Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Festival of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: Hebrews 10:35-39 (NKJV)
 
10:35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:
 
37 “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry.
 
38 Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”
 
39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
 
Devotion
 
Today is the festival of St. Matthew. Matthew had a good reason to doubt Christ’s call. He was one of the notorious “tax collectors and sinners” who were often compared to the “righteous” Pharisees. Yet, it is because Matthew was a sinner that he could be confident that Christ’s call to follow Him was genuine. While dining in Matthew’s home Jesus told the self-righteous Pharisees, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matt. 9:13). Matthew was confident that Jesus came to forgive sinners and give them a new life, in spite of what he felt within himself at times or what the Pharisees said, and he endured in that confidence to the end.
 
While Christ does not call us to be His Apostles, He does call us to daily repentance, just as He called Matthew. He tenderly invites us to forsake our self-righteousness and sins and place our confidence in His promise to forgive the sins of all who truly repent and want to amend their lives. The just shall live by faith in Christ’s promised mercy. While there are many things that want to strip our confidence from us, St. Paul calls us to hold to it without wavering, enduring all temptations to doubt and despair. Christ does not want us to lose faith and draw back from the confidence He gives us. He desires our salvation, just as He desired Matthew’s, and wants our confidence to endure unto the end.
 
Prayer: Lord, we pray Thee, that Thy grace may always go before and follow after us, and make us continually given to all good works; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end.
 
Collect for the Festival of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist.
O Almighty God, Who by Thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist: Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires, and inordinate love of riches, and to follow the same Thy Son Jesus Christ, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end.
 
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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