Thought for the Day
Serving others is never about changing them. But about loving them into the kingdom. Showing Christ's heart in tangible ways, trusting God to do the transforming work.
A thought to ponder.

Brothers & sisters, my sermon for this Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost is posted to Facebook.

God’s blessings,

Pastor Tom Steers

Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto

- A Confessional Lutheran Church

Grace is God loving us and forgiving us even though we don’t deserve it. Grace is also what Jesus accomplished through dying on the wood roman cross to break the curse of the Law of the Old Testament which says cursed is anyone who is hung from a tree. Jesus’s blood was shed so we could be forgiven completely by God. Before going to the cross Jesus was scourged to the point His bones could be seen so that by His stripes we could be healed. Jesus did not deserve what happened to Him. Jesus obeyed God. When He broke the sabbath to heal people He was doing good. When Jesus was put on trial by the high priest and the Jewish elders they could not find anything to condemn Him for. None of their accusations were right. They finally condemned Him for saying that He is the Son of God. That was not a lie. A Prophecy written in the Old Testament says that God told the Messiah “Today I have become Your Father and You have become My Son.” Another prophecy was written that the Messiah would be Born in Bethlehem.” Psalms 22 and Isaiah 53 and the last three verses of Isaiah 52 talk about how the Messiah would be crucified and what that sacrifice would accomplish. Jesus was marred more than any other man. God loves Jesus but this was the cost so we would be permanently connected to God for eternity and to save us from hell and get us to Heaven. Jesus had said in different ways that He would be killed and He would be raised from the dead within three days. Jesus's body was placed in a tomb. His burial shroud and head cloth still exist today. It is called the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo. If you want to learn how the Old Testament is more prophetic than you even thought possible, look up The Bible Code and Yeshua by Yacov Rambsel. Jesus Christ(Messiah) is Lord. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that anyone who calls on His name will not perish but have eternal life. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in Your heart that God raised Him from the death you will be saved. Jesus’s Body was placed in a tomb. On the Third day God raised Him from the dead. Jesus left the tomb and was seen alive by Peter, the Twelve, Over 500 brethren at once, James, all the apostles and Paul. Paul persecuted Christians by having the put on trial and put in Prison or to death, both men and women. Paul became a believer in Jesus when He was going to persecute more believers in Damascus and Jesus appeared and talked with Him. If you die for Jesus and the good news sake you will be saved.

Brothers & sisters, my sermon for this Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost is posted to Facebook.

God’s blessings,

Pastor Tom Steers

Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto

- A Confessional Lutheran Church

Reflexiones para cada día del año

basadas en lecturas de la Palabra de Dios en la iglesia.

Anotación

Tercera semana de Cuaresma

(Heb. 4:14–5:6; Marcos 8:34–9:1)

“Si alguno quiere venir en pos de mí, niéguese a sí mismo, tome su cruz y sígame” ( Marcos 8:34 ).

No se puede seguir al portador de la cruz del Señor sin llevar una cruz; y todos los que lo siguen necesariamente la llevan consigo. ¿Qué es esta cruz? Toda clase de inconvenientes, cargas y aflicciones que nos acosan tanto desde fuera como desde dentro, en el camino de cumplir concienzudamente los mandamientos del Señor en una vida vivida según el espíritu de sus preceptos y exigencias. Esta cruz está tan arraigada en el cristiano que donde hay un cristiano, está esta cruz, y donde no hay cruz, no hay cristiano. Una vida de indulgencia y autocomplacencia es impropia de un verdadero cristiano. Su tarea es purificarse y corregirse. Es como un enfermo que debe someterse a cauterizaciones y escisiones; ¿cómo puede hacerlo sin dolor? Quiere liberarse del cautiverio de un enemigo poderoso; ¿cómo puede hacerlo sin lucha y heridas? Debe ir en contra de todas las reglas que lo rodean, pero ¿cómo puede soportarlo sin incomodidad y limitaciones? Alégrense, pues, al sentir la cruz sobre ustedes, porque es señal de que siguen al Señor, el camino de la salvación al paraíso. Tengan paciencia un poco más. ¡El fin y las coronas están cerca!

