(L)For...
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"For we conclude that a person is put right with God only through faith ..." I have two "Business Cards" that I had imprinted when I came to this congregation a year ago. One is the standard kind, giving name, address, office hours, telephone numbers, etc. The other one is just like it, with one exception. In the upper right hand corner, this phrase appears: "Some of the area's most respectable sinners worship here." Some people giggle when they read it; some get a little up-tight. My challenge is to know to whom to give the right card.
It all reminds me of what a sainted pastor told people when he was trying to get non-members to at least examine the claims of this Jesus who came to put people right with God through faith in him. Whenever he was talking with a prospective member and heard that all-too-familiar line: "Well, pastor, I'd come to your church, but there are just too many hypocrites that go there," he would listen calmly, and then reply: "Oh, nuts; don't let that keep you from coming. One more won't make or break us!"
On this Reformation celebration, it is good that we remind ourselves that as homey and almost "homely" that little story is, it has much to do with the heart of the Reformation and the Gospel at its center! Jesus came for those whose lives are not in order; whose spiritual heads are not on very straight. He came to present them to God innocent and blameless -- through faith in him -- for whose sake God will forgive their sins.
-- Schroeder
"For we conclude that a person is put right with God only through faith ..." I have two "Business Cards" that I had imprinted when I came to this congregation a year ago. One is the standard kind, giving name, address, office hours, telephone numbers, etc. The other one is just like it, with one exception. In the upper right hand corner, this phrase appears: "Some of the area's most respectable sinners worship here." Some people giggle when they read it; some get a little up-tight. My challenge is to know to whom to give the right card.
It all reminds me of what a sainted pastor told people when he was trying to get non-members to at least examine the claims of this Jesus who came to put people right with God through faith in him. Whenever he was talking with a prospective member and heard that all-too-familiar line: "Well, pastor, I'd come to your church, but there are just too many hypocrites that go there," he would listen calmly, and then reply: "Oh, nuts; don't let that keep you from coming. One more won't make or break us!"
On this Reformation celebration, it is good that we remind ourselves that as homey and almost "homely" that little story is, it has much to do with the heart of the Reformation and the Gospel at its center! Jesus came for those whose lives are not in order; whose spiritual heads are not on very straight. He came to present them to God innocent and blameless -- through faith in him -- for whose sake God will forgive their sins.
-- Schroeder
