kneeling fisherman

kneeling fisherman

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

The answer to your evil heart

Verse for the week: Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!”  Psalm 103.1

Prayer for the week: Dear Father, by your gracious choosing I am indeed your child and you are truly my Father, so I call on you now with complete confidence, through your Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord. Amen.

Bible reading for the day: Genesis 6.5-8; 8.20-22  

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

8.20 Then (after the flood waters subsided) Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

 Prayer of the Day: Gracious and almighty Father, you alone know the answer to the evil of my heart and of every human heart: drown it in flood of our baptism into Christ… and rescue us through this flood for new life. Thank you, Lord. Work out the daily dying and rising of my baptism… day after day bring me to repentance that I may live with you in the righteousness and purity of Christ; in his name I pray. Amen.

Hymn: follow this link to a raw rehearsal of a newer hymn by Jay Beech that gives further voice to today’s conversation with the Lord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk5ZkQ6muXA&ab_channel=MusicatMountCalvaryWarnerRobinsGeorgia

“What does baptism mean for daily living?”

 It means that my 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 6.4:

“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, by 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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