A new group has started to help rape survivor mothers and their children. Find out more at this link to Hope After Rape Conception.
Video links to 2012 Lutherans For Life National Conference talks are being added to the LFL website. You can check them out on our LifeTube page. (Note: To view the talks, click on the title. If you click on the video image, you will only be able to view an LFL promotional video–which is worth it too, of course!. Due to the length of the conference talks and the video file size, we needed to post them on YouTube and then post a link on our site.)
A listtle history lesson for today from “American Minute”: – Johannes Gutenberg & the invention of the Printing Press
Here are a couple semi-recent columns that caught my attention:
Is America worth trying to save? by Tim Wildmon
August 7, 2012
Is America worth trying to save? Save from what you might ask. Is America worth saving from self-destruction? Maybe that’s a better question to ask.
Civilizations have risen and fallen through the ages. Countries have been birthed and countries have died. I believe the United States of America was birthed by the God of the Bible primarily for the purpose of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ both here and around the world unlike any other country in history.
Even before we won our independence from England, the Christian faith had begun to spread like wildfire across the land. My dad, a Methodist minister, used to tell me stories about the legendary circuit riders who later traveled on horseback to evangelize the new nation. These men would brave whatever was in front of them to carry the message of Jesus Christ throughout the New World. Other denominations trail blazed the gospel as well and soon our country became recognized both here and abroad as a distinctively Christian nation. The evidence was so overwhelming that in 1892 the Supreme Court wrote in the case Church of the Holy Trinity v The United States: “These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”
Our country has known freedom for the individual unlike any other country in history. Quite frankly, the idea was novel that people could govern themselves. In order for freedom to be sustained the masses had to be willing to act morally and lawfully by their own volition or else society would crumble from within. Thus wrote our second president John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount were how we judged good and evil, right and wrong. Some of that still remains, but respect for those teachings and reverence for the God who spoke them is deteriorating at a very rapid rate.
In modern day America, there is very little shame anymore. Most Americans have lost their fear of God. We are on the road to self-destruction.
Secularists mock the idea of God. Judges forbid even the acknowledgement of God in many public places. We teach our children they come from monkeys. Those who hold to the biblical definition of marriage are called hatemongers. The entertainment industry promotes sex without moral standards day after day, movie after movie, song after song – influencing our youth beyond measure. Try to raise any objection to this tide of immorality and you are quickly shouted down, ridiculed, called a prude, a hater, a religious nut, a censor or a fundamentalist.
What we are experiencing today in America is unbridled selfishness and licentiousness and the results are manifesting themselves in many terrible ways that will only get worse if things don’t change.
For the Christian in America today there is only so much we can do. Only 43% of our fellow countrymen even go to church today. We are now outnumbered. But that which we can do, with God’s help, we must do. We can pray to God that He send revival to America. We can continue to build strong Christian families. We can put our denominational barriers aside when there are shared values we can defend concerning issues that affect the moral health of our nation. We can share our faith. We can continue to hold high the standard of righteousness and we can vote for candidates who best reflect our values. There are no perfect candidates, but we are a nation of laws so we must elect the best available lawmakers to govern us and hold them accountable.
So to answer my own question, yes, America is worth trying to save. For our children, grandchildren and generations to come. We cannot give up. There is nowhere else to start over. There is nowhere else to sail to.
Weekly Devotion from the Christian Medical and Dental Associations – August 7, 2012
Unaware
“… he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion …” (Philippians 1:6, NIV 1984).
On early morning hospital rounds, I was a bit surprised when a nursing aide I had never met looked up at me in the elevator and asked me how I was doing. I said I was fine. When she stepped off the elevator, she said, “May God’s power be with you today.” Later the same morning after I had examined an older gentleman, he asked me, while still on the exam table, “May I pray for you today?” He took my hand and held me up to the Lord.
As far as I can tell otherwise, that day turned out no different than hundreds of others.
Do you ever wonder what God is doing with you each day? Most days are so much like every other that we lose sight of our part in His plan. We look at our lives and hope that someday He will use us in a mighty way, and then imagine missions and sacrifice that may never come.
The truth is that God is constantly using His faithful in ways that leave us unaware.
When we love Him and abide in Him, people are touched and words are said that heal, transform and even move mountains—actions of God that we will only discover on the other side. There are days like the one above where mighty battles are being waged on a spiritual plain for which extra prayer and power are needed, even though the day seems ordinary.
Someday we will see it all, but not now. If our eyes were opened now to all that God is doing with us, we could not stand the glory of His presence and the awesome expanse of His work. And we would be tempted to point to our own contribution rather than to His Majesty.
Our task is to focus on the Master and obey—His task is to get the work done, whether we can see it or not.
As Oswald Chambers put it:
“The true character of the loveliness that tells for the Christian is always unconscious….Jesus says, ‘He that believeth on Me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water.’ If we begin to examine the outflow, we lose touch with the Source. We have to pay attention to the Source and God will look after the outflow.”
My question for the Lord each day should not be, “What did you accomplish with me today?” Instead, it should be, “Did I love you today?”; “Did I love others today?”; “Did I trust you today?”; and “Did I obey?” When we reach the other side, we will be pleased with His answer to the first question if His answer to the second four was, ”Well done.”
Dear Father,
Help me to love and obey—and trust you with the outcomes of my life.
Amen