Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Tuesday after Rogate

Posted on May 8, 2018 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: St. John 10:6-10 (NKJV)

6 Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.

7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Devotion

Jesus reiterates that which we heard in yesterday’s Gospel: those who do not enter by the door are thieves and robbers. But Christ Jesus is the Door. There are many who try to break in and steal; they are those who have sought by their own words, their own works, their own doctrine to establish a way of salvation. But all such wickedness is not of Christ, and does not lead to life. Christ Jesus, who made atonement for our sin, is the One in whom we have the forgiveness of sins, because of the faith which the Holy Spirit creates in us through the means of grace. There are many who keep trying to find another way ‘in’—and their treachery is manifest. As Jesus declares: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Faithful teaching and preaching holds Christ Jesus before the congregation, and proclaims that all our righteousness is but filthy rags. Thus, for example, the ‘prosperity gospel’ of the televangelists and the ‘works of supererogation’ of the Papists try to redefine righteousness and seek something other than the peace which the Lord gives through His Word. Faithful teaching and preaching proclaims Christ’s doctrine, the way to everlasting life.

We pray: O God, from whom all good things do come, grant to us, Thy humble servants, that by Thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be right and by Thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns 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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