New Beginnings Lutheran Church

What child is this? That’s the question posed by Mary, her husband, shepherds, peasants, angels, and kings. Do you know the answer? Who is this Jesus? After some 2000 years, we’ve only just begun to know!

How do you measure an act of generosity? If one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, then one person’s sacrifice may be insignificant to another--and vice versa. So, what you treasure may provide the measure.

When we are looking out for ourselves, it’s hard to see others. It’s hard to see Jesus. But Jesus is looking out for us. To the degree we are confident of Christ’s care for us, we will in the same measure be set free to take care of others.

The wise men came from the East to worship the Christ. But news of the birth of Jesus upset King Herod—so he sought to kill his rival. From day one, people were either for or against Jesus.

I love to pose the question: If everyone wants to go to heaven, then why does nobody want to die? Something in us resists the “consolation” prize of heaven. Consolation is for those who lose, but we win in the end!

If you were going somewhere and were told at your destination you would be bound and sentenced to death, would you turn around? Or would you continue to your inevitable demise?

One of history’s greatest U-turns is the story of the Apostle Paul. What about you? Do you have a U-turn story? Are you ready for a U-turn now?

To be a good Christian, you gotta be a good Jew. You should be circumcised, eat kosher food, and observe the prayers and rites of Judaism. That’s what everyone thought at first in the earliest expressions of “church.” So God scheduled a corrective zoom session with Peter.Accompanying reading:Acts 1-10; 12The Story, Chapter 28

Let’s face it: if Jesus didn’t really come back from the dead, would anything else He said be worth listening to? Yes, it would! But Easter did happen, and that makes everything Jesus said worth living!

On April 8, 1966, the cover of Time magazine asked, “Is God dead?” So what if He was? In Jesus, God died. And life has never been the same since.

Most of us have learned about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit--not three gods, but one God, yet three persons! What’s all the hullabaloo about the Holy Trinity?

What if God were one of us: not a stranger on the bus, not tryin’ to make His way home, and not a holy rolling stone! What does it mean that Jesus was God (and man)?

For much of the Bible, the stress was upon going to, staying in, and returning to the promised land--all because God promised His people He would make them a nation. Then Jesus shows up and priorities seem to have changed.

The Old Testament often stressed that God set Israel apart to be holy; they were not to intermarry with other nations. Then the promised King of the Jews arrives with anything but a pure family tree!

We never want to be that person who says, “Do as I say, not as I do.” We believe actions are as important as words and we will learn their power for transforming others where we live, work and play.

You can live a holy life through Jesus because He was completely holy – and your faith and hope is in Him.

We are told to forgive as we’ve been forgiven. Forgiveness means paying the price for another. In other words, one person “ransoms” another person, giving something in exchange. We have been ransomed, and so we can do the same.

We pray that God will forgive us as we forgive others. God did what was necessary to remove whatever divides us. God made “reconciliation” possible.

You were caught red-handed. When your trial begins, fear and dread cause sweat to roll down your back and your temples to throb. The verdict of the judge falls like a guillotine and you sense your life is over, but she declares you, “Innocent.” You’ve been “justified”... you’ve been forgiven.

Have you ever fantasized about redoing your life knowing what you know now so that you can do it better? Forgiveness grants us the opportunity for a fresh start; the Bible calls it being “born again.”