Faith and Life Podcast

In our day, it is a primary mission of the evil one to divide a congregation, just like he has divided the Church in the past. When a congregation is divided, lives are wrecked and the mission is severely crippled.  St. Luke has many differences within our family over politics, economics, human sexuality, gender identity and roles, leadership, worship styles, and more. While we should never dismis...

Often it is said that our children are our future. While that is true, it is more helpful to understand that reaching the next generation with the gospel is a primary responsibility that God has for us. The trends currently look very bleak, but by relentlessly structuring and resourcing the St. Luke mission to effectively reach the next generation, this family of faith can turn the tide within our...

Jesus has strong words, "Unless you repent, you too will all perish."  That is the change we need to make.  But, what changes does God make on our behalf?  God is like the vineyard owner who patiently tends to us, even when we don't bear fruit.  When the world around us finds us useless, God in his mercy, tends to us so that we might bear fruit to the world around us.     Subscribe to stay updated...

We often find Jesus in the most unexpected places. We find Jesus walking the gauntlet in the covenant ceremony recorded in Genesis 17. In the gospel narratives, we find Jesus brooding over God's people like a mother hen, with the little, least, last, lost, and dead, and on the cross. No matter where we find Jesus, it is good news for everyone. In our lives, Jesus shows up in unexpected places – wh...

We all want certain things in life and out of life.  Some of us want more adventure, authority, or attention.  But do we want more of God?  Do we desire to deepen our faith?  Do these make the list?  This week we'll explore how Jesus was tempted to get more out of life, but instead, he opted to get more from God the Father.   Subscribe to stay updated with the latest content. Follow St Luke Luther...

We must utterly despair of our own ability before we are prepared to receive the grace of Christ. Luther wrote, "The thirst for glory is not ended by satisfying it but rather by extinguishing it." This is the cross story that stands in direct opposition to the glory story that is our default view of ourselves. Forde writes, "The most common overarching story we tell about ourselves is what we will...

In our world today there is so much out of our control. If we focus on those situations and people beyond our control, we will end up frustrated and anxious. When we stay focused on what we can control, we can respond to life with peace and self-confidence. Jesus stayed focused on what he could control and the mission God had him on despite the swirling political and social pressures of his day.  ...

Having a safe place with safe people is vital to strong mental health. Because Jesus inhabits our vital friendships with other Christ-followers with his grace and forgiveness, He empowers those connections to equip us with strong mental health. The symptoms of disconnection are evident, depression/mood; anxiety/fear; acting out/impulse problems; addictions; distorted thinking (negative/worrisome)....

What is mature love? Humanity has a tendency to curve on itself, where all we think about is ourselves. One way through mental health issues is by seeking to better another person's life through kindness while we ourselves are seeking to be better. Jesus' way of love lifts our heads from seeing only ourselves to seeing others around us. Subscribe to stay updated with the latest content. Follow St...

When we are honest and vulnerable before God and one another regarding our faults, we put ourselves in the place to experience being fully accepted by God and others. This gives us a solid foundation for strong mental health. The central teaching of our evangelical faith is that we are saved, accepted, and justified by grace through faith in Christ. All of our efforts for making ourselves good and...

It's wise to fight.  The foolish avoid conflict and thus let resentment, misunderstanding, and bitterness fester. Every relationship will experience conflict.  What matters is not whether or not people fight, it's how they fight that matters.  The measuring line for successful relationships is not the frequency of fighting, it is in the quality of the conflict.  Wisdom teaches us that we can fight...

Pastor Tyus Nedd joins us from International Christian Center to share five pieces of w.i.s.d.o.m to take with us as we journey through life.  Subscribe to stay updated with the latest content. Follow St Luke Lutheran Church: YouTube Instagram Facebook Website

It's wise to grieve.  Avoiding grief leaves our wounded hearts open like a cut that will not heal. Every person experiences grief.  It follows as we experience loss in our lives, whether it be because someone we loved has died, we lose physical ability, friendships end, or hopes and dreams for the future die.  The wise allow themselves to grieve.  If we don't allow ourselves to grieve, the emotion...

