Sometimes it feels like you are going it alone. Life can be hard. Mothering children is definitely hard. The authors of the devotions in this booklet know hard and they know Jesus. They have experienced the loneliness, the exhaustion and the fear about what the future will hold. They have felt isolated as they raised their children.
They wrote these words and picked out Scripture passages to help keep your eyes fixed on Jesus in the midst of the challenges of raising children. These authors are your Cloud of Witnesses (Heb. 12:1–2). You have others in your Cloud of Witnesses; go to church and meet them there.
The words in this booklet are written for you, anticipating the circumstances and emotions you might experience day in and day out. There are other very important words written for you. God gives you the Holy Scriptures, the very Word of God — the Bible — so that you can know His Son. We pray that reading these devotions increases your eagerness to be among the Church, receiving His Means of Grace, the Word of God and the Sacraments.
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Christianity and Culture: God’s Double Sovereignty
Recognizing God’s double sovereignty over all of life can enable Christians to be engaged in a positive, ...
Amoral Times
To be amoral is to be unable to distinguish morally acceptable behavior from morally unacceptable behavior. ...
Outreach to People with Mental Illness
See the information sheet that has resources on ministering to people with mental illness and to their ...
Perfect
When the mother of a disabled man says he’s perfect, she’s saying that the Lord, in His wisdom and mercy, has made ...
When the Crying Stops – Abortion: The Pain and the Healing
Written by Kathleen Winkler with meditations by the Rev. Dr. Harold L. Senkbeil, this book includes stories of 19 post-abortive women who recall their abortion experiences. The stories contain remembering, remorse, and regret. The author tells stories of how repentance happened, forgiveness was found, and the crying stopped.
The Intrusion of Psychology Into Christian Theology
Modern psychology is not an innocent helping-discipline to carelessly borrow from the left-hand kingdom and merge ...
The Appeal of Ethical Relativism
This article gives replies to someone who rejects the idea of morality and is based on reason rather than ...
Pro-Life Penalty
The state acts as God’s agent when it kills those who have killed.
Pro-Life Penalty
Human Ethics and Animal Rights
It seems incongruous that even as we freely kill unborn humans made in the image of God in demonstration of “a ...
Could You Be Addicted?
Whether some addictions may be more dangerous or less dangerous to our well-being, every kind of addiction ...
Can War Be Just?
Current discussions of an unprovoked “first strike” against another country challenge the historic just-war ...
In Martin Luther’s teaching on the dual existence of the Christian, we observe a connection with the teaching of the two governments or two kingdoms. The Christian does not seek to escape or withdraw from the world as in monasticism, but rather he lives out his calling in the particular place where God has located him.
Masks of God
Luther puts it strongly: Vocations are “masks of God.” On the surface, we see an ordinary human face — our mother, the doctor, the teacher, the waitress, our pastor — but, beneath the appearances, God is ministering to us through them. God is hidden in human vocations.
Your Family Vocation
Every Christian — indeed, every human being — has been called by God into a family. Our very existence came about by our parents. Martin Luther said, “God has given this walk of life, fatherhood and motherhood, a special position of honor, higher than that of any other walk of life under it.”
God at Work
Every Christian has a particular calling from God. With the doctrine of vocation, ordinary relationships, the 9-to-5 routine, taking care of the kids, the work-a-day world — the way we spend most hours of the day — become charged with the presence of God.
Wages for Sin
Marriage benefits are starting to go to those who are “shacking up.” As marriage becomes unnecessary — not just for job benefits but for adopting children, inheriting property, and being socially acceptable — the whole nation will be “living in sin.”
Tossing the Last Taboo
Christians dare not opt out of the culture wars, especially while influential culture makers are trying to normalize sex with children. If Christians let the world go its merry way into the black hole of depravity, we will be putting their children in genuine danger.
Homosexuality in Christian Perspective
We dare not permit the church’s public teaching on the matter of homosexuality to be taken over and determined by a desire to “affirm” every person in whatever state he or she may be. That is not the gospel.
God and the Gay Lifestyle
Homosexual behavior, like any sin, can be forgiven. That’s quite a different thing, of course, than to say that such behavior is OK.
A Step Too Far, For Now
When the American Psychological Association’s journal of record published an article saying that sex between children and adults might be OK, not too many people noticed. But such is the furor that has since arisen at the prospect of America’s psychologists possibly normalizing pedophilia — as they already have homosexuality — that the organization is backtracking. Sort of.
Called to Our Work
We don’t choose our vocations; God chooses us for them. The Christian can understand the ordinary labors of life to be charged with meaning. Through our labor, no matter how humble, God is at work.
Called to Be Citizens
Christians are called to be citizens: to obey laws, pay their taxes, and honor and pray for their governing officials. Patriotic feelings and acts of civic-mindedness are fitting responses to the blessings God has given this country and the citizenship to which He has called us.
Called by the Gospel
All Christians have a calling in the church. We all have been called into faith, and we all are called to a local congregation, where we each have a part to play in the community of faith.
