New Beginnings Lutheran Church

When you come up against the sharp edges of life (a disease afflicts your health, the economy costs you your job, a jerk breaks your heart,...) you wonder who cares. The answer is that you do. You care for others and find relief in your own struggles. And others, ideally, care for you and discover the same. 📖 Romans 12:3-13 | bit.ly/3pnrbow 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving |...

With the new year around the corner, thoughts of “time” are on many people’s minds. The new year is a good time to __________. We can all fill in that blank. What does God say about time and how we spend it? And how do we prepare for what is to come? 📖 Romans 13:8-14 & 2 Corinthians 6:2 | bit.ly/3p9YNWM 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

What is the opposite of LOVE? Dislike? Disdain? Indifference? It’s easier to say accurately what love isn’t than to say what love is. Love isn’t God, but God is love--and so we learn what love is by seeing Him. 📖 Isaiah 63:7-9 | bit.ly/3lQdeOM 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

What is the opposite of JOY? Discouragement? Despondency? Depression? Even when our circumstances are dark, joy is possible. Tune in to find more ways to tap into this gift of God. 📖 Zephaniah 3:14-20 | bit.ly/3kLQQod 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

What is the opposite of PEACE? Discord? Disharmony? Distress? Many of us suffer a lack of peace and our sleepless nights and/or our health show for it. Listen to learn how you can experience a more satisfying way of life. 📖 Micah 5:1-5 | bit.ly/35Jiz4M 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

What is the opposite of HOPE? Despair? Distrust? Disbelief? We live in times increasingly prone to these D-words. Would you prefer hope? Then come find out how your heart can swell with expectation of better things. 📖 Jeremiah 33:10-18 | bit.ly/3pGuFUa 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

As a lion growls over its prey, so we meditate on God’s Word (cf., Isaiah 31:4 and Psalm 1:2). God’s Word is a feast and we are learning how to eat it in this final installment, Part Four. 📖 Philippians 4:2-9 | bit.ly/3om5DJs 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

More than once, God’s prophets were told to eat God’s Word (e.g., Revelation 10:9-10). We are attempting the same as we learn methods for studying Scripture, Part Three. 📖 Philippians 4:2-9 | bit.ly/3om5DJs 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

God invites us to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). We will be serving up another course of God’s delicious Word and learn how to study the Bible, Part Two. 📖 Philippians 4:2-9 | bit.ly/3om5DJs 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Jesus said that we don’t live on bread alone (Matthew 4:4), but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God. How do we eat God’s Word? Come hungry as we learn how to study the Bible, Part One. 📖 Philippians 4:2-9 | bit.ly/3om5DJs 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

The end is here? The end of the world has been “coming soon” for some 2000 years! If a 1000 years is like a day to the Lord, how many days(!) until Jesus comes back? Sooner than you think. 📖 Revelation 22:7-21 | bit.ly/34MmeyB 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

The Bible began in a garden and ends in a city, but that’s not how our story ends. Revelation marshals a variety of images to encourage Christians living in the end times to not lose hope. We have so much to look forward to at the end of all things and the new beginning! 📖 Revelation 21 | bit.ly/3lL7tSO 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Judgment Day! We have no way of getting around it. We must go through it. The Great White Throne of God proves to be the watershed of history whereupon divides heaven’s gates and hell’s flames. What’s it gonna be for you? 📖 Revelation 20 | bit.ly/34Ptf1z 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Will your favorite food be in heaven? Will it still be fattening? Food is a major theme throughout the Bible and eating with God seems to be like a party most of the time. Are you hungry? Come find out what’s on the menu! 📖 Revelation 19:1-10 | bit.ly/2DgmTgp 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Want to know what heaven looks like? Revelation gives a hint. This picture also gives a clue as to when the world will end! Compare what you read in Revelation 7 with what Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect now and forever. 📖 Revelation 7 | bit.ly/32His70 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Make sure you have a white robe. And sunglasses. Wear sunglasses. Also, we might want to gather on a hilltop—somewhere prominent, right? What do God’s people look like, according to Revelation, as we prepare for the end of the world? 📖 Revelation 2-3 | bit.ly/31LEDto 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

**SOUND ISSUES - TUNE IN AT 32:14** The End is *hear*! Blessed are those who hear the words of Revelation. This notorious book is not so much a prophecy foretelling future times as forth-telling the promises of God to people living through troubled times. 📖 Revelation 1 | bit.ly/34LdNnc 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

The language we use is shaped by who we are. From what part of the world do we come? From what part of the country? Are we teenagers or seniors? Rural or urban? Are we “hip” or not so much? How can God use your particular lingo to communicate with others His great Gospel message? 📖 Acts 2:1-21 | bit.ly/3a21ZNL 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Things aren’t always what they seem. What seemed life-giving to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden actually ushered in a reign of death. But through His death on the cross, Jesus ushers in an even more powerful reign of life. 📖 Romans 5:6-15 | bit.ly/3kdCQoa 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

When introducing people to Jesus today, we face lots of scrutiny. We all too often confuse God’s part and our part. Too many feel the need to have all the answers to people’s questions—to defend our beliefs. But only one response is needed. 📖 John 9 | bit.ly/2XzSFf4 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Anyone hungry? Everyone eventually. We all feel a craving that even transcends food! That’s why we agree with the D.T. Niles quote: “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.” Got bread? Know Jesus? 📖 John 6:1-14 | bit.ly/2PuRGIE 🤗 Connect Card | nblc.net/connect 💚 Giving is Loving | nblc.net/give

Do you want to condemn others? Of course not. You wouldn’t be invited to any parties if you acted like that! God did not send Jesus to condemn the world. Jesus came to love the world. This is what “our mission” is—the same as Jesus’ mission: to share God’s love with the whole world! JOHN 3:1-17 // Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by...

How good is it to put on a pair of glasses or contact lens with the correct prescription for the first time and see the world with better focus? How does seeing more clearly change the way we interact and live in our world? COLOSSIANS 3:5-11 (12-17) // Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account o...

Have you ever experienced weeks and months that tend to blur together? You look back over the year, and you do not see progress or growth in your life? Looking at your faith walk, does your growth every feel like a blurred optical illusion? COLOSSIANS 2:1-15 // For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that t...

Do you ever feel that you live your day to day life with a lack of focus easily becoming distracted with the mundane? How much does a lack of focus cost our families, our relationships, our employers? How much do distractions cost the church or our faith walk? What are you focused on? COLOSSIANS 1:15-22 // He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things w...