Joy Lutheran Church Ocala, Florida

It was Halloween and home they came.  Their bags were filled with gobs of sugary treats.  Now came the sorting process, as they sat around the kitchen table going through their bag, putting aside the ones they really like and offering the others to the parents.  in the interests of safety and saving a few teeth we pared down the collection, some were discarded.   During the “sorting” many pieces were going straight in the mouth; that’s OK it was Halloween.  Then came the sibling bargaining.  You don’t like that one anyway, so I’ll trade you for this one.   As the bartering slowed down, mother entered the picture with her unwelcome rules.  Pick out a couple for your lunchbox tomorrow, and then we’ll put the rest away for another day.  She was no fun at all!

Does a scene something like this happen when we receive a windfall of “stuff” from God?  Peace, grace, forgiveness, healing, strength, wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord?   It’s just too much isn’t it, more than we can fathom.  OK, speaking only for myself, I can picture the scene where I accept healing; oh Lord that would be wonderful.  Wisdom, now that’s a welcome gift as well in this world of conflicting ideas.  But Lord, today I’m off to a family reunion, could we save piety for another time?  And forgiveness, yes that’s welcome, but I’m not quite ready to forgive that neighbor who irritated me so.

God’s gifts are far greater than a bag of Halloween candy.  But they too can seem overwhelming.  I asked for healing, but he gave me patience.  I wanted wisdom; I received fear of the Lord.  It seems like I don’t even know what to ask for!  Lord, help me to be open to you.   Let me accept your gifts with thanksgiving.  Let me use your gifts as you would have me do.

A Bible verse that talks about using gifts for God’s glory is 1 Peter 4:10. It says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace … ”¹²

God’s love is unconditional; his gifts are beyond our comprehension.  Praise be to God!

Judy

Legislatures passing a reform bill, delinquents sentenced to reform school, and going back to 1517, Martin Luther began his effort to reform the Catholic Church. Reform “means make changes in something, (typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.”  Martin Luther, a German monk and university professor, posted his ninety-five theses on the door of the Catholic church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther argued that the church had to be reformed. Most of us know about his efforts. My understanding is that he was NOT trying to create a Lutheran Church, a “Martin Luther following”, but rather to bring awareness to the “negative issues” within the workings of the Catholic church at that time and encourage reform. 

Many did agree and thus the Protestant Reformation began. Where was God in all this change?  Romans 12: 1-2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.” Patterns can be changed, reformed, deleted, refreshed, restored, and meet the test and approval of God.  Let your reformative prayers be according to God’s Will. You are loved unconditionally, and His truth needs no reforming.

Jill

I don’t think any of us want to hear the words “I told you so” when we have errored. We may have been warned by someone not to do something a certain way or at all for that matter, but we did it anyway and it ended up a mistake. Perhaps that “someone” feels they need to remind us of our gaffe to drive point home and say those words we don’t want to hear…”I told you so”.  Whatever the reason, we don’t need to hear it.  We already know we flubbed.

We may continue to be reminded of these words for some time to come by our family or friends, but we are very blessed to never hear them from our Lord. He is not “I told you so” kind of God.

He’s a:

Come here and I will keep you safe and I’ll keep you warm,
Let me hold you and let me heal you,
I love you and I have so much for you,
I am not mad at you,
Trust me as I will never leave you, my grace will never run out, stay with me KIND OF GOD!

Romans 8:35 “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?  Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or ae persecuted, or hungry, or in danger, or threatened with doubt?  No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through God’s love.”

Aren’t we fortunate God forgives us our mistakes, big and small. His unconditional love provides us the way of redemption through His Son, Jesus Christ who suffered and died for us on the cross so we may be saved if we believe and give our life to Him.

Patty

I know that I write a lot about gardens. I love to watch the miracle of growth in any form. However, gardens present such a wonderful example of God at work, silently and skillfully in areas where we can easily view and enjoy the results. 

From childhood, I have learned to save many things. My mother saved soap remnants in a jar for future use; she saved eggshells for fertilizing her house plants and she had an endless supply for quilting scraps that I haven’t yet been able to give away.  

So, it is only normal for me to save plants-anything with a little bit of green still showing gets saved. I have tiny poinsettias left over from Christmas time, long tall basil plants that have self-seeded in a big blue pot, mums that insist on continuing to grow tall and lanky and an unknown flowering vine that persists in clinging and climbing up an arbor. They are beautiful to my eyes. 

The reason that I call them the Redemption Garden is because I leave them for the summer to fend for themselves. I move them out to the yard in their pots and try to get them to a spot where they will receive water from the irrigation system. They don’t always look very healthy when I get back in the Fall. 

