Greetings from me to you. First, I had better say Happy Valentine's Day! I hope this day of "love" reminds us all of the One who first loved us and has shown us the greatest example of love of all.
It has been a very long day for me already, and it is not even close to being over. Last night I was in the Gator, plowing snow for about three hours. I got done about nine, which is not that late. However, I went to bed at ten knowing we had to be up and back out working again at three this morning. I fell asleep a little after eleven, and two thirty came very quickly. Then I spent this morning from three until five thirty plowing everything else that I did not get to last night. The funny part is, our boss still had the entire crew of about twenty to thirty guys come in to scoop by hand, but they were done easily by five since I had practically done everything for them last night. The rest of us who were in the equipment got done about five thirty. Four of us guys decided to go get breakfast and just stay up instead of going back to bed. I have gone to all my classes today, even though skipping them to sleep sounded much better.
Worship class was fun this morning. We are doing our group presentations of historical periods of worship. This morning the two groups that went were the Second to Third Century group and the Early Medieval group. They were both pretty interesting to see how each one of these time periods practiced worship. The coolest part was to see the dramatic changes from the first to the second group. Then our Confessions class was online. Dr. Arand is out of town, so we all signed on to his online classroom, the same method the SMP students use. For those of you who do not know, SMP students are the distant students who are taking classes while working at their churches all over the country. They come to campus every so often, but most of all their classes are done online. It was pretty cool to have an entire class on my laptop.
Then during lunch I finished one paper and started another one. I am down to two papers and two take home tests. I am also down to three days to finish it all.
Now that classes are finally done for the day, I have to go to work here very shortly. Then after work, I have four papers to proof read before I turn them in tomorrow, and plan on hopefully finishing one paper and one take home test. I also, really would like to go to bed early to make up for the lack of sleep last night. I am not worried about getting called in for any more snow removal because it is all melting already.
My thought for the day is from Confessions class. We were talking about the Catholics praying to saints. Now as a Lutheran, of course I do not believe in praying to saints. However, the way Dr. Arand explained it today actually made some sense why they think it is an acceptable practice. Now before I explain this, please do not misunderstand my intentions and think I am saying praying to the saints is a good thing. I still very firmly do not believe in praying to the saints. There are three reasons why I do not hold to the practice of praying to the saints. One, there is no command from God anywhere in His Word that even mentions toward praying to the dead. Two, there is no promise from God anywhere in His Word that the saints are even able to hear our prayers. And three, why would I pray to a human in Heaven when I can go directly to God and talk to Him. The example I like is this: You call a place of business because you need their services. Now you really would like their service and maybe your life even depends on it. The answer from the other side comes across as, "Press 1 to talk to the CEO and President of the business or press 2 to talk to the lobby secretary." I do not know anyone who would choose 2 over 1. If you desperately want their service, and you have the option to talk to the head boss, you would most likely choose to talk to the big man of the company who has the power and authority to help you and make special exceptions for you if needed. Why would you ever choose to talk to a secretary who has no power or pull in the company? So if you have the option to talk to the Almighty Ruler and Creator, the Big Guy in Heaven, who is in control of everything, visible and invisible, why not just talk to Him directly. Why would you choose to talk to a human who is in heaven? So hopefully you fully understand I do not believe praying to saints.
However, the explanation we talked about in class today works like this. The One Church consists of the Church Militant who are still on earth, and the Church Triumphant who are in the Kingdom already. We humans pray for each other and there is nothing wrong with that. We pray for each other all the time, and we are called to do so. As Christians we are called to bear the burden of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. So we ask the Church Militant to pray for us all the time, and never think twice about it. Then why can we not ask the Church Triumphant to pray for us too. They are still part of the One Church, and they are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. So what is wrong with asking them to pray for our needs too? To me, looking at it this way that makes some logical sense, it made it easier to see why the practice started. However, the first two reasons above, are the reasons Dr. Arand gave for us not believing in the practice. We have no command to do so, and we have no promise that they hear us. We do have the command to pray to God and we have the promise that He hears us. So we should just pray to our God, simple as that.
The point I am trying to make is that we should not be too quick to judge those who have different practices than us. We can respectfully disagree with them, but only after we have taken the time to fully understand their doctrine for why they do that certain practice. It just really made me stop and think about it, but in the end I still do not believe in praying to the saints, especially since we are given the pretty amazing gift to take our prayers directly to the Almighty Father, through Jesus, by the power of His Spirit. And all because He loves us more than we will ever be able to understand, even when our minds are full of love on this special day.
All Praise be to Him who gave us the gift of prayer through the Mediator of His Son, that now allows us to take our needs and requests directly to Him who promises to always hear us and always answer us according to our best interest.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for the gift of prayer, and the power behind it. The mere fact that we humble sinful humans can talk to You at any time, knowing You will hear us and will answer us, is just one more amazing act of love and grace You give us. Let us never take the power of prayer for granted. Help us to always turn to You in times of trouble, but to also always come to You in times of thanksgiving too. We pray to You, our loving and gracious Father, through the name of You Son, our Savior, who lives and reigns with You and the Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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