19 Trinity – Tuesday
This weeks devotions: Sunday – Monday
Daily Devotional Materials
Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity
– Tuesday –
Devotion*
Why should we take no thought; why should we not worry, saying: “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” The answer to these three questions is given by our dear Savior: “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [earthly possessions, whether they are many or few]” (v. 24). We, God’s dear children in Christ, cannot, on the one hand, serve our God, our living, gracious, and merciful Lord and Master, and, at the same time, serve our earthly possessions as our non-living, non-gracious, and non-merciful god, lord, and master. Those who think that they can serve these two at the same time are only deceiving themselves. Jesus was not a liar when He said that, if this attempt is made, the people attempting it will either hate the true, living. forgiving God and His Word and love their earthly possessions as their god and master, or they will, by genuine faith in the Savior and in His perfect work for them, hold to the Triune, everlasting, and faithful God and His Word and despise having their earthly possessions (whether they are rich or poor) take the place of their eternal God, their “Refuge and Strength, a very present Help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Is not our merciful and gracious God, who has given us our life and our body, well able to also provide food and clothing for us? Will not He, who feeds the fowls of the air and clothes the flowers of the field, do this all the more for us, His dear believing children? O we of little faith! The Gentiles, the heathen, who do not know God as we know Him, who are without God in the world, who are not the children of God, may indeed worry and say: “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” (v. 32a). But why should we, the children of our gracious God, worry and fret about our earthly needs? Doesn’t our heavenly Father know that we have need of all these earthly things (v. 32b)? And, knowing this, doesn’t He also give us His sure promise: “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5b)? Oh, what a blessing that we, the children of our merciful God, have Him as our God, who loved us and sent His only begotten Son to serve us by laying “on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6b), to redeem and set us free “from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13), so that now, by God’s grace and mercy alone, He does not impute our many sins, even our sins of worry, against us.
PRAYER – Help us, O heavenly Father, to keep on growing in our trust in Thy sure and certain promises, as we make this request in the name of our one and our only Savior, Christ Jesus. Amen.
* Adapted and revised from original publication
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