Lectio Concordia

The Two Ways – Wednesday

preparing for The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Series: Lectio Concordia

February 12, 2025 By Rev. Mark Ryman

• Online jigsaw puzzle of today's reading • Index

• Collect: You have set before us the ways of life and good, Father, of death and evil. Help us to choose the good that we may know the everlasting joy of life in your Son. Amen.

• Psalm 34:8–14

• Romans 14:7–9

• We teach that people have some free will, for example the freedom to choose civil righteousness, and to choose things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Spirit, to choose the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness because the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, (1 Corinthians 2:14). However, this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Spirit is received through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon, Book III: “We grant that all people have a free will, free, inasmuch as they have the judgment of reason—not that they are capable, without God, either to begin, or at least, to complete anything pertaining to God, but they can choose good or evil in the natural works of this life.” [The Augsburg Confession, Concerning Free Will]

• Take My Life, and Let It Be Tune

Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise,
let them flow in endless praise.

Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
swift and beautiful for thee,
swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice and let me sing
always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from thee,
filled with messages from thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use
every power as thou shalt choose,
every power as thou shalt choose.

Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne,
it shall be thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour
at thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for thee,
ever, only, all for thee.

Lyrics: Frances Ridley Havergal

• Benediction: May you delight in God’s Word, loving both him and his ways, so that you are not among the wicked, those who reject him and his law. Amen.

• For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

• Memory Verse Aid: FHAIBFAM, AHFIFAL. WMTFTN, BJCWTM. (P305)