Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Tuesday after the Eighth Sunday after Trinity Sunday

Posted on August 9, 2022 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: St. John 7:14-24 (NKJV)
 
7:14 Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. 15 And the Jews marveled, saying, “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?”
 
16 Jesus answered them and said, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. 17 If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. 18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. 19 Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?”
 
20 The people answered and said, “You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?”
 
21 Jesus answered and said to them, “I did one work, and you all marvel. 22 Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
 
Devotion
 
“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
 
How often do people with “alternative moralities” (often reflecting their participation in, or support for, “alternative lifestyles”) like to pull Jesus’ words, “judge not that you be not judged,” horrifically out of context, as a means to tell Christians to shut up about morality? These words of Jesus, however, clarify further those other words.
 
We are not to assess others–let alone Jesus Himself–by some arbitrary “yardstick” that we bring to the table. Rather, we are to judge according to the Word of God. If God’s Word commanded circumcision on the Sabbath, surely it cannot be sinful to heal on the Sabbath. Jesus seeks the glory of the Father, and thus there is no unrighteousness in Him.
 
We seek to know the Word of God that we may judge, not by our own standards, but by God’s Law. And we judge most particularly ourselves. God grant us to look honestly into the mirror of the Law, to repent, and ever to cling to Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins.
 
Prayer: Grant to us, Lord, we beseech Thee, the Spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do anything that is good without Thee, may by Thee be enabled to live according to Thy will; through 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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