Make my life a Bethlehem, Part 2

As I sat in worship on Christmas Eve at the 11 p.m. service, I found myself paying more attention to the hymns we were singing. One hymn was "O Little Town of Bethlehem." There's a line in that song that goes like this - Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in - just another place within the Lutheran hymnal that mentions the active will of the human being when it comes to our relationship with Christ. I believe even more that Christ has already done the job of saving us, but our relationship with Him isn't going to go anywhere if we don't accept, receive, and believe Him. It's not enough to believe in God. I think God is calling me to not simply believe in Him, but to believe Him, to believe what He speaks to me through His word. God is calling me to believe Him and nobody else. What everybody else says, I need to compare it with God's Word, the Holy Scriptures, and discern from there what He wants me to be doing with my life and how he wants me to act.

Make my Life a Bethlehem

This morning, I heard a sermon on this very phrase. The pastor mentioned that this was the advent theme this year at Central Lutheran Church in Elk River. The title of his sermon was "Shepherds and Angels," yet somehow he was able to tie in the advent theme as well, which led me to walk away excited for Christmas. Check out www.clcelkriver.org to hear the sermon. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on "sermons online." It should be up in a couple of weeks. You might need Itunes in order to listen to it.

Life of Praise

Ephesians 5:12 - "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

"If we are to live a life of praise, we must be imitators of God - not imitators of the pastor, the head of the deacons, the well-dressed businessman at the end of the pew, or the lady up front who always raises her hands in worship, apparently sensing something we must be missing. A life of praise is authentic. It is personal. It is unmistakably stamped with the seal of the King of the universe. There is no doubt to Whom a person living a life of praise is surrendered. . . . When I faithfully pursue God, spending time with Him in Bible study and a spirit of unceasing prayer, then I'm completed by Him. He indeed is all I need. Somehow, Sunday shifts places within the week. It is no longer the last and merely dutiful day of the weekend before another mundane Monday. Instead, it's the first day of a new week of new life. It is first-fruits to God. When I walk into church, I see people like He sees them. I see others as people who need to see the love of Jesus through me. In other words, I recognize and acknowledge that I'm an instrument. I walk in and want to sit by others as a ministry. I want to help greet visitors. I want to make sure somebody called those who were sick. Why? Because a life of praise comes from understanding that this life is not about us. It's about something bigger than us. It's about loving God and loving others, the two greatest commandments. (Matthew 22:35-40). . . . Look back at Ephesians 5:1-2, which gives two instructions. Not only are we to be imitators of God, but we also are to live a life of love. Exactly. When we imitate a holy God, we live a life of love. We live a life of praise." - Mark Hall, LifeStories, pg. 98, 101, 103

Praise you with the Dance

"There is so much of my salvation that He arranged and performed - and I have so little to do with it - that it just makes me want to worship Him even more.
"Many believers assume they somehow initiated a relationship with God, which creates misunderstanding in many areas. Think about it: If I created this moment, I can un-create this moment. If I began this relationship, I can end it. If I did something that connected me with God, I can possibly do something that will disconnect me from Him. No, we must remember that when (we) were dead in our trespasses, God reached down, enlightened us, quickened our spirits, gave us the gifts of faith and the Holy Spirit, and yanked us out of deep garbage.
"There are days in which, for some inexplicable reason, I attempt to drag Him back through that garbage, but He always pulls me out. It's not my grip on Him that matters; it's His grip on me. I did nothing to make Him love me, and I can't do anything to make Him stop.
"It's enough to make me want to praise Him. Maybe even with a little dance." - Mark Hall, LifeStories, pg.89-90

A case for infant baptism

I was reading in Martin Luther's Commentary on Galatians (yes, I know, it seems like the only thing I've been reading lately) and what I read was really interesting. It never dawned on me until this afternoon that God bestowed upon Abraham the promises many many many years before God gave Moses the law. Here's the quote from Luther:

Galatians 3:17 says: "This is what I mean: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void."

Here's what Luther says about this verse:
"God acted properly in giving the promise such a long time before the Law, lest it be said that righteousness is given through the Law, not through the promise. Moreover, it was intentional that He preceded the Law with the promises; for if He had wanted us to be justified by the Law, He would have given it four hundred and thirty years before the promise or certainly with the promise. But now He is completely silent about the Law at first; He establishes it finally after four hundred and thirty years. Meanwhile, for that entire time, He speaks about His promises. Therefore the blessing and the gift of righteousness came before the Law, through the promise. And therefore the promise is superior to the Law. Thus the Law does not abrogate the promise. But faith in the promise, by which believers were saved even before Christ was revealed, and which is now being preached through the Gospel to all the nations of the universe, destroys the Law, so that it can no longer increase sin or terrify sinners or reduce to despair those who take hold of the promise by faith.
"A great emphasis, or rather irony, is concealed in Paul’s explicit reference to four hundred and thirty years. It is as though he were saying: “If you understand arithmetic, count on your fingers what the interval is between the giving of the promise and the Law. Certainly there was a promise a long time ago, even while there was no Law (that is, for four hundred and thirty years).” Therefore this is a rather vigorous argument based on a specific interval.
"Here Paul is not speaking about the Law in general but only about the written Law. It is as though he were saying: “God could not regard our worship, works, and merits that did not yet exist, because there was as yet no Law that commanded worship, required works, and promised life to those who kept it. ‘He who does them’ He says ‘shall live by them.’ Thus if I were to give a field or a house to a man to whom I owed nothing and did so not out of constraint but purely out of good will, and if after twenty or more years had passed since I did him this favor I imposed a law upon him about doing this or that, he could not say that he had merited the favor by his works when he had received it from me so many years before by sheer grace, without my having requested anything of him. In the same way God could not regard works and merits that preceded righteousness, because the promise and the gift of the Holy Spirit came four hundred and thirty years before the Law.” This is what Paul stresses in irony."

