Go & Tell the Story

Faith can heal our wounds if we believe and recognize that God’s love is in us. Jesus came to the world not only to fulfill what Prophets had prophesied, but also to reconnect our faith and love with God and to present himself in us. Therefore, the church brings us together as Christians, to worship, and journey to the cross, and that is the way “we journey to the Cross-as the church for the sake of the World”.  Sometimes, we as Christians misunderstood our calls; some Christians think that, the call to take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ might be a call to get a good job, a good family, and good friends. It is not that way; Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me” this means, to accept the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. We cannot be able to be good followers of Jesus Christ if we don’t have faith and if Jesus Christ is not present in our faiths. Rev. John Gok Badeng Nile Lutheran, Omaha We get to Hope! Hope – I think that is what so many people are yearning to f...

  By Rev. Kristen Van Stee, Assistant to the Bishop “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”  --1 Corinthians 13:12-13 My family is the kind of family that is committed to holding on to relics from the past.  Anything that tells the story of our ancestors is usually kept safe somewhere in the house like a sacred artifact.  Letters, photographs, antique furniture, knick-knacks, and more haunt the rooms of our homes, helping to trigger human memory and the stories they invoke.  For this reason, when I visit with my grandfather, it is not an unusual activity that we sit down together and dig through one of his many boxes of old papers in an attempt to organize what is there, sifting trash from treasure.  The last time I was with him, we looked throu...

 By Angela Geier, Administrative Assistant for the Nebraska Synod I’ve heard it said that “the more you are forced to suffer here in this life, the holier God is calling you to be”. If that is true and I have done my math correctly, I should be a saint by the time I am 60.   If I was asked what “Faith, Hope, & Love” meant to me 14 years ago, I would had given an entirely different answer than I give today.  In these last 14 years I have endured triumphs and tragedies, and withered the storms of life. Yet I am blessed with the family and friends I have, and I have gained a deeper understanding of my personal and spiritual growth.  Surprisingly, that understanding came in moments of despair, barely clinging to my faith, it was just that- my faith in God.  He was my strength, to withstand the sorrows and sufferings, that persevered me through the darkest moments. I was brought closer to God not only in my faith, but in the love and hope he promises us. In ...

 By Bishop Brian Maas “Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three. And the greatest of these is love.” I’m confident it would be far easier to tally the number of weddings I’ve presided over or attended that didn’t include this passage than it would be to tally those that did. It is of course a beautiful and powerful passage, even though it’s targeted not at a couple’s relationship but at an entire people living in community. While that’s the passage that immediately pops to mind, it’s not the first time Paul lifted up this trio of virtues, and certainly not the only. Already in the opening of 1 Thessalonians, the earliest of his letters, Paul writes that he keeps the Thessalonians in prayer constantly, remembering “your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope.” These are clearly three essential marks of the Christian’s life, as far as Paul is concerned. It’s nothing new to note that faith is a matter rooted in the witness (and our experience) of the past, that ...