We trust that God will continue lead and send His Spirit to help us navigate, balance, and positively use our emotional forces.

When we approach God with open and outstretched hands ready to receive His forgiveness and the fruits of the Spirit, our lives are changed.

When we ask for forgiveness, we can trust in Christ’s forgiveness, for our God is slow to anger and does not deal with us as we deserve.

It is important to remember that it is God who makes the seeds grow (both physically and spiritually). As God’s co-workers in His kingdom (garden) we pray that God would help us to be faithful in building each other up.

By faith we acknowledge that the Holy Spirit has gathered us into His family, we are now “members of His body, His bride, His Church, and we are held together with Him (Ephesians 5:30-32).

Love, like a precious metal, is refined in the fiery trials; Paul reminds us that during times of suffering, God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). “Suffering produces endurance!”

As Christians, we believe, teach, and confess that God’s words and the waters of Holy Baptism give us the blessings of forgiveness, abundant life today, eternal life, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Blooming flowers, especially the early daffodils in the Puyallup Valley, are a reminder of the new life and new hope we have with the coming of the Spring Season.

Jesus love for us was so great that He was willing to give His own blood for us; so, I join the hymn writer and praise God that His only begotten Son was willing to shed His blood for me!

As we stow away the Christmas decorations for another year and transition into the second month of this new year, may the Light of the World, Jesus, shine in your heart and mind...