Home > Reading > NALC Devotions – April 20, 2017

Today’s readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 3:11-26; John 15:12-27

Did Ezekiel make the dry bones come back to life? Of course not. He spoke the word of the Lord as God commanded him to do. God did the rest. There is a lesson here for us. Our job is to proclaim; God does the work. The people stared in awe at Peter and John after the lame beggar was healed. The apostles declared, “Why do you wonder…as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?” All Peter did was proclaim the mighty name of Jesus. This is the very kind of good fruit his disciples today should produce: proclaim Jesus, then depend upon the Spirit to bear witness to the Word.

Luther said it well in a sermon preached at Wittenberg. “I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And then while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip and with Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy, that never a prince or emperor inflicted such damage upon it. I did nothing; the Word did it all.”*

God has spoken; he will do it.

Prayer: Help me bear good fruit for your kingdom, Lord. Amen.

Today’s devotion was written by Mark Ryman, Communications Coordinator for the NALC and Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Advance, NC. 

Original image    *A. Steimle, “The Eight Wittenberg Sermons,” in Works of Martin Luther with Introductions and Notes, vol. II (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1916), 399–400.