Pentecost 3

Now that the school year is over, the conversations of reading, writing, and arithmetic will go into extinction for the summer. But what about your conversations of God’s Word?

Deuteronomy 11 says: “You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Formal education in the faith is great, but more invaluable is your everyday conversation about the things of God in the life of your family. Teaching all that Jesus has done FOR YOU in His death and resurrection does not have a beginning and ending date. That forgiveness is worthy of talking about every day, spring, summer, winter and fall. Do not graduate from God’s Word. Remain in it forever.

These Seeds of Faith have been sown by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Bridgeport, Nebraska. I’m Pastor Allen Strawn

Pentecost 2

How will we pay the bills? What are we going to do with Grandma? We can’t afford to put her in a nursing home? We can’t afford all the fuel costs this year!

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?... But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

If Jesus would give you eternal life by His dying and rising, how much more will He care for you in the midst of worldly anxiety?

These Seeds of Faith have been sown by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Bridgeport, Nebraska. I’m Pastor Allen Strawn

Easter 6

What saved Noah, his family, eight total, and every kind of animal? It would be easy to answer, “God’s grace.” Or “God’s plan.” These are true statements, yet they don’t really tell the whole picture. How about this question, what makes anything float?

Water.

God’s Word tells us in 1Peter 3:

God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you,

Noah, his family, and all the animals were saved by the water that rushed and killed everything evil around them. It is that same water, empowered by Jesus’ death and resurrection and given the power to forgive by Jesus’ promise that kills all the wickedness in your life and raises you to new life.

These Seeds of Faith have been sown by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Bridgeport, Nebraska. I’m Pastor Allen Strawn

Easter 5

It really hurts when you stub your toe. You would think that it would be easy to know where your own feet are going. But somehow, no matter how cautious you are, you will stub your toe. For those of us who are exceptionally clumsy, it might be quite frequent, and you may even fall.

God tells us in 1 Peter 2 that a stone of stumbling exists.

"The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone,"

and

"A stone of stumbling,

and a rock of offense."

That stone of stumbling is Jesus Christ. Many stumble over Him because by Jesus’ death and resurrection, salvation is just plain easy. They stumble because they wish to add something to Jesus life giving Word and promise of forgiveness.

No need to stumble. Salvation in Jesus is that simple.

These Seeds of Faith have been sown by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Bridgeport, Nebraska. I’m Pastor Allen Strawn