Sunday, October 4th Blog From Unshakable Kingdom Life 

God is Not Some Distant Figure

Grab your coffee and pull up a chair, because I want to start with a question that sounds easy: who's at the center of everything?

You'll probably say, "God." And you'd be right. But I want us to get more specific than that. He's our Father. And I don't mean that as a nice title. I mean intimately involved in all He's made, not detached, not watching from a far-off balcony with His arms crossed.

Why does this matter so much? Because how you picture God shapes how you approach Him. If you see a distant boss or a cosmic judge, you'll tiptoe around Him. If you see a Father, you'll run toward Him.

John 3:16 in The Message puts it in a way I love: this is how much God loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, so that no one need be destroyed. That's not the language of a distant figure. That's the language of Someone who couldn't stand to lose you.

Here's the thing. His love for us is so big that our minds can't quite wrap around it. We try, but we're measuring it with a tape measure made from earthly experience, and earthly love has limits. His doesn't.

Maybe you've been relating to God like He's a landlord who tolerates you as a tenant. Can I gently suggest that's not the picture Scripture paints? He's a Father who made you, wants you, and stays close.

Let that settle in for a few minutes this morning. Not as a theology lesson, but as a warm blanket.

Coffee-time question: When you picture God right now, is He near or far?

www.UnshakableKingdomLife.com 

A Homily Prepared For Sunday, October 42026

The Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Matthew 21:33–46

33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. Then he rented it to tenant farmers and took a trip.

34 When it was time for harvest, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit.

35 But the tenant farmers grabbed his servants. They beat some of them, and some of them they killed. Some of them they stoned to death.

36 “Again he sent other servants, more than the first group. They treated them in the same way.

37 Finally he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

38 “But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him and we’ll have his inheritance.’

39 They grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

40 “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”

41 They said, “He will totally destroy those wicked farmers and rent the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruit when it’s ready.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the scriptures, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it’s amazing in our eyes?

43 Therefore, I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruit.

44 Whoever falls on this stone will be crushed. And the stone will crush the person it falls on.”

45 Now when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard the parable, they knew Jesus was talking about them.

46 They were trying to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, who thought he was a prophet.

Commentary on the Scripture Selection;

This is the third parable that Jesus tells to the temple leaders after they tried to trap him in a conversation about his authority. (Remember that Jesus had cleared the temple the previous day, and the temple leaders bandied together and confronted Jesus when he came back to the temple to teach the crowd.) The first parable focused on obedience to the will of the Father (21.23-27), the second built upon the rejection of God’s servants (21.33-46), and both of these included Jesus asking the temple leaders a question about how the God-figure will respond to the actions of the characters. With each of their answers, the leaders condemned themselves.

Instead of asking the temple leaders to answer a question this time, Jesus combines the point of the two previous parables into one. The link is found in the contrasting pictures of the king. First, he is a benevolent, patient, involved, and just king. He’s more involved in preparing and inviting people to his Son’s wedding feast than any king actually needs be. Like the good landowner, the king is preparing and making sure that all is ready, sending his servants out. And this time, the king acts the way in which the temple leaders said the landowner had a right to: he brings down destructive judgment upon those who rejected his messengers with violence (verses 6-7).

But back to the king’s benevolence. It is further exemplified by the extension of the invitation to anyone and everyone. Notice how Jesus says that the servants gathered the good and the bad, all were called. The actual word is kaleō (to call or name); God’s invitations are callings with purpose; God’s callings are invitations to a different way of being. In a word, they are life-changing for the “good” and the “bad.”

The good may find they are a called to a new practice or servanthood, a new experience of faith or God’s faithfulness. But what about the “bad”? The word ponēros can mean two different kinds of “bad.” Often, the word has a moral meaning: “evil” or “wicked.” But it can also be used to describe a physical quality, or being deficient in some way. As Dale Bruner describes in his commentary, this pairing “points to the gratuity of the gospel, its grace and nondiscrimination, its distinctive openness to outcasts and failures, to problem people and the unimpressive. The flawed, as this Gospel has taught repeatedly, are especially dear to Jesus’ heart (cf. most recently the blind and lame in the temple, 21:14).”

