have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).
Election Coverage
Election coverage seems as if it has been going on “forever.” But in reality, it was only last spring when candidates began announcing their campaigns to be the next President of the United States. Since then, the news media have been covering the campaigns and discussing things like polls, “favorability,” and “electability.” Such coverage will continue until the election on November 8th.
Let’s consider a much grander, more glorious kind of election. This election really has been from “forever.” The Apostle Paul writes that this election took place “before time began” (2 Timothy 1:9), “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4).
Hymn 387 “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice”
Most of those reading this magazine have, in all probability, known the blessed comfort of the Gospel from their earliest childhood. Brought up in Christian homes by godly parents, they have from their youth known the holy Scriptures, which have made them wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (II Timothy 3:15).
But what if that were not so?
What if your exposure to the Scriptures had been limited only to the Law (in the narrow sense), and you had not known the Gospel? In the second evening lecture of The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, Dr. C.F.W. Walther notes that “[T]he Law uncovers to man his sins, but offers him no help to get out of them and thus hurls man into despair . . . . It conjures up the terrors of hell, of death, of the wrath of God. But it has not a drop of comfort to offer the sinner. If no additional teaching, besides the Law, is applied to man, he must despair, die, and perish in his sins.”
Incomparable!
With His sacrifice, Jesus didn’t bring the blood of an animal, but His own blood. “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not…
Following in His Footsteps
When selecting a career path, many young people are drawn to the same vocations practiced by their fathers or mothers. This is notable also in the church—sons frequently aspire to become pastors like their fathers,…
Is It Permissible for a Christian to Use Birth Control?
This is something you should discuss with your pastor, because there are different types of birth control, different circumstances, different motives, and different preconceived ideas about the subject. When the Bible does not speak directly…