That is until I bring them back into the shelter of the patio and give them some TLC and water. Water-very important. Then they flourish again. They will always look like mongrel plants, but such a statement for the persistence of life and the loving gift of a wise and caring God. 

It is easy to make the connection between the benefits of water and the loving relationship of God. God gives us that water of life in the physical and the spiritual sense. In his creative wisdom, he designed water to be a life-giving substance.  

Every time I bring water to my garden, I pray and meditate on the unconditional love that God has for these tiny plants in their fight to survive. Every time, it renews that feeling of love that God has for me, for you, for his Redemption Gardens all over the universe. 

Terri 

My mother had an atlas that intrigued me because the area north of Alaska was marked “unexplored.” This was no ancient tome. When I was a child it was less than twenty years old. Even my 1952 Encyclopedia Britannica says, “the successful exploration of the polar basin has yet to be undertaken.” That was then. Is there anything still unexplored seventy years later? Maybe the human soul.

By soul I mean that non-physical aspect of us that, along with the physical, makes us who we are. There is more to us than meets the eye even if you use a microscope. We are memory, imagination, emotion, will, intellect and a whole lot more. While we can see the effects of the soul in the actions we take, the soul itself is not only invisible, but often incomprehensible. We have only the barest understanding of our soul. The only being that understands us completely is God.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say we can understand ourselves only by trying to understand the even greater mystery of God. How do we do that? With study, introspection, meditation, and contemplative prayer. With discussion and silence. With holding on tight and with letting go. With intention and with surprise.

Above all we understand God and ourselves by love, by loving and being loved. By the love of God and love of others and love of self. Don’t let love go unexplored in your life, for in it you will discover God and yourself. Love and you will know your soul.

Read Ephesians 3:17-19 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne

In Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, the word for wait means to expect, to hope, to hang on. Sometimes our interpretation of wait is: inconvenience, untimeliness, aggravation, unpleasantness. In a Bible study once, I learned the answers for prayer were yes, no, and wait. So, I like the Hebrew definition and its positive translation of expectation and hope and “hanging on.”

Though our lives have decidedly changed through the last sixty plus decades, God still does not have a drive through lane. We, as a society, have bullet trains, fast food, instant pressure cookers, world wide access a click away, fast, fast and faster. Biblical scholars, I’m certain, have counted how many times throughout God’s Holy Word, He implores the word WAIT. Are you expecting answers to a prayer? Are you awaiting end times and His return? Are you hoping for a miracle? His WAIT means, expect it! Hope for it! Hang on to it!

Your creation and birth into His world took nine months, not a snap of the fingers. Is He teaching patience with His use of WAIT? Is He polishing the rough edges of you before your request is answered? Knowing the mind of our Father is not in our job description but understanding His directive of WAITING and its meaning of expecting, hoping and hanging on allows us to know His unconditional love for each of us. Hang on! This life is a gift and our wait time will pass quickly if our hope is in the Lord.

Originally posted in October 2018 by Jill

This could be another instance of how the English language can be so complicated. So many antonyms, synonyms, spellings that get “confuzzled” (that’s an Amy word). Sometimes the only way to have peace of mind is to give someone a piece of it! We remember the expression, although not used as much today: “I’d like to give them a piece of my mind” – usually accompanied by a scowl and the crossing of arms. It might make you feel better temporarily, but it is anything but pleasant for the giver as well as the receiver of a piece of mind. Peace is so fleeting. All of us carry around mental baggage or burdens; things that inwardly trouble us. If we aren’t careful, we risk bottling it up for too long, and our piece of mind becomes such a huge chunk that it doesn’t come out the way we intended. But the damage is already done. Speaking the truth, even confronting someone with an uncomfortable truth, is a tough pill to swallow. Accusations hurled, names called, character assassinated. There are times when a piece of mind gets misinterpreted in all of those ways. The message is in the ear of the beholder.

We all find times in our lives when we feel hypocritical. It is part of the sinful human condition. We protect, defend our self-opinion at all costs. It is not different or easier when we are followers of Jesus. Or even just a fan of Jesus. We get on our moral high horse, becoming all self-righteous and judgmental. Neither the church nor Jesus promised us peace of mind. If it did, what need would there be for law and gospel? We always struggle and grapple with our unworthiness. I confess and own the fact that I have hurt people with my hypocrisy, with giving someone an unwarranted, unsolicited piece of mind just to make myself feel better; better than them. I stand condemned by the law of God; not just because I have broken commandments, but because I am a sinner. The only hope I have of getting the broken pieces back together is by the loving mercy and grace given by God through Jesus. The gospel grants the peace.

