Pious Lutheran

Christ  Healing a Deaf Man,  Leonard Gaultier, 1579 God opens our lips Words are important We must guard our lips and ears from evil God gives us the good words to hear and speak Eight hundred years ago Saint Francis of Assisi supposedly said “Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” Or as P.T. Barnum said: “Talk is cheap, until you hire a lawyer.” Both sayings ultimately mean the same thing: actions are more important than words. While it is true that we sometimes talk too much and fail to act, words are still very important. Francis of Assisi was wrong, you must use words to preach the gospel, actions aren’t enough. Talk isn’t cheap, as evidenced by how much we must pay lawyers and politicians to speak. Words are valuable, and they’re made even more valuable when God opens our lips. That’s what happened in today’s miracle. It wasn’t complicated or hard to  understand, it was maybe a little weird at times, but the results were simple: a man’s ears and...

Cain and Abel make their Sacrifices to God; Cain kills Abel. Engraving by F. Villamena after Raphael. 1626.  Faith in the Heart Cain’s god complex and Abel as extraneous God remembers the Abels of this world They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and that’s true! Sometimes you pick up a book with a colorful jacket and an interesting title, and it’s a major snoozefest. Other times a book with a bland gray cover and a simple boring title may end up being a powerful book you remember for the rest of your life. This same principle also applies to people, especially in regards to their standing before God. A person’s righteousness before God isn’t just what you can see, but it comes down to the faith in the heart. We see this exemplified in the story of Cain and Abel. Immediately preceding Cain’s birth Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and plunged themselves and all of their descendents into sin and death. Yet the Lord gave Adam and Eve a promise that one of her offspring woul...

Jesus Weeping Over Jerusalem,  1918 Do we know the things that make for peace? Jerusalem thought they had it perfect, but didn’t. We often think we have it perfect, but we don’t. We must know Christ and His love in order to have peace. Hindsight, history, is very helpful, since it enables us to look back on past events and see what was done well and what could’ve been improved upon. The trouble is that while it’s easy to judge someone else’s mistakes, it’s much more challenging to apply those historical lessons to our own lives. So we look back on Jerusalem crucifying Jesus, the Son of God, and wonder how stupid could they be?! Jesus was the One who made for peace, and they killed Him! No wonder Jesus wept over Jerusalem, no wonder they were destroyed by the Romans in 70AD; they didn’t know the things that make for peace. But do we know the things that make for peace? You know, Jerusalem thought that they knew everything and had it perfect. Sure, the first temple which Solomon had ...

King David, Peter Paul Rubens, 1616 The Lord saves His humble little Christians The Lord rescued David. The Lord rescues us. How do you react and what do you do when it seems like everything is falling apart and breaking? When you were a kid this usually just happened when your tower fell down that you were building. But upon growing up the stakes are higher and the things that fall apart are much more significant. A marriage falls apart, children apostatize, friends leave you, you lose your job, a major project ends up a complete failure, the list could go on. Sometimes we blame others for our problems, but other times we blame ourselves and feel like failures. Maybe I’m not good enough, smart enough, young enough, strong enough; maybe I have the wrong personality, the wrong ideas, the wrong everything. Sometimes it was our fault that things fell apart, but other times it’s just something that happened, and here we are now. So what do we do? How do we react? We respond in faith. The L...