St. Michael's Lutheran Church in NE Portland

St. Michael's Lutheran Church in NE Portland We of St. Michael’s Lutheran Church are a community of faith called and committed to gathering under Christ, growing in Christ, and going out with Christ.

Every Sunday we gather to worship at 10:00 a.m. We welcome you to come and gather with us and be our guests. Through our time together we pray that all will experience the love of God!

06/05/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Friday, June 5:
Friday of the Festival of Trinity – Matthew 28:16-20

16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

My father was a bit of a restless person. Even in retirement he could not sit still. He was serving a congregation and preaching throughout his retirement right up until the brief illness which took his life some years ago. He sometimes joked that he was addicted to preaching. He could not stop.
There is something of that same restlessness to this passage which we hear in the week of Trinity. We have it this week because it mentions the three persons of the Trinity and because we recite it at every baptism. I love this passage, however, because it will not let Trinity be static, a box we check off and leave alone. Trinity is all tied up with the disciple-making Church. The very act of making disciples, the baptizing and teaching is intricately associated with Trinity. It is the work of this triune God. God is not just there, present like some piece of furniture standing in the corner of my room; the Triune God does something. We proclaim the Triune God – the sending Father, the obedient, dying, rising Son, the Spirit who makes us holy. We teach these things. When one becomes a Christian one is brought into that name of God.
Right now, it feels like the Church has come to a stop or might be retreating in this world. That is likely a perception borne of our location more than a fact, but the perception is real. I hear these words and I know that God is restless, always seeking some way to reach the lost man or woman. Not too long ago the Surgeon General of the United States declared loneliness a health emergency. I sometimes wonder if the recent pandemic was not an opportunity for our God to shake up our churches, to get us out of our set ways and to impel us back into the lives of the people around us. We offer them the very sort of community which the experts are telling us lies at the heart of health and well-being. Is Jesus laying the groundwork for a revival of the church through its community? People flocked to Jesus because He offered them healing. God has not stopped caring for the lost. He is still reaching out to them. How does he do that through your life in these days? These are the last words in the Gospel according to Matthew. He put them there because he wants us to remember this. Pray a prayer that this work of God takes shapes in your life.

06/04/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Thursday, June 4:
Thursday of the Festival of Trinity – Acts 2:14a, 22-36

14But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them:
22"Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.25For David says concerning him,

"'I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
26therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
27For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
28You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.'
29"Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. 32This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. 34For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

"'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand,
35until I make your enemies your footstool.'
36Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

This is the week of the observance of Trinity, the doctrine which was articulated at the council of Nicea in 325 AD. People had been talking this way for some time, but there was disagreement leading up to this meeting of the leaders of Christendom. At Nicaea they agreed to talk about Trinity the way we continue to talk about it, in the words of the Nicene Creed. But talking about something and understanding it are two different things. The Christians who articulated Trinity all admitted that God was simply too big to fit into our minds. We could only describe what we see. We could not define or explain it.
This passage which we find in Acts 2 was integral to that description. We find all three members of the Trinity here. God the Father attested to Jesus’ status through mighty deeds and especially by raising him from the dead. Jesus, for his part, was obedient to death, was crucified, died, buried. It was not the Father who died, but the Son. The Father raised the Son to life. Peter bears witness to it. And now the Holy Spirit is poured out manifesting in the tongues of flame and the languages proclaimed. The Father and the Son were not poured out that day, but the Spirit. Peter spoke these words on that first Christian Pentecost Day.
I have been preaching sermons and thinking about Trinity for nearly 30 years. I have taught university level courses on the formation of the doctrine of the trinity. I still cannot explain the trinity to you. I can only describe it. The Father sent the Son. The Son obeyed, suffered, died, and rose again. The Holy Spirit, poured out on each of us in Baptism, connects us to what Christ has done. I do not understand but I confess what Peter proclaimed to be so. By the strange workings of this Three-in-One God the salvation of the world, including you and me, has transpired. Praise God for the Trinity.

