Memorial Moment: God's resolution

 Memorial Moment, New Year's Eve, 31 December 2021

God's resolution

"Yes, I know. You are making resolutions for the New Year. So how did that go for you last year then? Not so well? Ah, that's no surprise. Pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps through will power, resolutions (or whatever) will have predictably dismal results. Evidence: all previous resolutions. Wouldn't we be better off with something much more certain than our own efforts?

 Perhaps if we just let God be God for us, we would be more secure and more certain of the outcome. In 2022 let us then focus on Christ, the Word of God, who has taken our flesh that we might be secure in our repose with Him in heaven and certain of the enthronement of our flesh in heaven with Him. God has resolved to save you in the incarnation of His only Son, Jesus Christ. That’s much better than all your resolutions."

Rev. Dr. Scott R. Murray

Memorial Lutheran Church

 

"I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principlesof the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." (Gal. 4:1-7 ESV)

Martin Luther:

"The most precious treasure and the strongest consolation we Christians have is this: that the Word, the true and natural Son of God, became man, with flesh and blood like that of any other human; that He became incarnate for our sakes in order that we might enter into great glory, that our flesh and blood, skin and hair, hands and feet, stomach and back might reside in heaven as God does, and in order that we might boldly defy the devil and whatever else assails us. We are convinced that all our members belong in heaven as heirs of heaven's realm."

Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, 1.14