The Fourth Commandment:  “You shall honour your mother and father.”

“…children forget their parents, as we all forget God, and no one takes thought how God feeds, guards, and protects us and how many blessings of body and soul he bestows upon us.  Especially when an evil hour comes do we rage and grumble impatiently and forget all the blessings we have received throughout our life.  Just so we act toward our parents, and there is no child that recognizes this, unless he led to it by the Holy Spirit.”

The Third Commandment:  “You shall sanctify the holy Day.”

“Note, then, the power and force of this commandment consist not of the resting but of the sanctifying, so that this day should have its own particular holy work.  Other trades and occupations are not properly called holy work unless the doer himself is made holy.  But here a work must be performed by which the doer himself is made holy; this, as we have heard, takes place only through God’s Word.”

In the wake of recent attacks in both #Beirut and #Paris, #LWF President Bishop Munib Younan and General Secretary Rev. Dr Martin Junge issue a joint statement decrying the massive loss of lives due to the despicable attacks. Read and SHARE their statement:

https://www.lutheranworld.org/news/lwf-decries-massive-loss-lives-despicable-attacks

The Second Commandment:  “You shall not take the name of God in vain.”

“For to lie and deceive is in itself a gross sin, but it is greatly aggravated when we attempt to justify and confirm it by invoking God’s name and using it to cover our shame.  So from a single sin a double one results – indeed, manifold lies.”

The First Commandment:  “You shall have no other gods before me.”

“To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart….To have God, you see, does not mean to lay hands upon him, or put him into a purse, or shut him up in a chest.  We lay hold of him when our heart embraces him and clings to him.  To cling to him with all our heart is nothing else than to entrust ourselves to him completely.”

Check out this interesting link from History.com on Martin Luther to learn more about him and the Reformation.

http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses

Check out the Canadian Foodgrain Bank’s website and consider making a donation.

http://foodgrainsbank.ca/campaigns/syria/

“What gives most trouble to Christians of all epochs is neither lack of faith nor excess of criticism; it is Jesus himself, who bestows freedom so open-handedly and dangerously on those who do not know what to do with it. The church always gets panic-stricken for fear of the turmoil that he creates when he comes on the scene; and so takes his freedom under its own management for the protection of the souls entrusted to it….”
Ernst Käsemann: “Jesus Means Freedom,” p,149.

Canadian faith leaders are calling for climate justice in Canada—for all Canadians, and for the world. Together they have endorsed the statement “On Promoting Climate Justice and Ending Poverty in Canada.”

https://www.councilofchurches.ca/faith-climate-justice/