Pious Lutheran

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Did you know, one of the greatest privileges that the Christian has is prayer with God. Direct vocable access to our creator and redeemer has been given to us. Many consider it a sign of prestige to have a direct line in order to call and speak to the president of the USA or the Queen of England. To be able to simply pick up your phone and dial the president is incredibly powerful! You would have the president’s ear! Dear Christian, you have sometime far better, more powerful, greater honor: you have God’s ear. When you speak in the name of Jesus that’s been placed on you at baptism, God listens.  What a magnificent comfort, that in this world of suffering and shame and futility, God would listen to your requests and give you exactly what you need. Why is it that prayer is such a great privilege and comfort? Prayer with God gives us unexpected joy and peace. How tragic it is then that many in these last horrendous days hav

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! We spend far too much time feeling sorry for ourselves. We’re like the prophet Jonah, whom God asks, “ Do you do well to be angry? ” To which we respond with Jonah, “ Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die! ” We feel sorry for ourselves when we see others happy and rich and ourselves poor and downtrodden. We feel sorry for ourselves when we don’t receive the honor we think we deserve. We feel sorry for ourselves when our lives don’t go as planned.  As Christians we even think we have good reasons to feel sorry for ourselves! The world hates us, our friends hate us, even our family hates us because we’re Christians. We’re excluded from things because of our faith. People revile us because of our beliefs and lifestyles. People spurn our names as evil because we proclaim God’s Word faithfully to all around us. So we feel sorry for ourselves!  But that self-pity is not what Christ is talking about in our Gospel lesson

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! “ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way. ” “ For you were straying like sheep. ” Sheep go astray. They’re are as fickle as a nice May day in Iowa. They’ve been known to go astray or simply become sick and die for no good reason. They can be stubborn and hard-headed and very foolish. That’s us to a T. “ For He is our God, and we are the sheep of His pasture. ” All of those negative traits we see in sheep, we do them. Except it’s worse when we do them, because we’re not just stupid sheep, we’re people whom God created in His image. When a sheep goes astray, it’s just a sheep. When you or I go astray, the consequences can be forever, lasting unto eternity.  Thanks be to God that we have a shepherd in Jesus and He’s really our Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd calls out to His straying sheep. “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.