Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Thursday Within the Octave of the Festival of the Epiphany of our Lord

Posted on January 7, 2021 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: St. John 1:9-13 (NKJV)
 
1:9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.
 
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
 
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
 
Devotion
 
Jesus brings salvation to the world. And yet the world does not receive Him. He came to His own and they rejected Him. How are we then to receive Jesus Christ? We are so bound by our sin that our instinct is to reject our Creator. He became incarnate for us, and we dismiss Him.
 
The Apostle John tells us that those who receive Christ and His gift of salvation are the ones “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” In the Church we call this “Monergism”, the fact that God alone enacts our salvation.
 
If left to ourselves, we would not believe the saving message of Christ Jesus. We would not have faith. Faith is a gift of God, which the Holy Spirit works in us by Word and Sacrament. We are saved, not by our merits or righteousness, but by the divine working of God alone. As His people we continue to proclaim the hope and joy we have through His forgiveness, but the power and the glory are all His!
 
Prayer: O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest Thine Only-Begotten Son to the Gentiles, mercifully grant that we, who know Thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of Thy glorious Godhead; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
 
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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