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. 6 And the Lord regretted
that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 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.” 8 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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