06/03/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Wednesday, June 3:
Wednesday of the Festival of Trinity – Psalm 8

1O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
5Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
7all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

The Psalter is a strange and mysterious book. It often confounds us. How do the prayers of ancient believers become the Word of God to me? The psalter is divided into five sections. The first two psalms seem to form an introduction. That would make this psalm the sixth psalm in the first section. If you go to the last section of the psalter and count in six psalms from the end you will come to Psalm 144. In that psalm you will find that it asks this very same question, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” It gives a slightly different answer. Why has the Spirit of God to moved things this way? Why does this question serve as a sort of bookend to the whole psalter? I have no idea.
We find ourselves in the week of Trinity, a time when we contemplate great mysteries of the faith and wonder at the very nature of God. It is a week of many questions and not very many answers. We might find that disturbing. We would very much like some answers. Our world is regularly convulsed by sin, our reaction to sin, and the lingering after-effects of our reactions to sin. We saw that play out in the recent pandemic and continue to feel the effects of that time. For the traumatized portions of our society, it might still feel like an ongoing nightmare. What is a man or woman that God would be mindful of us? We seem to be subject to impersonal forces like disease, economics, and others. We might even begin to wonder if God does have us in mind at all. The psalmist looked up to the stars of heaven and felt very small and wondered what God had in mind. Could God’s attention be upon a solitary Israelite staring into the Milky Way? Why would God care about us? Yet, the psalmist goes on to say, God has cared and made us little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor.
I cannot speak to why God should love his creation so much that he would take up our human nature in order to suffer and die for our sins and be raised for our justification. I can only attest that he has done just that. With the psalmist I can say that God’s name is indeed majestic because he has saved me. Say it with him today. You are in God’s hands. He establishes his strength in strange ways, even out of the mouths of children, even out of your mouth.

06/02/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Tuesday, June 2:
Tuesday of the Festival of Trinity – Genesis 1:1-2:4

1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so.12The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so.16And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." 21So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.22And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

Some years ago, I was served by a dentist who attended another Lutheran parish. He told me the story of the Sunday his congregation held an outdoor service in a local park. At the last minute, the pastor tapped my dentist friend to be the scripture reader and assigned him to read Genesis 1:1-12. The bulletin, however, had a typographical error and listed the reading as “Genesis 1-12.” My friend thought it a little long but it was an unusual service and so he opened his Bible and started reading. He was well into chapter 2 before the pastor put his hand on his shoulder and said, “That’s enough, Bob.”
These words of Genesis have been much discussed by Christians for many years. Did you know that Augustine wrote no less than 5 different works dedicated to explaining these verses? He did that because the debate about the meaning of these words was raging many years ago, far earlier than Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. The result of all this is that too often people have allowed the disagreement to obscure what the creation narrative is saying to us. Genesis 1 tells us that God has made the universe. Our very existence depends on him. He loves us and delights in us. As the Creator He gets to make the rules which define our lives and has every right to hold us accountable to those rules. Our human nature rebels at that truth and wants to hide from it. We would like to think that we own ourselves and we deceive ourselves into imagining that freedom is when we get to do what we want.
The truth is far better. God is the one who puts his hand on our individual shoulders and says, ‘that’s enough.” We derive our being from Him, and He is the goal of every life. As the psalmist says he completely encompasses us. I do not need to figure out the answers to all the questions. God has the whole universe in his hands. Read Psalm 139 after you have read this text. The Psalmist, I think, has deeply understood what Genesis 1 has to say.

06/01/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Monday, June 1:
Monday of the Festival of Trinity – Prayer for the Week

Almighty and everlasting God, You have given us grace to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity by the confession of a true faith and to worship the Unity in the power of the Divine Majesty. Keep us steadfast in this faith and defend us from all adversities; for You, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, live and reign one God, now and forever.

