Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Hebrews 4:14-16
We cannot make any offering for sin that produces mercy and forgiveness. Our virtue will not do it, nor will religious works, the right disposition, or remorse.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Proverbs 28:13-14
Everybody sins. Anyone who claims otherwise, is kidding himself but God is not fooled. We were born into sin; it invades all of life.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Hebrews 6:19
Some people have faith in their works. They believe that there are certain things they can do to earn God's grace. This imagined acquisition of grace is called condignity.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Mark 14:32-38; 1 Kings 19:11-13
The spirit is compelled to have faith in God but the flesh is weak. It is hard to stay awake and watchful against the accusations of the law.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Galatians 2:16-18
Those who consider themselves Christian would confess that Christ saves. But the later actions of some betray a different belief than what they confess.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: 1 Timothy 2:3-6
There is no good thing that we can do, or even a lifetime's collection of good works, that God would dignify as a righteousness worthy of eternal life.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Hebrews 12:28-29
True faith in Christ is not shaken for long, since it remembers the source and object of its faith. Faith does not seek to appease an angry God.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Hebrews 10:38-11:1
Faith is not a mere intellectual understanding of God. Many people believe there is a God but they neither know who he is nor put their trust in him.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Habakkuk 2:2-4
If you would be righteous, you must live by faith (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38). For if you imagine that you can be righteous by being virtuous and religious, then you are misguided by conceit.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Romans 4:15-22
Hope believes even when the situation appears hopeless. Abraham was confronted with an utterly hopeless situation.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: 1 John 3:23-24
If you are looking for something that you must do, some righteous work that gains eternal life, there is only one thing necessary. Believe in Christ Jesus.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: 1 Peter 2:22-24
Jesus took our sin upon himself and died with it on the cross. When our sin was transferred to Christ, his righteousness was assigned to us through faith in him.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: 2 Timothy 3:14–15
We cannot reason our way to God or become justified before him because we have come to some intellectual understanding of divinity.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Mark 1:21-24
Surveys are often filled out by a person who marks the box, “Christian.” Often what this means is that the person thinks there is a God.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Romans 15:8-13
Christ came to the law keepers first, to show the truth of God’s promises. God fulfilled those promises in the Messiah by fulfilling the law for them, something which they could not accomplish.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: John 5:21-24
What a blessing it is to be assured of eternity. Jesus gave us this assurance when he said that whoever believes his word and in the one who sent him has eternal life.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Matthew 11:28-30
What a burden it is to fulfill the law on our own. Who can keep the law? Is there anyone who can satisfy the demands of the law?
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Luke 24:44-45
Sometimes, even the simplest things are spun into complexities, the clearest teaching of Christ turned to sophistry, the clarity of orthodoxy twisted to heresy.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Hebrews 3:1-6
We are made children of God through his grace. We were not born to his house but have been reborn and adopted by his merciful will (Eph 1:5). Therefore we have hope.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: 1 Corinthians 15:51-57
I never understood why the rules of baseball allow a pinch runner. A coach is allowed to substitute a faster runner and remove the slower runner from the game. That does not seem fair.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Romans 8:1-4
Jesus warned keepers of the law that the wrath of God was coming (Matt 3:7). The Pharisees already did not like Jesus, and this did not make them any happier.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Genesis 15:1-6
“Look toward heaven.” When we look to ourselves, we tend to get in trouble. Initially, Abram believed God’s promise of a son.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Philippians 3:1-3
It is good to be reminded and to have the point driven home again and again. For we are easily led astray, imagining that we must do something to reconcile God, since we imagine he must be angry about our sins.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-3
We inherit the kingdom through faith, just as an orphan receives a new family. When a child is adopted, she must follow her new family through the orphanage doors.
Lessons in the Lutheran Confessions
Scripture Text: Romans 5:8–11
The word “atonement” translated in Romans 5:11 in the Geneva and King James versions is abandoned in subsequent New Testament translations...
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