The greatest gift God gave to us was JesusƵ death and resurrection to pay the penalty for our sins. His second greatest gift was giving us the law at Mount Sinai. The law defined sin and showed us our need for a Savior. Importantly, it also showed us how to love God.
The Fourth of July is now in the rearview, but letƵs not forget why we celebrate. ItƵs more than a day to gather with friends and family for a cookout, cool off at River Springs, or enjoy the spectacular fireworks hosted by the Owatonna Early Edition Rotary Club. While we all love a day off, especially when it extends into a long weekend, thatƵs not the real reason for the holiday.
Galatians 5:1 Ƶ ƵIt is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of bondage.Ƶ
It was what politicians call a ƵgotchaƵ question. The Sadducees, trying to prove the very idea of resurrection wrong, asked whose wife a woman would be in eternity if she had had seven husbands in this life. Jesus cut to the chase replying, ƵAs for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ƵI am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?Ƶ He is not God of the dead, but of the living.Ƶ With those words Jesus made clear the reality of resurrection as taught in the Old Testament.
Our salvation depends on us thinking the way God thinks and not how men think.
Eilidh was raised in a non-religious home in Scotland. In her teens, she had rejected Christianity because she didnƵt think it was compatible with science and decided she was an atheist. Then Covid hit. Stuck in the lockdown, she was asking good questions like, ƵWho is Jesus? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?Ƶ