Skip to main content

Renewing Trust

Kuchle are unique German doughnuts, especially popular during mardi gras. These are even “evangelical”.

Lent has a bad rap. It’s often seen as a time to feel bad for sin and with fasting. Instead it should be an opportunity to renew our trust in God’s love and joy in newness of life.
Lent is an invitation to learn from Jesus how to experience God’s love and how to love each other like ourselves.
Word
The temptations Jesus faced were not designed to see whether would sin, but to prove that he would not give in to temptation.
Luke tells us: “for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, ...” ( Luke 2)
Jesus believed that only God can provide what we need for life, and could not be tempted to give up that trust.
Connection
Temptations are a test to our loyalty, our trust in God and the gifts of God for our life.
In order to trust God we need to re-focus on God’s true nourishment of our soul (and body) and that means minimizing competing distractions by false alternatives. We live not by bread alone, but by the Word (and Lutherans would add Sacrament!) of God.
Let God show you how richly satisfying a simple life is that focuses on love for God and the people around you.
Message
The Good News is: When we renew our faith by practicing loyalty to God, we are able to resist temptations like Jesus.
Jesus says to you: Fast with me, from distractions that keep you from God’s love and enjoying life of loving each other.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome

Thank you for checking out Weekly Word, a weekly online summary of my sermons for review during the week, catch-up after being away, or sharing with others. I am Stefan Munker. I have been serving as a pastor in congregations since 2004. In that time, I have preached quite a few sermons to convey God’s message for member’s lives. I’m excited about reaching more people online. The Weekly Word blog is based on requests for spiritual support in daily life, a desire to share biblical insights from Sunday worship, and the question how to connect more people with the church and God. It is an evolving experiment, so give it a try, keep an open mind, and share your feedback. Welcome to Weekly Word.
Post a Comment
Read more

Renewing Devotion

My wife and I showed our devotion to Jesus by packing food for starving children. 'Why give money to World Hunger when they should help themselves and there’s people to take care of your own family or church or country?’ Or, one could say, why waste expensive perfume to anoint Jesus’ feet when you could have used the money to feed the poor? That’s rational, selfish, and sarcastic Judas speaking to willfully discredit Mary. Mary however, responded with love, generosity, and extravagant devotion. Word The lectionary gospel on the Sunday before Holy Week tells of Mary sharing her devotion for Jesus. She uses expensive oil, and outrageously, her hair and tears, to express her love, her service, her faith in Jesus. While they are at dinner, “Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.” (John 12:3) Guess what? Mary doesn’t care about the cost, or what other people might say. She does what feels right to her....
Post a Comment
Read more

Give Praise

Church vocal and bell choir in worship leads the assembled congregation to give God praise. Throughout the Bible, God and humans have used music to communicate with each other and about God’s greatness. Word In the Old testament, King David instructed the worship leaders of Israel to praise God for the kind and powerful help they received: “Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. ” (2 Chronicles 16:7-9) The songbook of the Bible encourages creativity and diversity for giving glory to God with a new song. In one of its poetic hymns we are told that it is not only fitting but pleasing to God to join all creation “... with trumpets and the sound of the ram’s horn. Make a joyful symphony before the Lord, the King!” (Psalm 98:6) And the early church saw spiritual songs as an expression of their new life in Christ. The apostle Paul wrote to believ...
Post a Comment
Read more