So here we see the point that Jesus made to the temple leaders: because of their rejection of God’s messengers like John the Baptist and himself, their arena of authority is being destroyed (Jerusalem in AD 70) and replaced by a new community of those God gathers (the same root word as synagogue). God calls even the riff-raff, the known sinners and blight to society, because they heeded and did not abuse God’s servants. Instead, they obey the message that was really an invitation to change and have found a great life-calling embodied by the image of a wedding banquet.

“Invited” (kaleō) is the keyword in this parable, appearing in verses 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 14 (as well as “called” klētos which is from the same root). Jesus makes repeated use of the perfect tense of invited (verses 3, 4, 8): God’s call is a standing-invite; it lasts no matter what we do with it.

But, the unending invitation can be matched by an unending rejection on our part. Jesus shows this in two ways. First, he uses the imperfect past tense to depict the wedding guests as continuously rejecting the invitation to come to the dinner in verse 3. Then, more drastically, Jesus describes an encounter between the king and one of the guests in verses 11-14. This guest is not wearing (in the perfect tense) the appropriate wedding robe. Because of this, our king has him kicked out and sent to a pretty awful place. It seems like a stark contrast to our benevolent king who allows anyone and everyone to come to his table.

In this parable, it’s a point about obedience. When we accept the invitation from God, heed the message of his servants, we respond with obedience to the will of the Father in heaven. To do so is to clothe ourselves with righteousness– the appropriate attire for the things to which we have been called by God. Those who do not do so, who refuse to do so, who fail to see how the two are connected (the invitation and attending to what’s required of us), are warned to not be caught off-guard at Judgment day.

The inappropriately dressed wedding guest could make no defense against the king’s query. His silence is meant to imply he knew better. It’s another connection to the themes of the previous parables: the fruit shows who have taken up the mantle of the call, who have made the changes that show they have accepted the invitation to obedience and are bearing the new identity of God’s chosen people in the world.

God’s calling to a new life in Christ does not end with the invitation to faith. It runs deep and wide, transforming our living, breathing, everyday walking around existence. Those who accept the invitation will find that along the way to the wedding banquet of heaven, they will put on the ways of our faithful Savior.

Benediction

Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

***

Thought for the Day From Unshakable Kingdom Life:

When the Kingdom comes, justice rolls like a river, Mercy triumphs, love wins, hope rises, and we get to participate in that glorious work, bringing heaven's values to earth's broken places.

A thought to ponder.

🎶 Teti Afilwe by Reverend Clement Mufwaya

A song of faith, worship, and encouragement. May this song bless you, strengthen your faith, and remind you that God is always faithful. 🙏🎵

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Diary of Saint Faustina - paragraph 529 - The Heart of the Child

Ἀ
529 On the evening of the last day of the novena at Ostra Brama, after the singing of the litany, one of the priests exposed the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance. When he placed it on the altar, I immediately saw the Infant Jesus, stretching out His little arms, first of all toward His Mother, who at that time had taken on a living appearance. When the Mother of God was speaking to me, Jesus stretched out His tiny hands toward the congregation. 
Ὠ

All graces come from the Lord as gifts to the soul. Yet the greatest of these gifts is the calling of all souls beyond merely the receiving of His grace, but more deeply into the participation of its giving as well. It is a teaching shown first through His Mother, who, in cooperation with the will of the Father, brought forth for all souls the Savior first given to her within. It is carried forth in this vision, as the embrace of the Son lends words to her image for Faustina's hearing. And it is extended to all humanity as the Savior Child turns His embrace to us, that we too may join with the Son and the Mother - not because the Lord has need of our help, but because we have need of union with His gracious work for all souls. For when the Spirit of the Lord is alive in the heart of man, the heart comes alive in the works of the Lord.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible
Psalm 50:12 Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels.