Were you ever one of those kids who eagerly tore open a Christmas or birthday gift only to discover something which disappointed you? Did some practically minded relative give you underwear or socks for Christmas? Did you utter a half-hearted “thanks” under the glowering expectation of your mother? Or was she the one who gave you the practical gift?
The prayer speaks of God giving us the gift to acknowledge the Trinity and worship the Unity. I think a lot of Christians might wonder about the value of that gift, especially if they attend one of those churches which use the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday. But Christians should and do rejoice in the revelation of God to us that is Trinity. Yes, it is rather difficult to describe and impossible to understand; however, Trinity stands at the very heart of what we believe. The Trinity is nothing less than the Father sending the Son to die for our sins. The Son obeying the Father and redeeming the world. The Holy Spirit poured out upon us in baptism. Without Trinity we cannot really speak of those things which are the very acts of salvation.
I do not expect God to be easy to understand. In fact, I get rather suspicious of what I am saying when the answers to the God questions get simple and easy. That usually means I am off the mark. God has in Christ revealed something of the profound mystery which created this universe, including me. I thank God that I can see therein the love of God which gave his Son, the loving obedience of that Son, and the love which poured out that Spirit. It is very good to acknowledge the Trinity and worship the Unity. It allows me to reflect upon the mystery of the cross. Spend a few moments thinking about that. God the Son died there for you. God the Father raised him from the dead. God the Holy Spirit, poured out on Pentecost and in your baptism into this triune Name, calls you into faith. You can say all that because of Trinity.

05/29/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Friday, May 29:
Friday of Pentecost - John 7:37-39

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

C. S. Lewis famously noted that Jesus’s claims either need to be rejected or accepted. There is no middle ground with Him. He either is what he claims to be, the Son of God, or we have to think him a madman or worse. This reading is one of those times. John tells us that this is the last day of the feast of Booths (Jn. 7:2). This was the festival in the Jewish calendar which remembered the exodus under Moses. A significant part of the festival in Jerusalem was a ritual which remembered the water from the rock (Ex 17 and Num. 20.) Apparently, water was ceremonially poured out of a pitcher on this last great day of the feast.
You can imagine that this would have made quite a stir when this Galilean preacher stood up and claimed that the festival was truly about “me.” For Jesus is saying that he is the living water. He is the one who gave the water long ago and the one who gives this living water which perpetually quenches thirst. After he said this, John tells us that some thought he might be the Messiah, but others wanted to arrest Jesus. Did they think him mad? Did they think him blasphemous?
John leads us right to the startling claim of Jesus for our lives. Jesus pours out the very Spirit of God on us. John tells us that when Jesus said this, it had not yet happened. But by the time he wrote and by the time you read his words, Jesus has done it. If you do not think Jesus a madman or a liar, which I assume you do not, Jesus is telling us that he gives us the Holy Spirit and out of our hearts, for the good of this world, flows an eternal spring of living water. In this time with all the challenges and blessings it holds for you, pray that God opens your heart to be that spring of living water flowing into the world.

05/28/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Thursday, May 28:
Thursday of Pentecost - Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and v***r of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Have you ever noticed how God often uses some odd people to be his best missionaries? The immoral woman of John 4 or the ex-demoniac of Mark 5 come to mind. But of course, Paul’s persecuting past did not make him an obvious choice for the apostolic role. This pattern did not stop with the Bible. John Newton, author of the familiar hymn “Amazing Grace” had been a slave trader before his later career as pastor and hymnwriter. Amazing Grace is not his only contribution. In LSB alone he also penned “Glorious Things of You are Spoken” “How Sweet the name of Jesus Sounds” “Come, My Soul, with Every Care” and “On What has Now Been Sown.” More recently Charles Colson, indicted in the scandals of the Nixon era, became the founder of the influential Prison Fellowship Ministry.
In this reading, the people of Jerusalem saw rustic Galilean fishermen, but now Spirit-bearing disciples, and assumed they are drunk. Being a baptized and thus Spirit-filled Christian will often put us on a collision course with people’s expectations. The Holy Spirit operates with a strange and surprising logic. He sees things which our human reason cannot grasp. Peter identifies for his audience why they are so surprised: God is at work.
That same Holy Spirit, poured out in every baptism and through the ministry of Word and the fellowship of God’s people, is at work today. He is at work through you. We cannot expect that this will make a great deal of sense or at least it might not make sense at the time. In hindsight we can see Paul’s zeal for the Torah becoming just what the Church needed as it navigated its way into a ministry to Gentiles. Newton’s and Colson’s past experiences gave their words an authenticity. But those are assessments we make in hindsight. It likely felt very different for people at the time and for these men themselves.
What does this out-poured Spirit of God move you to do today in this kingdom? I am excited to see it. Pray for discernment and listen to His Word. Times of unrest and upset are frequently when He has something in mind.

