Thoughts from Pastor Chuck Huckaby

Psalm 119:161-168 Ezekiel 42:10-43:21; 2 Peter 3:1-13

You have blessed it, O Lord, and it shall be blessed forever.

1 Chronicles 17:27 (NKJV)

Those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed. Galatians 3:9

 

Thanks you Heavenly Father for Your purpose to bless the House of David and all who entrust themselves to David’s Son, our Risen and Glorious Messiah, Jesus. Though we have sinned and sin each day He is the sinless One in whom we find all forgiveness and blessing. We bring to you our sin and own it and ask you to forgive and cleanse us from it. We pray that the mercy we have received will continue to be poured out through the nations and the generations. Equip us this day Father to bear witness to Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that we might fulfill the tasks assigned us in the work of declaring the victory of Christ throughout the world through our witness, service and life together we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

For really, if a church preaches only the second use and never the first, what has it become? It has become a predator on human misery. A church that cannot say how God intends human souls and communities to be—loving and fearing God above all things, honoring parents, remaining faithful to spouses, restraining the urge to steal and covet, speaking truthfully about others—is like a scavenger lying in wait for the wounded to fall. Then it pounces, at no risk to itself, to snap up all the shattered pieces. It can offer little more than a spiritual bandaid to the damage and has no way of helping to reconstruct what has been destroyed and lost, no vision of God’s good intentions to guide that reconstruction. It has done absolutely nothing to prevent the fall of the wounded in the first place. http://www.lutheranforum.org/blogs/desperately-seeking-the-first-use-of-the-law/

Here’s an excellent article on the Law of God and our necessity to understand the Ten Commandments. We understand grace only partly when we minimize the holiness of God and our own sinfulness…

http://www.lutheranforum.org/blogs/desperately-seeking-the-first-use-of-the-law/