Stand firm in christ for others!

Word from the Center
Written By Dr. Gregory Seltz

Things seem wobbly today, don’t they? It seems that too many people are heeding the siren call of “change.” They often don’t even ask, “Is this change good for us or bad for us?” I’ve heard it said, and even taught, that if we merely tear down the present structures and replace them with egalitarian, socialist structures, then human beings would live virtuous, even perfect lives in love and service to others. That’s not only wrong, it’s also incredibly naïve. While it is true that humanity has “inherent dignity” due to our creation by God, it is also true and painfully obvious that our rebellion and sin have dramatically changed all that. Humanity’s record is not predominantly one of love and care, but of violence and destruction. Humanity’s history not only reveals what the worst among us have done, it also records that the so-called “best of us” have done incredibly evil things to others in the name of our own survival or self-interest. A true picture of humanity’s condition without God is reflected by the wise author of Ecclesiastes in verses 14-15 of chapter 1:

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

It is a sobering fact that the “wiser” we get, the more we see our shortcoming, inabilities, and sins. Thank God there is an enduring kingdom with a life-saving message that exists amidst our self-destructive and sinful realities.

That’s why Paul tells the Thessalonians to “stand firm.” They were well aware of the reality that this is world is passing away, yet they still had a mission and ministry in the midst of it. Paul reminds them and us that by faith in Christ we have received eternal life and salvation as a gift from God. That Good News has been delivered to us through the truth of God’s Word, the Gospel truth that saves. That truth calls for us to “stand firm” and to hold on because that truth saves, transforms, and holds us, especially when things get crazy in this world. That truth also sets us apart to be Christ’s people for others by the power of His Spirit.

I heard about an incredible story of a pilot who literally learned the truth of the phrase, “Hold on for dear life.” Back in 1987 on a commuter flight from Portland, Maine to Boston, the pilot, Henry Dempsey, heard an unusual noise near the rear of the plane. Dempsey turned the controls over to the co-pilot and went back to check it out. As he reached the tail section, he realized that the noise was caused by the improper latching of the rear door. Just then, the plane hit an air pocket and Dempsey was tossed against that rear door, causing it to open and to suck him out of the plane.

The co-pilot saw a red light indicating an open door on the plane and immediately radioed the nearest airport requesting permission for an emergency landing. He reported that the pilot had fallen out of the plane and wanted a helicopter to search the area. But after the plane landed, the ground crew found Dempsey holding on to the outdoor ladder of the aircraft. Somehow he had caught the ladder. He then held on for ten minutes as the plane flew 200mph, descending from an altitude of 4000 feet, and survived the landing with the runway merely inches away. According to news reports, it took airport personnel several minutes to pry Dempsey’s fingers off of the ladder. That ladder saved his life. That ladder was worthy of his tenacious grip!

In a comparable way, Paul is telling us that especially when it really matters, we are “set apart people” who hold on to Jesus for dear life. Actually, it is Jesus who holds on to us for our dear lives. Indeed, Jesus is worthy of our undivided faith. The world calls attention to things that don’t hold, things like politics, illicit behaviors, and self-help psychology. Amidst a cacophony of misleading voices, Paul calls us Christians to stand firm in our faith in Christ and to hold on to His Word. Faith in Him comes to fruition in a life that is eternal. Trust placed in Him leads to wisdom amidst the craziness of this world. Stand firm in Christ for yourself; stand firm in Christ for others; we’ll all be blessed as you do!

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, give us courage to stand firm in our faith in You and to hold on to Your Word. Grant that we not only stand firm for ourselves, but for others as well. AMEN.

See Also
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FOR FREEDOM TO ENDURE - THERE’S A PRICE TO BE PAID!

Today’s reading is Galatians 5:1, where the Bible says,   

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

The Oppressors and the Oppressed
The Oppressors and the Oppressed

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Today’s reading is Galatians 3:26-29, where the Bible says,   

26 So, in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

July Bulletin Insert
July Bulletin Insert

The Bulletin Insert is designed to be printed and cut in half to fit conveniently inside a Sunday worship bulletin. Each month an insert will offer insight, encouragement, and information from the LCRL on the topics of Religious Liberty, Life, Marriage, or Education.

July 2025 Bulletin Blurbs
July 2025 Bulletin Blurbs

The dates identifying the LCRL bulletin blurbs are only suggestions. Please feel free to use any and all of the bulletin blurbs as your ministry needs allow.

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If a couple came to me and said, “Pastor, we’d like to get married, and we’d like to do everything we can today to make sure our marriage ends in divorce tomorrow,” then I would tell them that the first thing they should do is move in together. Cohabitation is that destructive to marriage and family life.

However, the warning must not stop there. Because it is a form of public and intentional sin, cohabitation is particularly destructive to the conscience, and not just to the couple’s conscience but also to the conscience of the Christian community. Many couples view their choices as going no further than themselves. I would like to challenge this by considering some of the ways that cohabitation harms the broader Christian community.

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19 That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting man’s sins against them. And He has committed to us this ministry of reconciliation, 20 for we are God’s ambassadors, as though were making His appeal through us, be reconciled to God!

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Defund Planned Parenthood?

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Compassionate Abortion?

