Dear Weekly Readers! God’s Peace!
First of all, I want to thank you for your prayers for safe travels as we traveled for two months around the USA. We have arrived safely home. This was a time that was very blessed, and the visiting of the congregations was very heart warming as the fellowship was wonderful! The Christians in America surely are in prayer for each of you!
This week our article is written by a guest pastor.
May God Bless your week! JR
OPEN OUR EARS, LORD!
The Bible is full of stories in which God is involved in one way or another. And every story is full of meaning and purpose. One of these stories to taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark. It reads as follows:
“And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it; And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.” (Mk. 7:31-37)
At the beginning of this chapter, Pharisees were murmuring to Jesus that his disciples were not walking according to the tradition of the elders because they ate with unwashed hands. Jesus challenged them about the hardness of their hearts, closing with the words—“he who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (See Mk. 7:1-16 to read the entire episode!):
Jesus and his disciples, after traveling to the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon where he healed the demon-possessed girl, returned to the area of the Sea of Galilee. Someone begs Jesus to lay his hands on a man who was deaf, because of an actual physical malady, Jesus, being all wise and all-knowing, takes into account this deaf man’s limitations. So to let him know what he is actually going to do, he took him away from the crowd. This man needed to understand that he was the special object of the Savior’s love; no longer just one in the crowd, but one to whom the Lord desired to direct all his attention. Also, this man’s condition required absolute isolation from anyone and anything that may have created a distraction.
Then Jesus put his fingers into this man’s ears and after spitting touched his tongue to let him know exactly what parts of his body he was going to be dealing with and the results of his action Because this man could not understand language, he needed “sign language.” Then Jesus looked up to heaven and sighed. This man needed to know that what was to transpire would be an act of God. In fact, it would be a re-creative act of God. Just as God at the beginning breathed and Man became a living soul, so by this breath of the God-Man, Jesus, this man’s creatureliness would be restored. He would become a full man.
Finally, Jesus spoke the word, “Ephphatha,” an Aramaic word meaning, “Be opened!” Here in an area that was a mixture of Greek and Jewish cultures, people would know that the mercy of God belongs to anyone, irrespective of their culture or condition. Physically hearing the instant this word was proclaimed, this man grasped the truth of God’s grace.
Since faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, may the Lord have mercy on us that we do not become dull of hearing. While it is true, as Luther has stated in the explanation to the Third Article of the Creed, speaking about the work of the Holy Spirit that “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him,” we do need to hear, read, and study the Bible so that we have the Word of God in our minds that the Holy Spirit can then use to draw us to the Lord.
The result of this miracle was immediate, as it is with any of God’s miraculous work in our lives. And this man began to speak plainly. His prior condition of deafness made his speech garbled. Now that he heard plainly, he could also speak plainly. And that’s how it is with us, as well. Until we clearly understand the message of our salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will not be able to clearly and distinctly proclaim that message. So help us, God! Amen!
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The Weekly Diner
Dear Readers around the world! God’s Peace be with you!
This week we are preparing to go a youth camp where 250 or so of the youth of our church will be gathered. Please pray that the time together with this important generation of the Lord’s church is blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit!
As summer is more than half way over now in the USA, we soon will be turning our attention to many of the tasks that begin again in earnest in September. The article below lets us know that whatever things we are given as tasks to do on earth, or whatever may befall us in the way of hardships, God can take care of all things! He is concerned even with the little things in our life! May all praise, honor, and glory go to Him for His great Grace!
Please enjoy the article by our guest Pastor Nathan Juntunen
Little Things
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. (2
Corinthians 4:17)
The choice of the word "light," above, is simply astonishing.
For Paul used it to describe the nature of the Apostles' dire fate of rejection and death for the sake of Christ. How many of us, in the middle of trial, could accept an appraisal of our woe as "light"? Yet, this is precisely what Paul was inspired to believe in regard to his own woes.
Even the severest of trials—beatings, imprisonments, severing of limbs and
family ties, and yes, even death itself— are counted as "little" and "light," indeed, for they are all nothing but momentary. It is only in the eternal Christ where these temporal weights lose their enormous pull and become as the gnat upon the shoulder of the great ox from Aesop's fable who replied to his transient guest, "I neither noticed when you landed, nor will notice when you leave."
