Why I support Jesus First 

By Rev. Phil Esala

My morning treadmill walk has me facing the familiar framed painting of Jesus gently knocking on the door of the United Nations building in New York. This 1961 Harry Anderson painting has increased meaning as the U.N. debates the Iraq issue. The painting encourages me to pray for our country, for the U.N., and for sharing Jesus, the Prince of Peace, with our world.

I have studied that painting: studied Jesus, the U.N. building, the nations’ flags out front, the cars on the street. I’ve even looked carefully at the picture’s frame. If our world goes to war, if the United Nations fractures and becomes “toothless” like its predecessor, the League of Nations, would that picture lose its value for me? What if I removed the picture from the frame? I wouldn’t hang a pictureless frame on the wall, however beautiful it might be, for it has no purpose except to “frame” a picture.

  Doctrine in our Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, our theology, is like that frame. (Analogies, while imperfect, are meant to clarify.) Our LCMS “frame” is beautiful and strong, of value in and of itself. I love our theology. I hold to it. But, like a picture frame, its purpose is to point to its content, the picture. And the picture is Jesus. The relation of the frame and the picture is similar to the formal principle in Lutheran theology (Scripture) always pointing to the material principle, to the substance, to the Gospel, to Jesus.

Jesus First urges our LCMS once again to focus upon that to which our wonderful doctrine has pointed us: upon Jesus, upon the Gospel with its freedom and power. Our declining LCMS needs this refocus. I value our integrity, what we stand for. I want to give up none of it. But I value it because it propels us to integration—to share the picture, to share Jesus with our dying world. As a picture needs a frame, integration needs integrity (theology), or we have nothing left to share. But the goal is always to share the picture. Jesus First urges us to do this, which is the reason I support Jesus First.

To find lasting peace, our world needs Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who is the only way, the only Truth, the only Life. As we share Jesus with our world, the Holy Spirit will quicken hearts. The people of Jesus First are praying for the power of the Holy Spirit to work God’s will among us. We are praying for the Holy Spirit through the Gospel to move in the hearts of lost people, bringing them to faith in Jesus. We are praying that the individual members of the LCMS and our church body collectively return to Jesus—first and only.

We invite you to join us in praying, regardless of where you stand on LCMS issues. Will you? Our differences, our faults, the poor eyesight and vision that afflict us all, will only be clarified by the Holy Spirit working among us. If you will go to the “Prayer Requests” on this website, you will find a guide for praying. God bless you.

Rev. Phil Esala is Pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Kettering, Ohio. He is the Jesus First Prayer Team Leader.