Ask the Holy Spirit to surround the people God is calling to be a part of Rivers of Life Community Church, Colora, Md., a new ELCA ministry in Cecil County, Md. Pray that God will strengthen the faith of these new Christians.

"If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." -- Jesus (John 13:14)

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is now the fourth largest member church of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). For the first time in its history, the...

ITASCA, Ill. (ELCA) -- The Conference of Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) offered its counsel on revisions to churchwide ministry policy documents before they are sent to the...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Senegal is a place where Christians and Muslims coexist. To learn more about life there, 10 members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) journeyed through the western...

Paul comforts with a promise of glory

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling -- if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.