Rich

Do you feel rich? An economist by the name of Robert Heilbroner once challenged people to imagine doing the following: Move your family into a building the size of an old tool shed. Have no electricity, no running water, no bathroom. Get rid of all your clothes except for one set. Keep one pair of shoes. Destroy all written material. Toss out all food except for some flour, sugar and salt, a few potatoes, some onions and dried beans. Throw away all your investments, pensions and insurance policies. Reduce your savings to ten dollars. Live about a three-hour walk away from the nearest clinic. And support your entire family raising crops on a few acres of land. Give a third of your crops to your landlord and a tenth of your crops to your money lender.

If you do that, says Robert Heilbroner, then you’ll know how over a billion people are living in the world right now. And then, perhaps, you’ll realize how rich you really are.

Now imagine something else. The world you live in is dark, cynical, senseless. If there is a God, you haven’t met him. If there is some grand reason for living, you don’t know it. And so you go to work, come home, cash your check on payday, get groceries, watch TV, catch up with the laundry on weekends, take in a ballgame with friends, discuss current events, pursue a hobby, vacation during the summer, go to the dentist, go to the doctor, feel your body getting old, put in for retirement, mow your lawn and weed your garden, watch your life get slower and smaller. And then you wait to die—empty, puzzled and frightened.

If you can imagine that, then you can imagine life without Jesus, life without the forgiveness, peace, joy, security, purpose and certainty of heaven that are yours in your Savior. And then, you, too, can realize how rich you really are.

Join us this Saturday at 6:00 pm or Sunday at 10:00 am in giving thanks for all God has given us!

This week's devotion was provided by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. If you would like to receive their daily devotions, please visit the WELS website at www.wels.net.

Get to Know God

What comes to mind when you think of the 10 Commandments:

* Charlton Heston,
* Two stone tablets,
* Getting in trouble,
* Laws that take away all the fun in life?

Due to some grossly unfair and uninformed press, many people have not only lost the significance of the Commandments, but have also missed what God reveals about himself in these commands.

If someone were describing a friend of theirs to you as an individual who never let them down, was always there when needed, valued them as a human being instead of for what they had, you would probably say to yourself, “I’d like to get to know that person!” The 10 Commandments are not a set of laws that God lives by and so imposes on us human beings. Rather, the Commandments are a living reflection of God’s characteristics—they describe for us what he is like. A brief glance at them show us that God is unique, he is present, he is faithful, and above all perfectly good. Sounds like Someone all of us need to get to know, doesn’t it? Join us this Saturday evening (6:00 pm) or Sunday morning (10:00 am) as we get to know better our great and good God.