Sharing joy for life

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Hat tip to the Rev. Paul McClain for posting this on his website so I could watch it. As he said ... this is an incredibly powerful video by the Rev. Matthew Harrison, president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

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Looking for St. Utopia

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My new favorite blogger, Pastor Peters, nailed this ... The cause of Pastor and people is not the perfect church.  If it were, as they used to say, you would not be allowed in.  Even more to the point, when we spend our whole time lamenting what is wrong, we fail to see the work of God in our midst.  As much as we yearn for a perfect church, God, in His generosity and mercy has always worked among imperfect people and structures to do His perfect will.  http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2013/01/looking-for-st-utopias-church.html
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We are ungodly. We can be saved. Acts 8:1

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And Saul approved of their killing him. There are certain passages of Scripture that just cut to the heart. Today, Day 2 of my reading of Acts, this line hit pretty hard, probably because of some recent conversations I have been having about calling sin sin. Saul, I was reminded, is a murderer. This devout Hellenistic Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, someone who is supposed to be one of the Good Guys, conspired in the arrest, trial, conviction, and punishment of Christians. Saul was excellent at persecution. And here, he led the charge in stoning Stephen to death. Saul is a murderer. You understand what that means don't you? Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him (1 John 3:15). For out of the heart come evil thoughts — murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person (Matt. 15:19-20). Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the k...
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Semper Fidelis: James 1:12

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Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. I wish I could have been more faithful to my journal here in the past week, but it's been a long week. Most notably, I got to see my son complete basic training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, thus earning the title United States Marine. I have written about this subject several times over the past six months -- most notably here and here . Nonetheless, I wasn't prepared for what happened last Thursday, when I got to see my son for the first time in three months. It was just three months, you know. It's not like he has been gone a year or so, like many Marines in the past, with their combat deployments to Afghanistan. It was just three months. Sometimes that feels like just a few days. I am not ashamed to say it, I cried when I first saw him Thursday. Actually, I cried twice: first, when I caugh...
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