His Time - Lutheran Senior Services, Historically Speaking, Test the Spirits

1. Lutheran Senior Services

Jane Wilke at Lutheran Senior Services discusses how we need to care for our Senior Citizens.

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Lutheran Senior Services is a faith-based, mission-driven not-for-profit network that specializes in enhancing life for seniors, ages 62-plus. With 19 locations in Missouri and Illinois, we offer quality choices and exceptional support for retirement living. Through affordable housing sites, in-home services and senior living communities, they provide a person-centered approach to a comprehensive continuum of life choices. Building upon a tradition of excellence for more than 150 years, Lutheran Senior Services is fulfilling its Christian mission of Older Adults Living Life to the Fullest.

2. Historically Speaking

Hosted by the Concordia Historical Institute.

Learn more at ConcordiaHistoricalInstitute.org.

3. Daily Lectionary

Rev. Dr. Glen Thomas of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Des Peres, MO looks at 1 John 4:1-21 “Test the Spirits“.

4. Matins Sermonette

Today’s sermonette is given by Rev. Dr. Glen Thomas of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Des Peres, MO.

1 John 4:1-21

"The Bible is cradle wherein Christ is laid." - Martin Luther — “The Bible is cradle wherein Christ is laid.” – Martin Luther

Test the Spirits

4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. ⁴Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. ⁵They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

God Is Love

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

¹³By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot^[a] love God whom he has not seen. ²¹And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.