"Luther Quotations": #2C
"Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ..."(1;3)
Despite the beauty of the gospel ("Grace and peace to you from God...") and the importance/priority it is to play in our hearts day to day (see also 1 Corinthians 15; 1-3), do you find it difficult to remember and be governed by the gospel message as you go through your day? I sure do! Consistently it seems that one moment I can be in awe and filled with gratitude by the wonder of Christ and the gospel, and one minute later that wonder and gratitude has been kidnapped by anxiety, anger or by some other matter that has become more urgent or important than Christ. I struggle and fail in this way all day, every day!
How about you?
Christian, take heart! Hear Luther as he speaks of the same difficulty for himself and on behalf of all Christians everywhere:
Luther;
"We have undertaken to explain this letter (GALATIANS) not because
it is necessary or because there is anything hard in it, but so our consciences
may be strengthened against heresies yet to come, and so we will keep on
repeating things that other times we teach, preach, sing, and write about, for
if we neglect the truth of ('GRACE AND PEACE TO YOU FROM GOD...'), we loose everything. Therefore, it is
most necessary that we teach and repeat this above everything else. We cannot
have (THE TRUTH OF 'GRACE AND PEACE TO YOU FROM GOD...') urged upon us too often or too much. Even if we learn it and
understand it well, none of us grasps it perfectly or believes it with his whole
heart. Our flesh is so frail and is often disobedient to the Spirit"
(p.32)
Your comfort in light of your hearts pathological fickleness and lack of steadfastness in the Gospel?
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?...We are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Romans 8; 35, 38, 39)
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