Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Saturday after Ad te levavi, The First Sunday in Advent

Posted on December 4, 2021 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: Romans 1:16-20 (NKJV)
 
1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
 
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse…
 
Devotion
 
The Gospel of Christ is the good news that we are saved not by works, but by the life and death of Jesus, who forgives us our sins and declares us righteous through faith alone. The nature of the Gospel is that it is the power of God. The Greek word for “power” is dynamis, from which we get the word “dynamite”. God is powerfully working through the Gospel message. He destroys our hard-hearted, sinful pride so that He can save us. The Gospel makes hearers into believers!
 
The content of the Gospel is the righteousness of God. This righteousness is not the “righteous” works which we have attempted to do. If it were our righteous deeds, then salvation would be from “works to works.” Instead, God’s righteousness is the perfectly righteous life and death of Jesus. The righteous life of His Son is revealed to us through the Gospel message. The content—Jesus’ righteousness—is “from faith to faith.”
 
The attribute of the Gospel is that, like St. Paul, we are “not ashamed of the Gospel.” To put that phrase positively, due to the Gospel, I boast “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 6:14). The blessed result of the Gospel is to save all who believe. The Gospel is the one and only God-appointed means by which men are saved. In those same believers the Holy Spirit gives a new heart, so that “the just shall live by faith.”
 
Prayer: Stir up, we beseech Thee, Thy power, O Lord, and come, that by Thy protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins, and saved by Thy mighty deliverance; who livest and reignest with the Father 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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