Five Minutes a Day with Luther Friday, July 30, 2010
Bible Passage:1 Peter 3:21-22
And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you -- not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience -- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
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But you are saved and kept not by merely washing away the dirt on the flesh, that the body be clean, as was the practice of the Jews; such purification has no further value. But the answer of a good conscience toward God, that is, that your conscience be rightfully at peace within you, that it stands in harmony with God, and can say: "All that He has promised me, that He will fulfill, for He cannot lie." Faith alone is the band by which we shall be held. Faith rests on the fact that Christ died, descended into hell, and has risen again from the dead. Had he continued to be subject to death, it would not have benefited us; but since He has risen and sits at the right hand of God, and permits this to be proclaimed to us so that we may believe on Him, through faith we have a union with God and a sure promise whereby we shall be saved, as Noah was saved in the ark.
Thus Jesus His disciples sent —
Go, teach ye every nation,
That, lost in sin, they must repent,
And flee from condemnation;
He that believes and is baptized
Shall thereby have salvation,
A newborn man he is in Christ,
From death free and damnation,
He shall inherit heaven.
-- Cuda.
aka Pastor Robin Fish It isn't whether we win or lose, it is "Do we stand faithfully?"
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