From the Financial Officer
February 2022 Offerings Received

• Undesignated Monthly Offering (need $7,667)
  • $7,365.94
• Designated offerings
  • $130 Food Pantry Donations
  • $40 Happy Hearts Hopeful Future
• Mortgage balance as of February 28, 2022
  • $161,007.48

All Saints’ Confirmation Students Need Your Help!

Did you know that the confirmation class is working on a service project with Kids Against Hunger? As part of our Living Lutheran confirmation retreat, we will be packing meals to be distributed to kids and families who need them. We can’t do it alone, though… we need your help! There are two big ways you can help us help others in our community.

First, we need monetary support that will go toward the food and supplies that will directly benefit those in need. Second, we need volunteers to help us pack the meals on the day of the retreat.

In order to reach our goal of 3,000 meals packaged we need to raise a total of $750 and have 20-24 volunteers to help on the day of the event.

The retreat is on Saturday, April 9. We will be putting together meals from 2:30-4:30 pm that afternoon in the fellowship hall.

See Micah or Kaylee to donate and/or volunteer.

Volunteers Opportunities

Churches are a unique entity as they rely heavily on volunteers. Those volunteers might help with activities throughout the week or just at specific events occasionally. It truly takes many people to operate and maintain the church.

Every Sunday at least 10 people are needed (not counting the pastor or the musicians) to do various items whether that is assisting minister, counters, altar care, song leader, Sunday school teacher, Confirmation class teacher, etc. Please sign-up on the clipboards located on the kiosk in the gathering space or let the office know via email or call and leave a message to help.

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread Devotional booklets are available in the gathering space on the welcome center for March, April, and May 2022. Please take one for your family.

Message from March 23, Mid-Week #3 by Pastor Richard Pokora

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and His Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are a range of ways in which we can think about temptation. The advertising industry uses temptation to entice people to purchase products such as chocolate, tuna fish, body spray, and even fabric softener by making them sound a bit naughty or risky.

This could be because the main way people think about temptation is being lured into doing something wrong or something we shouldn’t do. I think most people understand temptation mainly in terms of behavior or actions, either actively doing something we know is wrong, or not doing something we know is right. We normally think of temptations being about what we do.

Paul talks about the temptations the Israelites experienced during their 40 years in the wilderness in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. When we look at what they went through as Moses lead them out of slavery in Egypt towards the land God had promised them, we can see another dimension to temptation. At the heart of the wrong they did was something deeper. We read in Numbers chapters 13 and 14 that, when the Israelites were faced with the possibility of entering into the Promised Land, they didn’t believe that they would be able to defeat the people who already lived there (Numbers 13:31-14:4). The reason they wandered through the desert for the next 40 years was that they failed to trust that God was able to do what he said he would.

Paul says that the temptations we face in our lives ‘are no different from what others experience. Like the people in the stories throughout Bible, we all face essentially the same temptation. The contexts might be different, but the common theme that runs throughout the temptations which Adam and Eve, the Israelites, and even Jesus himself faced is that they challenge us to ask if God can really be trusted to do what he says he will. This is the same temptation we all face. God promises us to love us, forgive us, make us new and give us a life that is stronger than death, all for the sake of Jesus. However, we can be tempted to ask if these promises are true, or whether or not God will actually do what he says he will. If faith is what gives us salvation in Jesus, then the greatest temptation is to not believe in the goodness of God which he promises us in Jesus and through the words of the Bible.

When we’re tempted to give up on God, we can find three pieces of good news, in 1 Corinthians 10:13. The first is that God is faithful. To be faithful means to be trustworthy. Married people who are faithful to each other keep the promises they made to each other on their wedding day. Faithful people are those who do what they say they are going to do. God is faithful because he keeps the promises he makes. We can see this throughout the story of Scripture.

Even though people do the wrong thing, break their promises to God, or fail in so many ways, God never breaks the promises he makes. Even when God promises that his Son will not decay in the grave (Psalm 16:9,10), God keeps his promise by raising Jesus to new life. God may not always keep his promises in the way we expect or when we want, but the whole story of Scripture tells us that God is faithful and always does what he says he will.

The second piece of good news in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is that God ‘will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand’ (NLT). This is different from saying that ‘God will never give you more than you can handle’ because if God’s purpose for us is that we learn to trust him, then sometimes we need to be challenged beyond what we can handle. However, God’s promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is that when we trust him, no matter how we might be tempted to wonder if God really can do what he says he will, he will never allow more to come our way than what we can bear.

The story of Job in the Bible shows us this. Like Job, we can wonder why God lets things happen to us, but we can always trust that God is faithful, and he will never allow us to experience more than we can handle. Instead, God uses the situations we face to bring us closer to him and form us into people of faith.

This leads us to the third piece of good news in this text – that God will always show us a way out so we can endure. Just like an exit sign in a darkened room will guide us out if there is an emergency, when trouble comes and we are tempted, God will always provide a way to escape. Sometimes that will be an obvious way out of a particular situation, like an illuminated path on an airplane. At other times we might need to look harder to see how God is leading us. If the ultimate temptation we face is to not trust that God will do what he says he will, then the way out is the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.

As we follow Jesus to the cross, we see someone who was tempted in every way, just as we are, but who never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). When Jesus was in the desert at the start of his ministry, in the garden before his arrest, or facing death on the cross, Jesus never stopped trusting that God would do what he said he would. Even when he felt like God had abandoned him, Jesus trusted that his Father was faithful and would keep his promises to him. This faith was vindicated when God raised him on the third day to a life which is stronger that death. Jesus is our way out when we are tempted because he shows us that God always keeps his promises. If he did that for Jesus, then he will do that for you too!

Temptations will come in many ways. At their heart is the temptation to not trust that God can and will do what he says he will. God is faithful – the stories of the Bible show that. He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can stand – Jesus shows us that. God will always give us a way out so we can stand strong – that is the way of Jesus who loves us enough to die for us, and whose trust in his heavenly Father gives us everything God promises us.

We pray that God will be with us as we face temptations in our own lives. We pray he will empower us by the Holy Spirit to resist temptation that we may lead the life we have been given through his grace and power. Amen

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.