Lectio Concordia

The Goal – Wednesday

preparing for The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Series: Lectio Concordia

April 2, 2025 By Rev. Mark Ryman

• Online jigsaw puzzle of today's reading • Index

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• Collect: Give me eyes that see, and a heart that believes so that I may rightly know you and the true power of your resurrection which will raise me and all who believe on that Day. Amen.

• Psalm 90:1–17

• 1 Corinthians 9:24–27

• We have said nothing novel. The ancient definition rightly understood expresses precisely the same thing when it says: “Original sin is the absence of original righteousness.” But what is righteousness? Here the scholastics wrangle about dialectic questions but they do not explain what original righteousness is. Now in the Scriptures, righteousness comprises not only the second table of the Ten Commandments but also the first table, which teaches about the fear of God, faith, and the love of God. [The Defense of the Augsburg Confession, Original Sin]

• “Be Thou My Vision”

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me save that thou art.
Thou my best thought by day and by night;
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true Word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord.
Thou my great Father, I thy dear child;
Thou in me dwelling, with thee reconciled.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;
Be thou my dignity, thou my delight.
Thou my soul›s shelter, thou my high tow’r;
Raise thou me Heav’nward, O Pow’r of my pow›r.

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise;
Thou mine inheritance, now and always.
Thou and thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heav’ns Sun!
Heart of my heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

• Benediction: May God give you grace upon grace and faith that leads to more faith so that you attain to the goal of that great prize: the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.

• Memory Verse: ...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10–11)

• Memory Verse Aid: ..TIMKH ATPOHR, AMSHS, BLHIHD, TBAMP IMATRFTD. (P31011)