University Lutheran

The third Sunday in Advent is traditionally a jubilant Sunday, noted by the presence of the color pink. This week is also close enough to Christmas day that it starts to “really feel like” Christmas. Christmas movies are starting to pop up on television and the messages of Christmas coming near seem more insistent. This week the proclamation of our hope in Christmas is the key theme throughout the...

The texts for this Sunday give us a sense of preparation by cleaning. John the Baptists plays a key role as being the “Voice who cries” – and when He is calling people to repent, He is calling them to clean-ness of life. Cleaning is a concept that seems to fit our sinful lives in much the same way that it does our messy desks, dirty dishes, and unkempt rooms. We would love for things to be cleaned...

The first Sunday in Advent is a sort of “alarm clock” that rings the bells that it is time for us to prepare for the coming of gift – or if we are found ill prepared, the gift might pass us by. Thinking about this question vocationally, we are given new tasks within our vocations all of the time – and if we are unprepared for their coming, we can appear inept and/or watch an opportunity fly past u...

God has redeemed us and has given us gifts, and the parable of the sheep and goats shows us that there is a way to mishandle these gifts. God’s people are marked by lives of generosity that are not always conscious of their generosity. However, Jesus is clearly calling us to be mindful of our generosity and sense of gifting to others in our Finances, Intellects, Physical presence, Relationships, a...

Last week we talked about having the capital that we need, this week, we talk about the growth of that capital in our lives. In our culture, we are used to spending our capital, but not necessarily used to the ideas that surround the investment of our capital. We’ll talk about investing our Finances, Intellects, Physical time and body, Relationships, and Spiritual lives in order to show growth bef...

Do you have what you need in the areas of Financial, Intellectual, Physical, Relational, and Spiritual capital? Or have you allowed your gifts to burn down to the nub? How do we show ourselves as ready for the Bridegrooms return, even if we don’t feel like we have all that we need right now? What does God have to give us and how does He give His capitals of love?

Do you have what you need in the areas of Financial, Intellectual, Physical, Relational, and Spiritual capital? Or have you allowed your gifts to burn down to the nub? How do we show ourselves as ready for the Bridegrooms return, even if we don't feel like we have all that we need right now? What does God have to give us and how does He give His capitals of love?

Starting with the Gospel reading and Jesus’ statement that wisdom is justified by her children, we examine what the wisdom of the Reformation was. In Romans, we find that this wisdom is the full justification of the human being with God through nothing but God’s own grace. We revel together in this wisdom and continue to stand in this tradition of the Reformation some almost 500 years later.

Some love songs are just about our praise to our beloved. Love songs that describe the attributes of the beloved are often this way. We hear “the way your blue eyes sparkle” and we think of the way that our lover’s green eyes sparkle. Pslam 96 engages in this kind of love song showing attributes of the God whom we worship and praise.

A multigenerational Jesus Centered Community of Scripture, Faith, and Grace located on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL

It’s hard to get around the familiarity we all have with Psalm 23 and view it in a new light, but that the first lines of the Psalm, “…I shall not want…” reveal a similarity to love songs that talk about how the sun and the moon rise and set and the lover may be oblivious to these things if his/her lover is (or is not) around. The Psalm also has a feeling of”no matter what happens, as long as you’...

Pslam 25 cries out to God with the tenor of a lover who fails to know how to show his/her love to the Beloved. David cries, "make me to know Your ways, O Lord" with the same feeling as someone who feels inadequate to their love. So often, when we don't know how to show our love, we show it in inappropriate or at least non-specific terms which result in actually hurting the object of our love. That...

Psalm 27 is about declaring that God is “the one for me”, a theme found in many different love songs. In these love songs, often the author of the love song sings about how he or she looked to others, but in the end, it was about “the one for me”. Jesus is our “the one for me”.

A multigenerational Jesus Centered Community of Scripture, Faith, and Grace located on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL

A multigenerational Jesus Centered Community of Scripture, Faith, and Grace located on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL

As we enter into Lent, we enter into it considering our own mortality that comes through our fall into sin, and how that fall has made us utterly afraid of death - but needlessly because we have a Savior who took death for us.

Who do people see? "And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only"

Who is the hardest person to forgive? A man who kills 5 children and wounds 5 more? That person in your neighborhood or work? No, it's yourself. In fact, it's impossible to forgive yourself. Thank God you don't have to.

Do you believe everything that you say you do? Do your actions reflect those beliefs, or do they betray your sinful heart? Check out how Jesus believes, what He believes, and how He shows that on the cross

We're talking today about commitment and being ready to die to self as Simeon was, and how that works with knowing a Savior who died and was Resurrected.

Are you willing to show the holiness that you were Baptized into? Today we take a pondering look at how we like to "hide it under a bushel"...

Are you sneezing what it means to be a Christian to others?

What does working memory have to do with the Slaughter of the Innocents? Find out!

Are you looking for a leader? What does it mean to look for a leader in our culture and what does that tell us about our worship of Jesus?

Are you looking for change in the wrong places? Many of us are waiting for change, but not sure where the good changes in our life actually come from.