The story has many troubling aspects, not least of which is the parents’ decision based on inaccurate information about the child’s chance of surviving and thriving. But what troubles me most is that I encounter fellow Lutherans who have bought the narrative that it is better for babies with physical imperfections to be aborted rather than embraced and loved for whatever time the Lord allows them to live. I offer four problems with that mindset.

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June Prayer Partner Thursday

Prayer Partner Thursday provides a month-long prayer emphasis in one of the four Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty areas of emphasis: Religious Liberty, Sanctity of Life, Educational Freedom, and Marriage as an Institution (family).

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Today’s reading is Acts 1:7-11 which begins with Jesus telling His disciples,
“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

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Abortion is a human right. So also is the right to ensure that children have puberty blockers and hormone treatment leading to mutilating surgery. Engage in debate, present the facts, and you will be shouted down by the mob. But that is a little child in the womb, a human being at an early stage. But you will hear only "My body, my choice." And if you take the argument further, you will hear more shouting, as the protestors screams and then repeats over and over again. What is a woman? There is no answer, but that doesn't bother the mob. Is there really such thing as a trans-child? How would you know? Might the child simply be confused? No answer, only the mantra, "Trans right are human rights."

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31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

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There was a great wedding in Leipzig, Germany, in the mid-1730s. We don’t know whose wedding it was, and we wouldn’t think anything of it today at all, had not Johann Sebastian Bach composed a cantata for it. A cantata was a piece of concerted music, about 20 minutes long and split into various movements, made up of sung Scripture passages and poetic verses. Almost all of Bach’s cantatas end with a hymn stanza.

Think for a moment about which hymn stanza would best conclude a cantata at a wedding. What words should be echoing in the ears of bridegroom and bride as they prepare for married life together? Which would be best?

June Bulletin Insert
June Bulletin Insert

The Bulletin Insert is designed to be printed and cut in half to fit conveniently inside a Sunday worship bulletin. Each month an insert will offer insight, encouragement, and information from the LCRL on the topics of Religious Liberty, Life, Marriage, or Education.

June 2025 Bulletin Blurbs
June 2025 Bulletin Blurbs

The dates identifying the LCRL bulletin blurbs are only suggestions. Please feel free to use any and all of the bulletin blurbs as your ministry needs allow.

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A NEW COMMAND? BETTER, A NEW OPPORTUNITY!

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“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

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SEEING THINGS FROM GOD’S “MISSION-VICTORY” POINT OF VIEW!

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After these things I looked, and behold, I saw a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

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Today’s reading is these portions of John 21:15–19, beginning with Jesus asking Simon Peter,    

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May Prayer Partner Thursday

Prayer Partner Thursday provides a month-long prayer emphasis in one of the four Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty areas of emphasis: Religious Liberty, Sanctity of Life, Educational Freedom, and Marriage as an Institution (family).

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“SEEING-BELIEVING” OR “BELIEVING-SEEING?”

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Thomas said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

 

SEEING THINGS FROM GOD’S “MISSION-VICTORY” POINT OF VIEW!
SEEING THINGS FROM GOD’S “MISSION-VICTORY” POINT OF VIEW!

D.C. We have seen religious liberties for Christians now protected and defended rather than threatened and litigated. We have seen other constitutional protections undergirded as well. But sadly, we are also seeing a growing callousness to the issue of life, not just from a select group of secular elites, but even from American citizens who are religious. The Pew Research Center shows that while conservative Christians still see abortion as an illegal action against innocent Children in the womb, other Christians are beginning to support the “abortion in all circumstances” mantra in pop culture.  The abortion euphemistic cover of a constitutional “right to choose” has been properly litigated, but now the deceptive phrases of “reproductive freedom” and “women’s health care” has many callously embracing the killing on demand of innocent children right up to the moment of birth. Politicians and citizens alike are growing in their support of the outrageous notion that a child can be aborted up to the time of birth and even after it is born, as long as the mother and the doctor decide.

May Bulletin Insert
May Bulletin Insert

The Bulletin Insert is designed to be printed and cut in half to fit conveniently inside a Sunday worship bulletin. Each month an insert will offer insight, encouragement, and information from the LCRL on the topics of Religious Liberty, Life, Marriage, or Education.

May 2025 Bulletin Blurbs
May 2025 Bulletin Blurbs

The dates identifying the LCRL bulletin blurbs are only suggestions. Please feel free to use any and all of the bulletin blurbs as your ministry needs allow.

FOR WHAT REALLY MATTERS – LOOK HERE!
FOR WHAT REALLY MATTERS – LOOK HERE!

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Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee, 7 “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”

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Religious Liberty and Bearing the Cross: It’s Always to Share the Message of the Cross

A blessed Good Friday, Easter morning to you all!!

One of my favorite recurring guests on the “Liberty Action Alert” is Cal Thomas. He is a clear-thinking, fearlessly-engaging, Christian voice in the public square. His columns and commentary always give “public” Christians a lot to think about as they try to live out their faith lives in the particular vocations in the world in which they serve. He wrote this Good Friday piece about 3 years ago,

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WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW – CHRIST’S “SPIRITUAL FIRST RESPONDERS!”

Today’s reading is Philippians 2:5-8, where the Bible says,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is your in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Dr. Gregory Seltz
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