Time of Grace With Pastor Mike Novotny

When the Holy Spirit works in our hearts through the gospel message, our faith overflows in service to others. As individuals and as groups we show our faith and love for each other by caring for those in need. The early New Testament church provided great examples for us of what that means. We too can care for others and connect with others to not only tell them about Jesus but to also care about their earthly needs.

Jesus gives us a great example of the importance of worshiping in God’s house. Without being in the Word, we would never know God’s rescue plan for us, we would never grasp the truth of his love and forgiveness for us. It is our privilege to take every opportunity that we can to build and strengthen our faith by being in God’s Word and learning from the teachers he has put before us.

God gives us many blessings through our worship at church. Though we are sinful, we are shown mercy and offered forgiveness. As we see what God did for us in sending his Son, we give praise and thanks back to God for the endless love he shows to us. Through worship, we reconnect with God, our faith is strengthened, and we get the opportunity to worship together as a group with other believers and express our joy for God’s many blessings.

The new year often means a fresh start, and this section of Proverbs gives us God’s guidelines for how to start fresh his way: always keep God at the center—first and foremost. Honor your family and friends, showing them love and faithfulness and God will bless you. Trust God to make your hardships into good and to lead you where you should go because he’s already in your future. Trust him to bless you as you are a good steward of his things, and know that there may be times of discipline. But these are times God uses to strengthen us for the road to heaven.

Believing what God did for us through Jesus is our connection to God. All that Jesus did for us doesn’t mean anything if we don’t believe it. Not only does God give us our faith, but he also gives us the power to believe. And God uses us in strengths and weaknesses, pleasure or pain (just like he did Zechariah and Elizabeth) to carry out his will in our lives. Belief in Christ means our lives have meaning and purpose here on earth and immortality in heaven.

Four hundred years had gone by since God made his last promise to send a Savior to Israel. It seemed as if God had forgotten to finish his plan. Suddenly God surprised Zechariah with an angel who laid out God’s plan of salvation. Zechariah would have a son named John who would prepare the people for Jesus. John would preach repentance and looking to the Lamb of God as the Savior. We too listen to John’s message, seeing the need for a Savior and repenting of our sins.

We are managers of blessings that really belong to God. Often greed and fear cloud our willingness to give. In this section of Scripture, Paul gives us four guidelines as to how to think about what we give back to God. We are free to respond to God’s grace, but Paul offers some guidelines: Every week we should plan ahead to honor God first with our money in proportion to our incomes.

In this account of Jesus healing the ten lepers, Jesus is teaching the truth that all good for this life and beyond comes from God through faith in him. We can trace all the blessings in our lives back to him. Yet it is in our sinful nature to complain and forget our blessings. Thankfulness is a learned behavior. By stopping to think about where good things come from, we can live lives of thankfulness to the God who gives us all, including forgiveness and eternal life.

Jesus gives us several warnings and several blessings about living a Christian life—as we live out our praise to God. We are to watch out for hypocrisy in ourselves and others and persecution from others, even from the church. We are to respect our relationship with God and not be ashamed of our beliefs. Rejecting the gifts the Holy Spirit brings and denying salvation cuts us off from God. On the other hand, the blessings of living a Christian life are that God loves us completely, is proud of us, and watches out for us. And the Holy Spirit will help us as we live our lives and share our faith with others.