Daily Devotions
“May glorious truths that we have heard, the bright sword of Your mighty Word, Spurn Satan that Your Church be strong, bold, unified in act and song. “Restrain, O Lord, the human pride that seeks to thrust Your truth aside Or with some man-made thoughts or things would dim the words Your Spirit sings.” We […]
“May glorious truths that we have heard, the bright sword of Your mighty Word, Spurn Satan that Your Church be strong, bold, unified in act and song.
“Restrain, O Lord, the human pride that seeks to thrust Your truth aside Or with some man-made thoughts or things would dim the words Your Spirit sings.”
We love the Lord and seek to follow His will. Yet in repentant honesty, we may admit that there are some commandments that, now and then, we are tempted to ignore. We may also want to overlook certain verses of Scripture that are troubling or contrary to our own opinions. Sadly enough, this is the way the unbelieving world and even some churches approach Holy Scripture. They may accept verses with which they agree but dismiss other parts of God’s Word as mere human inventions. Our hymn describes this attitude as “human pride that seeks to thrust Your truth aside.” “Man-made thoughts” dim the words inspired by the Holy Spirit. This purposeful distortion of Scripture is not a new development. The apostle Paul warned about people who “turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:4). The apostle Peter wrote that some people were twisting the writings of Paul “as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16b).
Through the wonderful Word of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit enlightened our hearts and minds, calling us to faith in Jesus our Savior. By faith we know and believe that the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God. In our hymn we pray that God would make His church strong, bold, and unified so that we will spurn Satan, the evil foe who hates the Word of God. Our weapon in this war against the Word is the Word itself, “the bright sword” of the Spirit. As Jesus Himself said, the Scriptures bear witness to Him. From Genesis to Revelation, the sacred pages testify to Jesus, foretelling His birth, recording eyewitness accounts of His life, death, and resurrection and teaching us to live as His followers. The good news about our Lord was written “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name” (John 20:31b).
We pray in our hymn that the Lord would restrain human pride, including our own, that seeks to elevate itself above the authority of the inspired Word. The Spirit’s sword is God’s gift for us, making us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15b). In gentleness and respect, and armed with that bright Word, we witness to our Savior so that others too may have life in His Name.
WE PRAY: Lord, lead me daily in the study of Your Word. Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Carol Geisler. It is based on the hymn, “Lord Jesus Christ, with Us Abide,” which is number 585 in the Lutheran Service Book.
Reflection Questions:
1. Why is our pride such a dangerous thing when it comes to our faith?
2. What does it mean to “wander off into myths”? Does this still happen today?
3. How is studying God’s Word regularly a good safeguard against the world’s temptations?