God's wisdom for our lives is the cost of dying so that we will be able to love God and others.   Everything in what Jesus taught and the way Jesus lived and died reveals the hidden wisdom of God for our lives – to die to ourselves so that we will be able to love God above all else and to love others as Jesus loves us. One cannot be raised to a new life without first dying. This hidden wisdom of G...

Paul describes Jesus as the "wisdom of God",  Thus, Jesus embodies the entirety of wisdom.  He is the Savior of the world and the wisdom of God. The beginning of the year is a time for us to look ahead at what will be.  We envision, make plans, set goals…but wisdom will be the way it is accomplished. The world today may be filled with incredible knowledge, but be bereft of wisdom.  Google is knowl...

When Mary visits Elizabeth, Elizabeth is shocked and says, "Why am I so favored…?"  The NRSV re-words her question, "Why has this happened to me…?"  Regardless of how it is worded, Elizabeth is surprised and taken aback by the grace she's experiencing by Mary's visit.  Mary, in whom the Savior of the Word dwelled in bodily form, visits Elizabeth and gives her a day she would never forget.  Might w...

In the morning, many of us ask, "What should I do today?"  We think of tasks and obligations and make plans to carry them out.  Do we ever ask, "Who should I be today?" or as we look at the holiday season, "Who should I be this Christmas?"  What difference would it make if you did?  During Advent, we anticipate the coming of Christ, his first coming in his birth in Bethlehem and his second in glor...

As you look at what is happening in our world and individual lives, you may be thinking, "Evil seems to be winning. Where is the God of justice?" God brings justice through Jesus alive in us and everything is made new. The Hebrew prophets Malachi and John the Baptist proclaimed that God's justice was coming. God's justice came in Jesus. God's justice is backward from the world's justice. God's jus...

Decades ago, U2 sang, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."  The phrase is not only a great lyric to a legendary song, it reflects the condition of our hearts at different points in our lives.  The deeper question becomes, "What is your heart looking for?"  Contentment?  Peace?  Love?  Joy?  Acceptance?  When we live in Christ, we find what our hearts are looking for and what our souls lon...

God makes our generosity extraordinary. God takes what we give to his mission and multiplies it to produce an extraordinary and eternal difference in our lives and the lives of others. When we sacrificially and cheerfully give first to God, our lives are extraordinarily changed. God uses all our offerings to bring his extraordinary mission into reality.         Subscribe to stay updated with the l...

As Christians, we live our lives always in view of the cross.  God has generously given us all things, including himself, and asks us to live in this way of generosity.   The question Capital One asks consumers is, "What's in your wallet?"  God asks, "What's in your heart?"  God doesn't need our time, talents, and money, but we need to be generous.  It is not only good for us, it is also what God...

Hope is the confident expectation that what God has promised will happen. The dictionary defines hope as "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen." But hope is less about feeling and more like trust. Faith and hope are synonyms in the theology of the Bible. Hope is forward-looking and, therefore, hope is less about proof. But our hope becomes more confident when past even...

Luther dreamed and worked for a church that was free from the demands of the leaders in the church of his day.  The reforms he led became a movement founded in the freedom of the Christian.  The desire for freedom continues to this very day as Americans debate about what freedom means as it relates to government mandates about masks and vaccinations.  Christians today, in America, can model and he...

Alisha joined the St Luke staff this year as Children and Families Ministry Director. Her message today centers on relating joy and finding joy at different times in her faith journey and the impact it has had on her. We hope this message encourages you.   Subscribe to stay updated with the latest content. Follow St Luke Lutheran Church: YouTube Instagram Facebook Website

Jesus is called a prophet, teacher, miracle-worker, Messiah, the Christ, Savior, and Redeemer among other things.  The writer of Hebrews adds two more, "Pioneer and Perfecter" of our faith.  (The King James Version uses the word "author" instead of "pioneer".) This week we'll lean into the implications that Jesus is truly what Hebrews testifies to, that he writes the story and perfects the same st...