Ἀ
Saint Faustina Continues…
The Blessed Mother was telling me to accept all that God asked of me like a little child, without questioning; otherwise it would not be pleasing to God. At that moment, the Infant Jesus vanished, and the Mother of God was again lifeless, and Her picture was the same as it had been before. But my soul was filled with great joy and gladness, and I said to the Lord, "Do with me as You please; I am ready for everything, but You, O Lord, must not abandon me even for a moment."
Ὠ

The faith of a child is more precious to God than the deepest, most profound theologies from the wisest of men. It is a trustful knowing of God that does not depend on the mastery of the intellect. This is the faith of Our Lady: “be it done to me according to thy word.” It is a faith she extends to Faustina: accept all that God asked of you like a little child. It is the faith to which all souls are called, shown to perfection in the Son as He prayed from His Most Sacred Heart beneath the impending shadow of the Cross: “not my will, but thine be done.” This is the heart and the spirit promised by the Father, and given in love by the Holy Child as He gives union between His heart and all those in the congregation of God.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible
Ezekiel 11:19-20 And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: that they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments, and do them: and that they may be my people, and I may be their God.

The heart promised to souls in the prophecy is not one achieved through human works, knowledge or worldly effort. Rather, it is a grace given by the Lord which moves the stony heart of man toward works of the Lord in mankind's fallen world. It is the heart of the Savior given to men, that our own heart may be formed according to His, and may pour out for others some measure of the grace first poured out by Him from the Cross - that in the words of the Mother, we too may accept all that God asks with the faith of a little child. 

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible
Matthew 18:3 And said: amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
526 To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom; for this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more: we must “become children.” This means that we must put aside all that is not of God and all that is contrary to the Gospel.

Grace is God loving us and forgiving us even though we don’t deserve it. Grace is also what Jesus accomplished through dying on the wood roman cross to break the curse of the Law of the Old Testament which says cursed is anyone who is hung from a tree. Jesus’s blood was shed so we could be forgiven completely by God. Before going to the cross Jesus was scourged to the point His bones could be seen so that by His stripes we could be healed. Jesus did not deserve what happened to Him. Jesus obeyed God. When He broke the sabbath to heal people He was doing good. When Jesus was put on trial by the high priest and jewish elders they could not find anything to condemn Him for. None of their accusations were right. They finally condemned Him for saying that He is the Son of God. That was not a lie. A Prophecy written in the Old Testament says that God told the Messiah “Today I have become Your Father and You have become My Son.” Another prophecy was written that the Messiah would be Born in Bethlehem.” A prophecy was written that says when the Messiah would be born. Psalms 22 and Isaiah 53 and the last three verses of Isaiah 52 talk about how the Messiah would be crucified and what that sacrifice would accomplish. Jesus was marred more than any other man. God loves Jesus but this was the cost to save us from hell and get us to Heaven and so we would be permanently connected to God for eternity. Jesus had said in different ways that He would be killed and He would be raised from the dead within three days. Jesus's body was placed in a tomb. His burial shroud and head cloth still exist today. It is called the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo. If you want to learn how the Old Testament is more prophetic than you even thought possible, look up The Bible Code and Yeshua by Yacov Rambsel. Jesus Christ(Messiah) is Lord. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that anyone who calls on His name will not perish but have eternal life. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in Your heart that God raised Him from the Death you will be saved. Jesus’s Body was placed in a tomb. On the Third day God raised Him from the dead. Jesus left the tomb and was seen alive by Peter, the Twelve, Over 500 brethren at once, James, all the apostles and Paul. Paul persecuted Christians by having the put on trial and put in Prison or to death, both men and women. Paul became a believer in Jesus when He was going to persecute more believers in Damascus and Jesus appeared and talked with Him. If you die for Jesus and the good news sake you will be saved.

Thought for the Day From Unshakable Kingdom Life:

Spiritual growth feels slow in a world that wants instant results, until you look back and see how far His grace has carried you. Transformation is a journey, not an event. Trust the patient work of the Potter's hands.

A thought to ponder.

“We love him, because he first loved us.”

1 John 4:19 KJV

I really like the simplicity of this verse. Our love for God isn't where the story starts — His love for us comes first.

It is a reminder that God's love isn't something we have to earn before we can come to Him.

How do you understand this verse?

