Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!” Psalm 106.1
Prayer for the week: Dear Jesus, sin and selfishness plug up our ears and make it hard to hear
you. Open our ears that we may receive your powerful word. Open our mouths to
speak of your love and sing your praise. In your name I pray, Amen.
Bible reading for the day: Deuteronomy 7.6-11 (“Deuteronomy”
literally means second law. This book in the Pentateuch is a renewed
confession of faith by a subsequent generation long after the Exodus.)
15 “For you are a
people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has
chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the
peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was
not because you were more in number than any other people that
the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest
of all peoples, 8 but it is because
the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your
fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and
redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of
Egypt. 9 Know therefore that
the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps
covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,
to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to
their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack
with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 11 You
shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules
that I command you today.
Prayer for the day: Gracious and almighty Lord God, thank
you for choosing me and all the elect to be your treasured people and a to bear
the light of Christ to the nations. You keep covenant when I break it, your
love is steadfast when mine is fickle, Christ rescues me from the repayment I
deserve from you. Thank you. Day after day Lord, undress me of my sin and
clothe me in your righteousness alone; in Jesus’ name I ask this. Amen.
Hymn: follow this link to a beloved hymn that gives
further voice to today’s conversation with the Lord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALHSjbTK_jE&ab_channel=MartijndeGroot
“What does baptism mean for daily life?”
It means that my sinful self – with all its evil deeds and
desires – should be drowned through daily repentance and sorrow for sin and 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, in order that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
(from The Small Catechism, Martin
Luther)
Benediction: For the Lord takes pleasure
in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation. Psalm 149.4
*This is now
our congregation’s 99th year in the Word. In 2025, we are reading
from Genesis to Revelation, with a few interludes along the way.
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