Good Evening, Lord!
Words of Comfort
[O God, you are] like a hiding
place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry
place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. (Isa. 32:2 ESV)
Prayer of Confession
O God, my savior and redeemer, I
come to you this evening grateful for all your blessings, yet knowing the many
ways I have shown myself unworthy of your kindness. Yet, my hope is in this,
Jesus came to save me while I was still a sinner. Your grace and love moved you
to rescue me before I was even aware of my sin and its deadly nature. Confident
that you have chosen to deal with me through your forgiveness and mercy without
consideration to my lack of merit, I humbly confess my sins to you, praying for
your forgiveness. I am all too aware of some of my sins, and I confess them to
you. Of some of my sin I am unaware, but you know, and I plead guilty before
you trusting Jesus’ sacrifice to atone for all my sin, and for his blood to
cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Forgive me, O Lord, and give me joy in
your love and salvation for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Catechism Reflections
The First Commandment
You shall have no other gods.
What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God
above all things.
Luther explains this commandment
this way in his Large Catechism:
[T]o have a god is nothing else
than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often
said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an
idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one.
Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true
God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your heart
relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.
The intention of this
commandment, therefore, is to require true faith and confidence of the heart,
which fly straight to the one true God and cling to him alone. What this means
is: “See to it that you let me alone be your God, and never search for another.”
In other words: “Whatever good thing you lack, look to me for it and seek it
from me. I, I myself, will give you what you need and help you out of every danger.
Only do not let your heart cling to or rest in anyone else.”
So that it may be understood and
remembered, I must explain this a little more plainly by citing some everyday
examples of the opposite. There are some who think that they have god and
everything they need when they have money and property; they trust in them and
boast in them so stubbornly and securely that they care for no one else. They,
too, have a god – mammon by name, that is, money and property – on which they
set their whole heart. This is the most common idol on earth. Those who have
money and property feel secure, happy, and fearless, as if they were sitting in
the midst of paradise. On the other hand, those who have nothing doubt and
despair as if they knew of no god at all. We will find very few who are
cheerful, who do not fret and complain, if they do not have mammon. This desire
for wealth clings and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.
I want to repeat that earlier
part, “Whatever good thing you lack, look to me for it and seek it from me. I,
I myself, will give you what you need and help you out of every danger.” That
is the promise that God keeps as Christ goes to the cross for us. He goes right
to the root of all that brings sorrow, danger and death into our lives and
defeats it because he is our God who does us good and provides us with refuge
in every trouble. So we cling to his promises looking ahead to the day that God
will finish what he has started and make all things right again.
Questions for Meditation
What does this reading teach
you?
What does this reading lead you
to be thankful for?
What behavior, thought, or
attitude does this reading challenge? What sin does it lead you to confess?
How might you pray for God to
have a richer impact on your life through this reading?
Petitions of the Lord’s Prayer
“And lead us not into
temptation.”
Father in heaven, You tempt no
one. Please guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful
nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other
great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we
may finally overcome them and win the victory through Jesus, our Savior and
Lord. Amen.
Verse of Benediction
The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you
all. (2 Cor. 13:14 ESV)
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