Lectio Concordia

Being Reconciled to God – Saturday

preparing for The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Series: Lectio Concordia

March 29, 2025 By Rev. Mark Ryman

• Online jigsaw puzzle of today's reading • Index

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• Collect: Strengthen my faith, Lord, that I might always believe righteousness looks down from heaven, not up from me—that I may know that I am righteous in your goodness and holiness alone, not my own. Amen.

• Psalm 31:1–24

• Romans 3:27–28

• The adversaries regard Christ as Mediator and Propitiator for this reason: tthat he has merited the habit of love. They do not encourage us to use him now as Mediator. The act as though Christ were still in the grave so that we have access to God through our own works. Through these works, they think they merit this habit, and afterwards, by their love, come to God. Is this not burying Christ altogether, and removing the entire doctrine of faith? Paul on the contrary, teaches that we have access, that is, reconciliation, through Christ. To show how this occurs, he adds that we have access by faith. For Christ’s sake, we receive forgiveness of sins through faith in him. We cannot prop up our own love and our own works against God’s wrath. [The Defenese of the Augsburg Confession, Justification]

• “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” Isaac Watts

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
save in the death of Christ, my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them through his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an off’ring far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

• Benediction: May your eyes ever be on Jesus, your heart be settled in his grace, and your confidence be in his cross so that your soul is anchored in God reconciled to you through Christ. Amen.

• Memory Verse: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

• Memory Verse Aid: FOS HMHTBS WKNS, STIHWMB TROG. (2C521)