Hopefully you can figure out what I'm thinking without my articulating it.

Even more from Martin Luther

Therefore a man becomes a Christian, not by working but by listening. And so anyone who wants to exert himself toward righteousness must first exert himself in listening to the Gospel. Now when he has heard and accepted this, let him joyfully give thanks to God, and then let him exert himself in good works that are commanded in the Law; thus the Law and works will follow hearing with faith. Then he will be able to walk safely in the light that is Christ; to be certain about choosing and doing works that are not hypocritical but truly good, pleasing to God, and commanded by, Him; and to reject all the mummery of self-chosen works. - Luther's Commentary on Galatians 3:2.

More from Martin Luther

Now these words, “who loved me,” are filled with faith. Anyone who can speak this brief pronoun “me” in faith and apply it to himself as Paul did, will, like Paul, be the best of debaters against the Law.

I am revived by this “giving” of the Son of God into death, and I apply it to myself. This applying is the true power of faith.

As I have said, faith grasps and embraces Christ, the Son of God, who was given for us, as Paul teaches here. When He has been grasped by faith, we have righteousness and life. For Christ is the Son of God, who gave Himself out of sheer love to redeem me.

Therefore read these words “me” and “for me” with great emphasis, and accustom yourself to accepting this “me” with a sure faith and applying it to yourself. Do not doubt that you belong to the number of those who speak this “me.” Christ did not love only Peter and Paul and give Himself for them, but the same grace belongs and comes to us as to them; therefore we are included in this “me.” For just as We cannot deny that we are all sinners, and just as we are obliged to say that through his sin Adam destroyed us and made us enemies of God who are liable to God’s wrath and judgment and worthy of eternal death—for all terrified hearts feel and confess this, in fact, more than is proper—so we cannot deny that Christ died for our sins in order that we might be justified. For He did not die to make the righteous righteous; He died to make sinners into righteous men, the friends and sons of God, and heirs of all heavenly gifts. Therefore since I feel and confess that I am a sinner on account of the transgression of Adam, why should I not say that I am righteous on account of the righteousness of Christ, especially when I hear that He loved me and gave Himself for me? Paul believed this most firmly, and therefore he speaks with such πληροφορία.

- All of these come from Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians 2:20. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."

Martin Luther quotes and reflections

Consciences should be carefully taught to understand the doctrine of the distinction between the righteousness of the Law and that of grace. The righteousness of grace simply does not pertain to the flesh. For the flesh must not be free but must stay in the grave, in the prison, and on the couch. It must be subjected to the Law and be disciplined by the Egyptians. But the Christian conscience must be dead to the Law, that is, free from the Law, and must have no business with it. This important and basic doctrine does much to comfort afflicted consciences. Therefore when you see a man terrified and saddened by a consciousness of sin, say: “Brother, you are not distinguishing properly. Into your conscience you are putting the Law, which belongs in the flesh. Wake up, get up, and remember that you believe in Christ, the Victor over the Law and sin. With this faith you will transcend the Law and enter into grace, where there is neither Law nor sin. And although the Law and sins still exist, they have nothing to do with you; for you are dead to the Law and to sins.”
This is easy enough to say. But blessed is the man who knows this properly amid a conflict of conscience, who, when sin attacks him and the Law accuses and terrifies him, can say: “Law, what is it to me if you make me guilty and convict me of having committed many sins? In fact, I am still committing many sins every day. This does not affect me; I am deaf and do not hear you. Therefore you are telling your story to a deaf man, for I am deaf to you. But if you really want to argue with me about sins, then go over to my flesh and my limbs, which are my servants. Teach them; discipline and crucify them. But do not trouble my conscience, which is lord and king; for I have nothing to do with you. For I am dead to you; I now live to Christ, where I am under another Law, namely, the Law of grace, which rules over sin and the Law. - Luther's Works on Galatians 2:19.


No Law, no matter how divine or holy, has the right to tell me that I obtain justification and life through it. I will grant that it can teach me that I should love God and my neighbor, and live in chastity, patience, etc.; but it is in no position to show me how to be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. - Luther's Works on Galatians 2:4-5.

I've been reading a lot of Martin Luther lately and I've been thoroughly enjoying all of it. These are just some of the highlights. Luther also talks a little bit about Galatians 2:20, which says, "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me." "I" is no longer the subject. "Christ" is now the subject and the "I" that was the subject becomes the "me" that is the object. Therefore, Christ is the subject and I am the object. Never do I want to be the subject of my relationship with Christ, therefore I wake up everyday and apply Galatians 2:20 to my life. I will post the exact quote at a later point in time with clearer thoughts on that idea.