My Christian brothers and sisters share that peace with me every Sunday. We do not know all the sordid details of each other’s lives; most of that remains between us and God, against whom we have ultimately sinned. Church is not the panacea, the “fix-it-all” place. It is the broken body of Christ. It is the place where, if you give someone a piece of your mind, you rightfully expect or at least hope that there will be forgiveness leading to peace. So give yourself permission to be flawed, to mess up, to surrender your entire soul to the One who pieces back together. Be at peace with one another so that the un-Christian world can see your goodness and give glory to the same One who loves us unconditionally.

Pastor Art, originally posted October 2018

It’s mid-October and I’m nostalgically thinking of the beautiful red and gold leaves that fell from our trees in New England.  Walking through the woods, we’d shuffle through a bed of fallen leaves.  Sometimes bright red, sometimes deep colored, sometime bright yellow:  It depended on the kind of tree.  Even Nat King Cole sang about them.

“The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold.”*

*Autumn Leaves, songwriters: Johnny Mercer, Joseph Kosma, Jacques Andre Marie Prevert.

I wondered if the Bible spoke about this beautiful season.  I found a verse in Genesis that does remind us of the seasons that God has created.  Autumn is a season of harvest; we reap what we have sown during the year.  It’s a time of abundance and thanksgiving. 

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”  Genesis 8:22

A well-known harvest hymn, “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” was written by Henry Alfred and first published in 1844.

“Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin;
God our Maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come,
Raise the song of harvest home.”

So come ye thankful people.  We may sit under the green of palm trees.  Our thermometer may be far above an early frost.  The pumpkins we see may be in the supermarket rather than in the fields.  But it is autumn.   The farmer does gather in his harvest.  That harvest will provide for our wants in the months to come.  Let’s raise our songs of thanks to the God who blesses us with his unconditional love.

Judy

I admit I am not a theologian, nor well versed in deep Biblical explanations for life. Yet if you, like me, are on social media, you have probably seen memes and little blurbs about smiling and sunshine and positivity. There have been times in my life where the smile on my face puzzled many people.

An example would be when I was walking behind my young, first husband’s casket as it entered the church for his funeral, I had a smile on my face.  Looking at the over 400 friends and family who were standing for the procession, I felt the Holy Spirit surge within me.  I don’t know how else to explain it, but it rushed up from my toes and resonated in a smile.  I was so comforted by the friends and family and so appreciated the love they had for my husband and me, I just smiled. When the choir sang his favorite hymn, How Great Thou Art, I smiled. He is so GREAT!

When many of the attendees returned back to our home, I felt the rush again and know I was smiling. Later, I heard that several believed I must have been medicated, or experiencing some delirium of sorts…. how could I possibly smile? The love and comfort that I felt was like a warm blanket enveloping me. I was loved so unconditionally by our Lord and was embraced by so many, the Holy Spirit just stirred up a smile.  Did I ever cry? Of course, I did…. sobbing would be more accurate, but there were those times that were not “me” when the Spirit gave me amazing peace and heavenly love.

You’ve probably heard the expression, “God works in mysterious ways.” Well, I don’t have any other explanation for those smiles that came from within me. Philippians 4:6-7” Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.”

Talk to Him. Tell Him your concerns, allow Him to displace your worry.

Jill

Ignatius was the Bishop of Antioch martyred in Rome some time around 108. Almost everyone of those statements has been disputed.

Ignatius is intriguing because he left seven letters that he wrote as he was being taken to Rome for execution. These letters give us a glimpse of church life at the beginning of the second century.

You’d think the major concern would have been the persecution of Christians, yet the letters reveal a bunch of disputes. It’s certain that Ignatius was a Gentile, but Antioch in Syria was an area where there were still quite a few Christians of Jewish background yet Ignatius seems to have been at odds with them. He clearly prefers that churches be led by a bishop assisted by elders and deacons, whereas it was common for Jewish background churches to be led by elders alone. He also insists on The Lord’s Day (Sunday) rather than the Sabbath (Saturday) as the day of worship.

Ignatius is the first writer to refer to the Christian church as catholic (universal.) He quotes from the letters of Paul and seems to know the Gospels of Matthew and John. He emphasizes the divinity of Christ yet also insists Christ was really flesh and blood.

I wish people knew about some of the early Christians like Ignatius to have a better understanding of how Christianity developed. It is a complex story revealing that Christians never have been in complete agreement about things. That  sounds a lot like modern times. Ah, yes. The  more things change, the more they stay the same.

Read Ignatius to the Ephesians 13 (below) and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne

Ignatius to the Ephesians, chapter 13.  “Be sure to come together often to give thanks and praise to God. When you gather in the same place the powers of Satan are destroyed, and his destructive goals are prevented by the unity of your faith. Nothing is more precious than peace, which brings all war, both in heaven and earth, to an end.”