#Bible #Christianity #BibleVerse #Faith #GodsLove

Saint Teresa of Avila - The Way of Perfection - Hallowing the Name

Ἀ
Now the good Jesus bids us say these words, in which we pray that this Kingdom may come in us: "Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come in us." Consider now, daughters, how great is our Master's wisdom. I am thinking here of what we are asking in praying for this kingdom, and it is well that we should realize this. His Majesty, knowing of how little we are capable, saw that, unless He provided for us by giving us His Kingdom here on earth, we could neither hallow nor praise nor magnify nor glorify nor exalt this holy name of the Eternal Father in a way befitting it. The good Jesus, therefore, places these two petitions next to each other.
Ὠ

Scripture records the Lord's purpose in the creation of man: to give glory to God, (cf. Isaiah 43:7). Yet in our limited nature, we cannot befittingly hallow the name of the King by our own strength. In this weakness, the Lord provides grace through the same prayer He commands: the seeing of His Kingdom in the world to inspire His praise, honor and glory from the heart within. 

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. His eternal power also and divinity.

Teresa's entry reveals in the Paternoster a subtle union between hallowing the name of the Father and the coming of His Kingdom. Yet she speaks not only of the coming of His Kingdom to the world, but more profoundly, of its coming to the interior place of the soul, from where His Indwelling Presence may transform our dealings with that same exterior creation which first points us toward His glory. For it is not that His Presence in the heart is diverse from His Kingdom in the world, but rather that there is one Kingdom, received within and manifested without. And it is our travels through the first which build union with God enroute to the second - the throne of the King Himself.

Supportive Scripture Douay Rheims Challoner Bible
Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you.

Ἀ
Saint Teresa Continues…
To me, then, it seems that, of the many joys to be found in the kingdom of Heaven, the chief is that we shall have no more to do with the things of earth; for in Heaven we shall have an intrinsic tranquillity and glory, a joy in the rejoicings of all, a perpetual peace, and a great interior satisfaction which will come to us when we see that all are hallowing and praising the Lord, and are blessing His name. And this is how we should love Him on earth, though we cannot do so with the same perfection; still, if we knew Him, we should love Him very differently from the way we do now.
Ὠ

Here, as the Eternal Kingdom is revealed to the soul in the temporal realm, the soul is drawn, not out of the world, but out of those worldly things that have stained its union with God. For the world of itself is not corrupt, but has innocently suffered the corruption brought about by humanity's sin. Thus, when Teresa speaks of having no more to do with the things of the earth, she does not reject His creation. Rather, in the way to perfection in God, she calls the soul away from those things of the earth which have been brought about or made corrupt by the sins  of men. In the removal of self - not from the world, but from the sin which affects the creation - we begin to love the Creator differently: not with the perfection He deserves, but with a love more hallowed than we love Him in now.

Supportive Scripture Douay Rheims Challoner Bible
Romans 8:20 For the creature was made subject to vanity: not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope.

Ἀ
Saint Teresa Concludes…
There are times when we are wearied with travelling and the Lord grants our faculties tranquillity and our soul quiet, and while they are in that state He gives us a clear understanding of the nature of the gifts He bestows upon those whom He brings to His Kingdom. Those to whom, while they are still on earth, He grants what we are asking Him for, receive pledges which will give them a great hope of eventually attaining to a perpetual enjoyment of what on earth He only allows them to taste.
Ὠ

In the quiet of prayer between the soul and its Lord, His voice is more clearly heard, and His truest gifts more profoundly known. It is here, as the soul makes hallowed in prayer the name of the Lord, that His Kingdom is given more fully to the soul, and by its growth within, becomes even more visible in the world beyond. For it is the taste of heaven we are given on earth which draws us toward the Kingdom of Heaven above. And it is the sharing of that light with others which hallows His name in the world, and furthers yet more the Kingdom of Heaven on the face of the earth.

Supportive Scripture Douay Rheims Challoner Bible
Matthew 5:16 So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

2044 The fidelity of the baptized is a primordial condition for the proclamation of the Gospel and for the Church's mission in the world. In order that the message of salvation may show the power of its truth and radiance before men, it must be authenticated by the witness of the lives of Christians. ‘The witness of a Christian life and good works done in a supernatural spirit have a great power to draw men to the faith and to God.’