Tag Archives: Reformation Day

Love your Neighbor True Thankfulness

Did you start giving out invites and get over the fear?

Love your neighbor true thankfulnessFor the last year we talked about loving our neighbor. When we do that we don’t just loveour neighbor, no we also change our community. When we change the lives of the people we love we change our lives. We make our communities better. We prepare the ground for people to start knowing Jesus and to fall in love with him. The door will be opened for others to really see the goodness of God and for us it will create a better life too. When we have a better community it translates into a better place for all of us. When we think about others first, we will change inside and selfishness and looking out for our own best intrests diminishes. We are changing to a person that becomes more like Jesus and loves more like him.

So loving our neighbor is good from all aspects. It brings more thankfulness in our lives when we see how others change and become more thankful. In a few days we celebrate thanksgiving a big holiday all about being thankful and community. When we love our neighbor and community it will not just be a day of thankfulness for us, no it will be for all the people we loved well and all the people they loved well and so on. Why, because they might have never had community and now through you loving them they found it and that is really something to be thankful for. Out of that they might bring community to there neighbors because they saw what it did to them and how it changed them. So lets keep loving our neighbor and keep making a difference in there lives. Let us be thankful this year for what God was doing in our and there life.

Hey our friend

We hope your week was good. We had a normal week here in San Francisco. We started preparations for Thanksgiving. This year we will host together with a neighbor which is exciting! Pray for a good time of connections and relationship. Jen and I are doing well too. We watched a sweet little dog of friends of ours which brought a lot of joy!

Think about 3 things every day this week which you are thankful for!

Have a blessed week and be a blessing!

Markus and Jen

Love your Neighbor give the full picture

How did your week go? Did your heart change towards people by inviting them?

Love your neighbor show the whole pictureRecently we celebrated the 500th anniversary of reformation day. The day Luther nailed 95 theses at the door of the church in Wittenberg. He did it so people would have the opportunity to know the full truth and that the church could be reformed. Luther called for repentance and change. At the time people were given wrong information about salvation (the church leaders at that time were more about power, politics and money then about Jesus)and through that they always lived in fear. With Luther bringing the truth and also translating the bible he enabled people to read for themselves and understand what Jesus did for them. He also changed the church.

This is as relevant today as it was 500 years ago. 500 years ago people were misinformed about Jesus as they are today. Many people just hear about Christianity in the context of politics or negativity, but not the gospel message of salvation and hope. How do people want to choose Jesus if they have all the wrong ideas about Him? We need to bring a new reformation in the sense that people really know the full picture and understand Jesus and why he is important for them. This can only come out of honest and real conversation and also by seeing it through the way we live our lives. And when people hear the full gospel, they can make a decision for themselves. Its not our job to force them to do something, no they just have to fall in love with Jesus themselves and choose Him. But again we are all called to give our neighbor friends the full picture.

We want to encourage you this week to show Jesus through little acts of kindness and maybe talk with a neighbor friend about your faith in Jesus and what He means to you. Don’t pressure, just share openly and honest how you feel. That’s all you have to do. Making a decision is up to our friends!

Hey our friend

We hope your week was wonderful. We had a big Reformation day celebration with German food, a quiz all around Luther and his life and then we watched the movie Luther. All of us were inspired by his heart for God and to stand up against injustice. We also had different other events like a brunch and a potato night which were all really wonderful. It’s wonderful to see how more and more community forms when you truly love people and show them that you care about them!

Start this new week with a reformation in your heart and from that let it shine to your neighbors!

Have a blessed week and be a blessing!

Markus and Jen