Tag: Gratitude

AUTUMN GRACE & GRATITUDE

As I write this October newsletter article, it’s the first day of Fall (September 22nd) and it’s three days before the beginning of the Hebrew festival of Sukkot. In our American life, Autumn is marked by harvest festivals, Halloween celebrations, and the initial rumblings of plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And for the Church of Jesus Christ, Autumn is a season that the Holy Bible itself associates with themes of stewardship, harvest, gratitude, and the giving of thanks.

Ancient Israel knew this well. After the grain had been threshed and the grapes pressed, God commanded a joyful Fall festival called Sukkot — the Feast of Tabernacles. Families left their solid houses and lived for a week in temporary tented shelters called booths (or tabernacles). They remembered that God did not abandon them after they had fled Egypt, but he dwelled with them by tabernacling (or tenting) with them in the desert wilderness. They also brought the fruit of the land and appeared before the Lord at the place he chose. Deuteronomy is very clear about the grateful intent of this…

“They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed; all shall give as they are able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.” – (Deuteronomy 16:16b–17)

Notice that the giving of offerings comes in response to God’s blessing. Consequently, stewardship is not a tax levied on us by a distant God; rather, it’s the grateful response of a people who have already received God’s good gifts. In other words, the harvest is the Lord’s before it’s ours. We can only give back to God what he has first given to us. Therefore, we do not appear before the Lord empty-handed because he has not first appeared before us empty-handed.

Yet Sukkot was never only about the crop harvest. The temporary booths were a symbolic confession of faith. That is, we are merely pilgrims in this life. Our best houses are ultimately temporary. Our strongest barns will one day stand empty and derelict. Furthermore, this biblical feast did not only look backward to the desert wilderness. It also looked forward to a day when God would not merely visit his people for a time but permanently dwell with them forever.

While most Christians do not observe the festival of Sukkot, the foreshadowing and prefiguring of Sukkot have met their fulfilment ultimately in Christ. By God’s grace, the meaning of this Fall festival is completely fulfilled both already and not yet in Jesus Christ. Already the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. Already the crucified and risen Lord is present through his Word and Sacraments, gathering a harvest of souls from every nation. And yet the Church and all creation await the return of Christ. Then and only then, at his great Second Advent to come, the booths of this age will be dismantled and the New Jerusalem will descend from on high, and the voice from the heavenly throne will be heard in full…

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with mankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” – (Revelation 21:3)

The biblical Greek word translated “dwelling place” in Revelation 21:3 is the word for tabernacle. So, Sukkot’s eternal meaning is completed in Yeshua (Jesus) the Divine Messiah. Here in Revelation 21, the temporal world gives way to the eternal world, and the impermanent realm gives way to the unshakable City of God. The temporary pilgrims become the everlasting household of God. God himself will tabernacle with a redeemed humanity forever — not for seven days as is symbolically observed during Sukkot, but without end in a world where death, mourning, crying and pain have passed away.

This is the free gift (by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit) that we have received from the One Lord and Savior who first pitched his tent in our human flesh 2000+ years ago, who bore our sins on a cross, and has risen to make us his own. Christian faith and life flow from here! Moreover, Christian stewardship and gratitude do not flow from a fearfulness that we haven’t given enough but from the confidence and blessed assurance that Christ our Savior is entirely enough (infinitely more than enough!), and he has gone to prepare a feast for us that has no expiration date.

So, this October, as the leaves change and the Sunday morning offering plate is passed, our congregation will continue doing two things at once: [1] We will give thanks for the earthly harvest we can see, and [2] We will look to the heavenly harvest we cannot yet see — the day when all believers shall not stand before the Lord empty-handed, because Christ himself will have filled every hand by his infinite atonement and unlimited grace freely received through faith.

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

OUR FIRST FREEDOM

Because this coming U.S. Independence Day (Saturday, July 4th, 2026) is the 250th birthday of our United States of America, I’ve decided to make it the topic of my June newsletter article.

Two and a half centuries ago in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates to the Continental Congress declared independence from Britain, appealing to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and holding as self-evident the truth that we are “endowed by [our] Creator” with the “unalienable” right to life, right to liberty, and right to pursue happiness. As American Citizens and Lutheran Christians, we pause to give thanks to God for the remarkable blessings of liberty that we enjoy in this land of the free, and especially for the principle that stands as the primary foundation of American civics, society and culture: that is, The Freedom of Religion (our “First Freedom”).

The great First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution begins not with the freedoms of speech, press, or assembly, but with the freedom of religion and religious expression: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Our founders placed religious freedom at the top of the list, first and foremost, because they understood that this right is the root from which all other liberties grow (including speech, press and assembly). When the human heart is free to respond to God’s call to righteousness and piety, the whole society flourishes. Remove that foundation, and even the best-written constitutions eventually become empty words. Religious liberty is not merely one freedom among many; it is the soil in which our American Republic was planted.

