April 27 Devotion

You can watch today's devotion here.

Overlooked blessings…the church of your childhood

Colossians 3:16

4/27/20

Pastor John C. Berg

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God.

This is your daily devotion for April 27^th.  Today I’m in my hometown of Winona, MN to talk to you about another, often overlooked, blessing.  When’s the last time you realized how blessed you were by the church of your childhood?

Some of you may not have enjoyed this particular blessing.  Maybe you didn’t come to faith until later in life or maybe the church of your childhood was something less than Bible-believing.  But many of you had the experience I did here at St. Matthew’s Lutheran.  This is where Paul’s words in Colossians 3:16 came to life for me: Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God.

St. Matthew’s is where I was baptized and confirmed.  Here I attended Sunday School and Lutheran Elementary School.  I was part of Youth Group and Vacation Bible School.  I heard hundreds of sermons and sang hundreds of hymns.  In other words, I was taught the Christian faith, encouraged in the Christian faith and admonished when I needed it.

If you had a similar experience it means many people sacrificed so that you and I could receive such blessings.  Many of them are now with our Lord in heaven.  How wonderful it will be to see them again and say “thank you.”  Right now we have the blessing of being part of the same process for the young people in our congregations.  God is good!

We pray:  Father, thank you for blessing many of us with the churches of our childhoods and for the people of those churches who sacrificed much for our spiritual benefit.  Use us to bring the same blessings to the children of our present congregations. Amen.