The trials of this life, in contrast with our eternal reward, are likewise minimized. The faith of Christ grants a release from the gravity of earthly trial in exchange for a new center of infinite gravity that has come and even now draws us with cords of love. As the Lord draws us toward Himself, it cannot be but that the things of earth will grow "strangely dim."
Among these "dim" things ought to be our appraisal of death. Having been released in Christ from its frightful grasp, we are not longer to treat it with the awful majesty of which it falsely boasts. The emotions we experience in relation to it or any other difficulty are not, however, disqualified; for Paul encourages us with the sympathy of Christ Himself when he pleads with us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15).
Nor do we dismiss Christ's own emotional conflicts: His exasperation with His own generation at their lack of faith, His anger at the money changers who defiled His Father's house, His grief over the lost city of Jerusalem... but... standing over against all this emotional conflict, all this grief, anger and rejection to which Jesus submitted Himself, sharing flesh and blood with us, He bids us, here, to give these things their proper place, assuring us that none of these provocations are ultimate.
Isn't this what is in the heart of the Apostle Paul as he, in another place, calls us to celebrate our possessions in Christ, one of which includes death itself? Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or
things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23) Who would celebrate death as his own possession except he over whom death holds no threat or power?
Who would dare make such a strange claim? Those who are Christ's have the daring, even audacity, to belittle the false majesty of death and loss, ruin and chaos. These things
are all, in reality, very little, indeed "light," for the one whose mind is set on things above (Colossians 3:2).
We are convinced of the true littleness of our trials only in Him and by Him who has already both suffered and triumphed over them all—rejection, dread, death, hell... He is risen victorious from the dead and has transferred ownership of all things into the hands of His own who can now confidently join the Apostle's song, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Corinthians 15:55)
Pastor Nathan Juntunen
Vancouver, Washington
This week we are preparing to go a youth camp where 250 or so of the youth of our church will be gathered. Please pray that the time together with this important generation of the Lord’s church is blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit!
As summer is more than half way over now in the USA, we soon will be turning our attention to many of the tasks that begin again in earnest in September. The article below lets us know that whatever things we are given as tasks to do on earth, or whatever may befall us in the way of hardships, God can take care of all things! He is concerned even with the little things in our life! May all praise, honor, and glory go to Him for His great Grace!
Please enjoy the article by our guest Pastor Nathan Juntunen
Little Things
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. (2
Corinthians 4:17)
The choice of the word "light," above, is simply astonishing.
For Paul used it to describe the nature of the Apostles' dire fate of rejection and death for the sake of Christ. How many of us, in the middle of trial, could accept an appraisal of our woe as "light"? Yet, this is precisely what Paul was inspired to believe in regard to his own woes.
Even the severest of trials—beatings, imprisonments, severing of limbs and
family ties, and yes, even death itself— are counted as "little" and "light," indeed, for they are all nothing but momentary. It is only in the eternal Christ where these temporal weights lose their enormous pull and become as the gnat upon the shoulder of the great ox from Aesop's fable who replied to his transient guest, "I neither noticed when you landed, nor will notice when you leave."
The trials of this life, in contrast with our eternal reward, are likewise minimized. The faith of Christ grants a release from the gravity of earthly trial in exchange for a new center of infinite gravity that has come and even now draws us with cords of love. As the Lord draws us toward Himself, it cannot be but that the things of earth will grow "strangely dim."
Among these "dim" things ought to be our appraisal of death. Having been released in Christ from its frightful grasp, we are not longer to treat it with the awful majesty of which it falsely boasts. The emotions we experience in relation to it or any other difficulty are not, however, disqualified; for Paul encourages us with the sympathy of Christ Himself when he pleads with us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15).
Nor do we dismiss Christ's own emotional conflicts: His exasperation with His own generation at their lack of faith, His anger at the money changers who defiled His Father's house, His grief over the lost city of Jerusalem... but... standing over against all this emotional conflict, all this grief, anger and rejection to which Jesus submitted Himself, sharing flesh and blood with us, He bids us, here, to give these things their proper place, assuring us that none of these provocations are ultimate.
Isn't this what is in the heart of the Apostle Paul as he, in another place, calls us to celebrate our possessions in Christ, one of which includes death itself? Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or
things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23) Who would celebrate death as his own possession except he over whom death holds no threat or power?
Who would dare make such a strange claim? Those who are Christ's have the daring, even audacity, to belittle the false majesty of death and loss, ruin and chaos. These things
are all, in reality, very little, indeed "light," for the one whose mind is set on things above (Colossians 3:2).