This truth resonates deeply for our Lutheran confession. Martin Luther taught that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be proclaimed freely, that faith is a matter of our human conscience transformed by the Word of God freely shared and heard, and that the Church and the State each have their proper God-given spheres. So, generations of Lutherans have not only valued the many economic opportunities afforded by our industrious nation but also the freedom to confess, profess and assemble “in accordance with the divine Word” (Augsburg Confession). Here, under the protection of our First Freedom, our congregations have been able to baptize, teach, worship, and serve, without fear of interference or forced conformity by the State.

Moreover, freedom of religion has shaped our national character far beyond the church doors. It fostered a culture that values the dignity of the individual, encourages free association and voluntary charity, and insists that government itself is under God (in a general non-sectarian sense). It has allowed people of every creed and religion (or none) to contribute their best gifts of citizenship while protecting all from coercion by the State in matters of the spirit. In a nation of diverse ethnicities and traditions, our First Freedom has been the principal foundation that makes “E Pluribus Unum” possible without tyranny of conscience and soul. In fact, every single totalitarian system (such as Marxism) always targets the free exercise of religion for destruction, because a people who look to a higher power and authority than the State is a people who cannot be subjugated. Therefore, we sing in My Country, ‘Tis of Thee…

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love;

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills.

My heart with rapture thrills

Like that above.

As we mark this coming Semiquincentennial (or Quarter-Millennium as I prefer to say), let us commemorate this national anniversary with deep gratitude for our imperfect yet exceptional and laudable nation. Additionally, let us observe it with heartfelt prayer and good citizenship. For the Holy Scriptures declare: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone… and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Consequently, giving thanks to God for the liberties we enjoy, we pray for our leaders and our fellow citizens. And we resolve to use our freedom rightly as it says in Galatians: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for sin, but through love become enslaved to one another… If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:13-15).

On Sunday, July 5th, many congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ throughout our country will gather for worship with national songs and patriotic hymns. May these celebrations be marked by joyful thanksgiving, recognizing that “every good and perfect gift” — including the gift of our First Freedom under the Constitution of the United States — comes “from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

May the Lord continue to preserve this First Freedom for generations yet to come, that the good news of Jesus Christ may be freely proclaimed and that we may serve our nation as Christ’s Kingdom Ambassadors in a world that still groans for the ultimate freedom from enslavement to death and decay (see Romans 8:18-23).

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

WHY DOES GOD LOVE US?

As Christians we’re very acquainted with the gospel message that God loves us, and that God loves us so much that he gave to the world his Divine Son, our Lord Jesus the Messiah (Mashiach), to atone for our sinfulness and to redeem us from sin, death and the devil. But have you ever wondered why God loves us?

So, why is it that God loves us in the first place?

Thankfully, we find the beautiful and powerful answer to this question from the Word of God within the Holy Scriptures. In many passages throughout the Holy Bible, the twofold biblical reason why God loves us so much is simply because we are [1] his cherished creations and [2] his beloved children. As God’s cherished creations, we are his artwork, his building, his craftsmanship. We are God’s painting, God’s musical composition, God’s architectural design, God’s masterwork. And, of course, as we are Almighty God’s offspring (children of our Heavenly Father), we are loved with a fully parental, self-giving and self-sacrificing kind of love.

(Psalm 139:13-14a) – “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works…”

(Isaiah 64:8) – “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

(Matthew 6:9) – “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name’…”

We are indeed cherished creations and beloved children of God, first and foremost. Humankind is created in the image of God (imago Dei) as a complementary balance of female and male (yin/yang), and, although women and men are very different, we are equal in our God-given value and dignity. In addition, humanity is a beautiful kaleidoscope of ethnicities and cultures, but we are one human race that is endowed with inalienable human rights and responsibilities.

(Genesis 1:27) – “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

(Acts 17:26-29) – “From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God, and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals…”

Consequently, our core identity is not centered on any sociological ideology or theory of conflict that’s obsessed with group identities, differences and partialities. Rather, as beloved children of God, our core identity is purely based upon the universal truth of the Word of God and upon the all-encompassing love and grace of God revealed in Jesus the Christ (Christos).

(John 17:17) – “Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth.”

(Ephesians 5:1-2) – “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Knowing why God loves us, we can live our daily lives in this wonderful awareness “as beloved children.” Although our human condition is fallen and sinful, our human nature is divine as offspring of Almighty God. So, we must always uplift and rejoice in our true identity and heavenly heritage as human beings.

Therefore, we praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom God created us and the countless worlds of our universe (see John 1:1-4 and Colossians 1:15-17 and Hebrews 1:1-2). With deep gratitude and thanksgiving, we can live every single day in the awareness that we are cherished creations and beloved children of our Heavenly Father, and that God loves us so much that he gave us his Holy Son, Jesus (Yeshua), to be the once-and-for-all sacrificial offering of atonement for the sins of humanity (see John 3:16-17 and Hebrews 10:10-14 and First John 4:9-11). Glory to God in the highest!!!

Happy Thanksgiving & Good Advent! Pastor Tim