Status Updates From Faith Alone: A Daily Devoti...

My favorite so far.
“If you try to deal with sin in your conscious, let it remain there, and continue to look at it in your heart, your sins will become too strong for you. They will seem to live forever. But when you think of your sins as being on Christ and boldly believe that he conquered them through his resurrection, they are dead and gone. Sin can’t remain on Christ. His resurrection swallowed sin up.”

“We recognize the nature of God best, not by thinking about his power or wisdom, which are terrifying, but by thinking about his goodness and love. Then we are truly born anew in God and we can grow in faith.”

Today is about asking God for faith. I thought that once you believe, you have all the faith needed but that is not true. You should continue to ask God for faith and grow in it.

“If you don’t want to pray before you feel that you are worthy or qualified, then you will never pray again. Prayer must not be based on or depend on your personal awareness or the quality of the prayer itself, but on the changing truth of God’s promise.”

“We pray because we are unworthy to pray. Our prayers are precisely because we believe that we are unworthy. We become worthy to pray when we risk everything on God’s faithfulness alone.”

There have definitely been times when I feel completely unworthy to pray and unworthy of God’s blessings. This is a great reminder to always trust and have faith in God.

“Therefore, the little word ‘in’ is well placed and should be carefully noted. We don’t say I believe God the Father, or I believe about God the Father, but I believe IN God the Father, IN Jesus Christ, IN the Holy Spirit. Only God can give us this type of faith.” - Martin Luther on “What it means to Believe”

“… a person receives God’s approval by faith.”

It’s interesting how Martin Luther describes the teachings of his day, saying that all teachers except for Augustine interpreted God’s righteousness as God’s anger, not kindness or forgiveness. So Martin Luther himself even had issues understanding God‘s word as a monk since Romans 1:17 states the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. Wowzah

“It is faith - without good works and prior to good works - that takes us to Heaven. We come to
God through faith alone.” Thinking of the thief on the cross! That day he was with God in paradise for believing in Christ.

Doing my best this year to read this every day and summarize each devotional.