"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being...
St. Paul says in Romans, "But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead." (Romans 7:8). Is St. Paul saying that God, through the proclamation of His Law, causes us to sin? Does the Law cause us to...
Luther spoke of prayer saying, "It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night. Guard yourself carefully against those false, deluding ideas which tell you, 'Wait a little while. I will pray in an hour; first, I must attend to this or that.' Such...
The Treasury of Daily Prayer devotional writing today says, "God assumed a human nature to effect man's participation in the Divine nature; God became a Child that we might become children of God. The birthday of Christ inaugurates our divine birth." Jesus became man, a temporal being, in order...
1st John 4 says, "7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us...
Today is the feast day of St. Thomas, Apostles and martyr for The Faith. Thomas asked Jesus the question, "Lord, how will we know the way?" and Jesus replied, "I AM the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me." More well known is the nickname of...
Friends, Just a quick little quote from Luther to get your work week started, not in the stress of your merit, but in the comfort of Jesus' grace and mercy. Concerning the 5th petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," Luther says, "Thus this petition is really an...
This morning in the Treasury of Daily Prayer, we were blessed with a writing from Walther that says, "Today, the cross is still a terror-but only to hell. It shines upon its ruins as a sign of victory over sin, death, and Satan. With a crushed head, the serpent of temptation lies at the foot of...
Today is the festival of the Lutheran Reformation. The central article upon which the church stands or falls, the article that got Luther into a whole mess of trouble, is the doctrine that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone. We are saved and forgiven, not by what we do, but...
The New Testament reading from the Treasury of Daily Prayer today is Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. The story goes saying, "For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After...