05/27/2026

Hello Everyone!

The last performances for this season of the Living Opera — Portland Circle are this weekend!

I’ll be playing music by Brahms, Liszt, and some selections from the Great American Songbook!

There are two performances:
Friday, May 29 from 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Sunday, May 31 from 2:00pm - 3:00pm

St. Michael's Lutheran Church
6700 NE 29th Ave, Portland, OR 97211

I hope to see you there!

Gyan Singh Maria

05/26/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Tuesday, May 26:
Tuesday of Pentecost – Numbers 11:24-30

24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it.
26 Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. 27 And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” 30 And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

“Well, God does love stupid people.” It was a typical thing for my friend to say. One never really had to wonder where you stood with her, especially when it came to her estimation of your intelligence. Something foolish had been done, or better said, something worthy had not been done. There was no real excuse for it. But even if there had been an excuse for it, it would have hurt her all the same. That is the funny thing about excuses. They really do not make things better. Understanding why someone hurt me does not take the sting away.
My friend had reason to be angry and upset. In fact, she was angry and upset, but that was not all she was. She was also a prophetess. For she spoke God’s heart and word into this conflicted situation with coarse words rooted in baptismal authority. She was baptized; the Spirit of God had been given to her. Filled with that Spirit she was not only the aggrieved victim of another human being’s sinful stupidity. She was also a saint, a child of God, in whom the Lord Jesus dwelt by the inworking of the Holy Spirit. That meant she was a prophetess, speaking God’s word in this benighted world. Prophets, you must understand, do not only tell the future. More often they speak the truth of God about the present. That has implications for the future. Forgiven sinners have a very different future than unforgiven sinners.
Moses prays in this reading that all God’s people would be prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them. God has heard his prayer and answered it. Jesus authorizes all of us to speak God’s words of forgiveness and to know that forgiveness spoken here is spoken in heaven as well (Mt. 18:18 and Jn. 20:22-23) So be a prophet today. Forgive a sinner. Do not understand the foolish frailty of your spouse, parent, child, or neighbor. Be a prophet instead. Forgive it.

05/25/2026

Pastor Brandt's devotion for Monday, May 25:
Monday of Pentecost – Prayer for the Week

O God, on this day You once taught the hearts of Your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit, Grant us in our day by the same Spirit to have a right understanding in all things and evermore to rejoice in His holy consolation; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

My grandfather and his brother, two years older, grew up helping their father farm in northwestern Iowa. Every day their mother sent a lunch with them when they were out working in the fields. One day she included 5 cookies for them. Perhaps she miscounted or perhaps there was just one left over and she put it in the box. Being an odd number, there was no way to equally distribute and a disagreement ensued between the brothers. I am not sure why division of the one remaining cookie was not an option for them, but apparently it was not. The solution they reached to the impasse was to bury the single left-over cookie lest one of them have more than the other.
Today we notice that the Holy Spirit teaches the hearts of people and we pray that he would teach our hearts as well. We like to think that teaching involves the mind. It surely does involve the mind but also the whole person and especially the heart. My grandfather related that story about himself and his brother with a rueful smile. He and his older brother went on to farm together for decades and to live next door to one another until they both died in their 90’s, loving brothers to the end of their lives. The Holy Spirit had taught their hearts how to love and share and sacrifice for the other.
I can imagine those two brothers, close in age, simply not being able to agree on the proper consumption of a single cookie and finally coming to this strange solution. I can imagine it because I too have brothers and sisters and there was a day when such fights might have occupied us as well. Praise God, the Holy Spirit educates our hearts. His consolation means there is not competition, not really, among the people of God. We all have the greatest treasure of all, God’s love freely and fully given in Christ.
Do you have a sibling, cousin, or an old friend with whom there is some dispute? That can happen even when we are adults. Take this time of reflection to exercise some “right understanding” and to “rejoice in His holy consolation.” Pick up the phone or write the letter; restore a relationship in the light of Christ’s love. The Spirit teaches us that every sin stands forgiven.

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6700 NE 29th Avenue
Portland, OR
97211

Telephone

+15034936333

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