Bethany Lutheran Brethren Church
Staten Island, NY
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Bethany Blog

Bethany Blog


Check out Sunday's Messages and Devotionals from Pastor Paul Couch!


Happy New Year!

Acts 2:42 “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

As we begin a New Year we do so with natural thoughts of where do we go from here?  The Scripture is the foundation of where we look to answer that question.  It directs us to hold fast to God’s word.  It calls us into community with other believers in Christ.  It invites us to the table where we can receive grace from Christ.  It sits us down in the humble seeking of Christ in prayer.  This is where we begin and this is where we live.  And I suspect that this is where God will lead us:

1.  To use our speech to encourage the community around us. “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).

2.  To use our homes and resources to connect with people and to share the gospel.  “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:13).

3.  To live out a life of reconciliation and help others live in this peace as well. “All this comes from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.  We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).