• CONNECT ON FACEBOOK

    See what has been happening around Ascension Lutheran - KC

  • PASTOR'S PERCH

    See the Pastor's Perch for his messages to you

  • Let the Children Come

    Resources for Our Youth and Children

  • Virtual Worship

    Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - available Sunday morning

This Week at Ascension                   Church and Community                     Offering Your Time & Talents           Offering Your Treasures

October 18 - Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

We Are Recreated in the Image of God by the Cross of Christ

Plotting against Jesus, the Pharisees attempted “to entangle him in his words” by asking about the payment of taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15). The Lord pointed to coins required for the tax, and He answered that we should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). But if coins bearing the image of Caesar should be rendered to him, then man — who is made in the image of God — must be rendered to the Lord.

That tax is paid for us by the Lord Jesus, the image of God in the flesh, by His self-offering on the cross. And from His cross, as the Lord’s anointed, He reigns as the true Caesar over all nations “from the rising of the sun and from the west” (Isaiah 45:6). The Lord once called and anointed Cyrus “to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings” (Isaiah 45:1).

Now by the preaching of the Gospel, “in power and in the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:5), foreigners from all over the world are “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9–10).

Pages