Thank God the Fleeting Privilege Is Still Yours!
It is a sad but very real ability of my sinful nature to turn any task - no matter how gracious a privilege it is - into a grievous burden. My life is littered with ...
Lord, Grant That I in Ev’ry Place May Glorify Your Lavish Grace!
(This is the chapel devotion for Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary on Monday, March 18, 2019) What will deter you in carrying out ministry? Will it be the frustration of that summer-camp that sees many kids eagerly ...
Jesus Redefines Our Best Days!
I’ve only preached on next Sunday’s gospel (Luke 6:17-26) twice in 33 years. (No doubt shorter Epiphany seasons and 20 years of professor-ing have played into that reality.) As I looked back, both times I ...
Strength for the Calling…His…Ours!
It’s a double-edged connection. The more I see the power for Jesus’ calling of his own baptism by John, the more I will see the power for my calling(s) of my own baptism. And the ...
Lord, What Should We Do?
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Luke 3:7). Wow, is that John the Baptizer’s suggested homiletical greeting for Gaudete? That historic name for next Sunday, taken from the ...
Do You Love Your Hearers? Then Speak of God’s Judgment!
“Where never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all…Sunday.” Such is the current reality in many Christian pulpits. In misguided love preachers wash from their sermons any reference to God’s ...
Look Closer, What Whom Do You See?
(The following devotion was preached in the chapel of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary on Monday, October 8, 2018) Did anyone need to look very closely to find the malady of last Sunday’s gospel (Mark 10:2-16)? There ...
Living and Leading in the Kingdom of the Joyfully Double-Crossed!
Next week our seminary campus hosts the Symposium on the Pastor as Shepherd-Leader. Since leadership is a “hot topic,” the world trumpets one new theory after another about the essence of leadership. Even within the ...
Draw Us to Thee!
Is there a more beautiful chapter than John 6 when it comes to evidence of the patient saving love of Jesus that seeks to overcome the stubborn unbelief of our human hearts? Jesus, in his ...
The Cure for Cynicism? Just Keep Preaching!
There is no truth of Scripture so wonderful that my sinful nature cannot distort it into a caricature of itself for my sinful nature’s own purposes! Consider how that works with the theology of the ...