Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Friday after the Last Sunday after Trinity Sunday

Posted on November 29, 2019 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: Jeremiah 14:7-9 (NKJV)
 
14:7 O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do it for Your name’s sake; For our backslidings are many, we have sinned against You.
 
8 O the Hope of Israel, his Savior in time of trouble, why should You be like a stranger in the land, and like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night?
 
9 Why should You be like a man astonished, like a mighty one who cannot save? Yet You, O Lord, are in our midst, and we are called by Your name; Do not leave us!
 
Devotion
 
“O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do it for Your name’s sake; for our backslidings are many, we have sinned against You.”
 
Why should God be merciful to us? Jeremiah knew not to try to claim some worthiness before God. Our sins do indeed “testify against us.” Yet as the armies of Babylon swept
through Jerusalem and unleashed ruination, what were these sinful people of God to do but cry out to Him for mercy? Indeed, that is exactly how the Law is supposed to work.
 
So back to the question: why should God be merciful to us? Our catechisms teach us in praying “forgive us our trespasses” that “we ask that He would give them all to us by grace, for we are neither worthy…nor have we deserved…”. In short, we implore God to be merciful, not because of who we are, but because of who He is. We ask Him to “do it for Your name’s sake.”
 
He does. Christ has borne the sin of the world, so that all those the Holy Spirit brings to Him through faith receive His grace, His mercy, His love, and the forgiveness of their sins. God grant us all faith like Jeremiah’s in the unfailing grace of God toward His repentant and believing children.
 
We pray: Most merciful God, let Your mercies rest also upon us, for though we surely deserve Your wrath and punishment, Your Son Jesus Christ has borne all that for us. In Him we trust and in His Name we pray. Amen.
 
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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