We are convinced of the true littleness of our trials only in Him and by Him who has already both suffered and triumphed over them all—rejection, dread, death, hell... He is risen victorious from the dead and has transferred ownership of all things into the hands of His own who can now confidently join the Apostle's song, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Corinthians 15:55)
Pastor Nathan Juntunen
Vancouver, Washington
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The Weekly Diner
Dear Weekly Readers! God’s Peace!
The Lord has blessed us with another week in and of His Grace! We are so thankful to the Lord for allowing us to visit several more churches in the USA that are part of our church federation. So many have asked me to share their greetings and love with all of you! Please remember all American Christians in your prayers.
Today, our article is written by Pastor Chuck Bylkas who is also a member of the Central Board of our Church Federation. Please enjoy! John R.
Mercies of God
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, withcheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. (Romans 12:1-9)
In the latter portion of his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul gives a significant challenge to the church. He calls Christians to a radical life of service. Paul beckons us away from the world, so that we might live lives in accordance with the will of God.
But how can we do this? No matter how hard we try to be faithful to our calling, we slip and fall. In the weakness of our flesh, we find ourselves to be like the Apostle Paul: For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. (Romans 7:15) This statement from Paul is not some sort of false modesty, but rather a declaration about the truth of the human condition. Because of sin, we cannot follow the commands of God by our own efforts.
The key to understanding Romans 12 can be found in verse one, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God...
What are these mercies of God? They are the mercies that Paul describes in chapters one through eleven. Paul tells us that no one can save himself and everyone is a sinner (ch. 1-2). He then tells us that it is faith in Christ Jesus that justifies us in God's sight, not the works of the Law (ch. 3-4). Paul then instructs us
that God's gift of grace in Christ is far greater than the power of sin and death (ch. 5). Now, through the death and resurrection of Christ we are united with Him (ch. 6). We still struggle with sin (ch. 7), but we are not condemned by God or the Law, because we walk by the power of the Holy Spirit (ch. 8).
God's mercy is given to everyone, both Jew and Gentile (ch. 9-11). So then, Paul tells us that because of all of these mercies of God, we are now able to serve Him. Our efforts gain us nothing, while God's effort gives us everything. Because of God's mercy we have been forgiven, justified and restored. We live this new life of servant hood because of who we now are in Christ Jesus.
May God grant us grace to always abide in His mercies.
Pastor Chuck Bylkas
South Range, Michigan
The Lord has blessed us with another week in and of His Grace! We are so thankful to the Lord for allowing us to visit several more churches in the USA that are part of our church federation. So many have asked me to share their greetings and love with all of you! Please remember all American Christians in your prayers.
Today, our article is written by Pastor Chuck Bylkas who is also a member of the Central Board of our Church Federation. Please enjoy! John R.
Mercies of God
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, withcheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. (Romans 12:1-9)
In the latter portion of his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul gives a significant challenge to the church. He calls Christians to a radical life of service. Paul beckons us away from the world, so that we might live lives in accordance with the will of God.
But how can we do this? No matter how hard we try to be faithful to our calling, we slip and fall. In the weakness of our flesh, we find ourselves to be like the Apostle Paul: For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. (Romans 7:15) This statement from Paul is not some sort of false modesty, but rather a declaration about the truth of the human condition. Because of sin, we cannot follow the commands of God by our own efforts.
The key to understanding Romans 12 can be found in verse one, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God...
What are these mercies of God? They are the mercies that Paul describes in chapters one through eleven. Paul tells us that no one can save himself and everyone is a sinner (ch. 1-2). He then tells us that it is faith in Christ Jesus that justifies us in God's sight, not the works of the Law (ch. 3-4). Paul then instructs us
that God's gift of grace in Christ is far greater than the power of sin and death (ch. 5). Now, through the death and resurrection of Christ we are united with Him (ch. 6). We still struggle with sin (ch. 7), but we are not condemned by God or the Law, because we walk by the power of the Holy Spirit (ch. 8).
God's mercy is given to everyone, both Jew and Gentile (ch. 9-11). So then, Paul tells us that because of all of these mercies of God, we are now able to serve Him. Our efforts gain us nothing, while God's effort gives us everything. Because of God's mercy we have been forgiven, justified and restored. We live this new life of servant hood because of who we now are in Christ Jesus.
May God grant us grace to always abide in His mercies.
Pastor Chuck Bylkas
South Range, Michigan
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