Lectio Concordia

The Goal – Friday

preparing for The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Series: Lectio Concordia

April 4, 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

• Colossians 3:1–10

• Scripture testifies to this, when it says that man was fashioned in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). What else is this image and likeness than that man was created with a wisdom and righteousness that could apprehend and reflect God? Mankind was given the gifts of the knowledge of God, the fear of God, and confidence in God. This is how Irenaeus and Ambrose interpret the likeness to God, the latter saying many things to this effect and especially declares: “That soul is not, therefore, in the image of God, in which God is not at all times.” Paul shows in Ephesians 5:9, and Colossians 3:10 that the image of God is the knowledge of God, righteousness, and truth. [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)