Verse for the week: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. I Peter 5.5
Prayer for the week: “Almighty, everlasting God,
mercifully regard us who have been made your children through baptism and,
according to your grace, grant that your promises may be fulfilled in us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (K.B. Ritter, Gebete fur das jahr der
Kirche, 2nd ed. Kassel:
Barenreiter Verlag, 1948, p. 183).
Bible reading for the day: Ephesians 4.17-32 (There are God’s chosen people, including you and me, and then there is
everyone else, the Gentiles, which literally means “nations” or “peoples,” the
very ones to whom Christ sends his chosen ones. Writing in 55 AD, Paul tells us
that because Christ has “predestined us for adoption to himself,” (Eph 1.5,11)
Christians are to live differently than everyone else.)
17 Now this I say
and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles
do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are
darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of
the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have
become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to
practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not
the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming
that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is
in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,[f] which
belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful
desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of
your minds, 24 and to put on the new
self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and
holiness.
25 Therefore, having put
away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor,
for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry
and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give
no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no
longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his
own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in
need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your
mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it
may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do
not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day
of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all
malice. 32 Be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Prayer (based on the TRIP* method): Gracious
and almighty Father, thank you for forgiving my sins in Christ. Make your
forgiveness evident in my thoughts, words and behavior toward others. Each day
guard me against the futility of my own mind, the hardness of my own heart…
clothe me in my new self, created after your likeness rather than my own. In
Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Hymn: follow this link to a beloved classic which
gives further voice to today’s conversation with the Lord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqb4HjxYCNg
“What does baptism mean for daily life?”
It means that our old sinful self, with all its evil deeds
and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day
a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.
St. Paul writes in Romans 6: “We were buried therefore
with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
Benediction: Now
to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far
more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in
Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph 3:20-21)
T: thanksgiving
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