Lectio Concordia

Being Reconciled to God – Monday

preparing for The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Series: Lectio Concordia

March 24, 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 5:6–11

• Our works cannot reconcile God or merit forgiveness of sins, grace, and justification. We obtain these by faith alone when we believe that we are received into God’s favor because of Christ, who has been given as our only Mediator and Propitiation (1 Timothy 2:5), so that the Father may be reconciled through him. Therefore, whoever trusts that he earns grace through his deeds, despises the merit and grace of Christ (Galatians 2:4), and seeks a way to God without Christ, trusting human strength, though Christ said of himself: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). [The Augsburg Confession, Good Works]

• “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)