02/16/2022 Principal's Note

Nobody likes to be in debt. Most people will do whatever they can to avoid owing someone else money. When Mrs. Fuerstenau and I were married, I was still in school at Martin Luther College, so before our wedding, we attended a pre-marriage workshop that the school did for engaged students. Much of the time was spent discussing finances because MLC knew that most of our called workers have debt to deal with when they graduate. For most of the couples there, this was doubly true because both people in the relationship were training to be called workers. If you want to go to college and get a degree, debt is almost unavoidable these days. Having debt hang over you is not an ideal situation.

What other debts do we owe? Car loans, mortgages, credit cards? What about the debt our sin creates? There's one debt we can never pay off! If you thought about sin as a loan, it would be the worst loan ever. Think about all the times you sin during the day: each sinful thought, word, or action. That would be like a loan whose interest compounds every single second for your whole life! If sin is the debt, we can think about our "goodness" as our income to pay off that debt. Guess what? We aren't making nearly enough to pay even our minimum payment! The loan amount is just going to keep rising until we end up in hell as restitution.

Thankfully, our loan has already been paid in full! Jesus came to this world with a blank check for the world's sins, which he filled out, signed, and cashed on the cross. That life, death, and resurrection guarantees we won't have to make payment for our sin...ever. Now we owe a different kind of debt, a debt that is wonderful, a debt of love. "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8, NIV 2011). Christ's love for us is something we can never repay, but it is a joy to try. He says that whatever we do for anyone here on Earth, we do for him. Each time we, as believers, perform an act of love for someone, we do it out of thankfulness to God. Each time we come to church and praise him for how awesome he really is, we do it out of thankfulness to God. Each time we take the risk of personal embarrassment or attack to spread the message of salvation, we do it out of thankfulness to God. Financial debt may be something that worries many of us in this life, but our debt of love to God brings us nothing but peace and happiness.

Go and joyfully make a payment toward your debt by showing Christ's love to someone else!

In Christ,

Principal Bill Fuerstenau