Lectio Concordia

The Goal – Tuesday

preparing for The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Series: Lectio Concordia

April 1, 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

• Matthew 6:25–34

• For Christ’s sake, the gospel freely offers reconciliation to us who have been vanquished by sin and death. This concord is is not received by works, but by faith alone. This faith does not bring to God confidence in one’s own merits, but only confidence in the promise, in the mercy promised in Christ. This special faith obtains forgivness and justification because it believes sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake and that because of Christ alone one is reconciled and favorable. In repentance, in the terrors of conscience, this faith comforts and encourages hearts. It regenerates us and brings the Holy Spirit so that we may be able to fulfill God’s Law: to love him, to rightly fear God, to be truly confident that God hears prayer, and to obey him in all afflictions. Such faith slays sexual lust and other temptations. Because faith freely receives the forgiveness of sins by setting Christ as our Mediator and Atoner against God’s wrath, it does not offer our merits or our love. Such faith is the true knowledge of Christ, and takes advantage of the benefits of Christ. It regenerates hearts and precedes the fulfilling of the Law. [The Defense of the Augsburg Confession, Justification]

• “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)