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The Institute of Lutheran theology not only provides programs to train pastors and teachers, but it also provides educational and devotional resources for individuals and congregations. These resources are provided free of charge and made available through our web page. Please subscribe to and use any of these resources.

The Institute of Lutheran theology not only provides programs to train pastors and teachers, but it also provides educational and devotional resources for individuals and congregations. These resources are provided free of charge and made available through our web page. Please subscribe to and use any of these resources.

The Baptism of Our Lord

The Baptism of Our Lord

These words hold a fearsome promise. This promise brings fear and great anxiety to the practitioners of religion but is the very bedrock for those who are possessed of faith. Religious practitioners, for whom life consists of one goal of spiritual striving after another on the path to divine glory, fear the promise of all righteousness being fulfilled by something as meager as baptism. Those possessed of faith, however, rest in this promise. They live lives confident that they’ve received all the righteousness they’ll ever need in their baptism…. That God-worked event where the old sinner—that Old Adam or the Old Eve—was put to death and a new person, complete with the life of Christ and all his righteousness, was brought forth to walk in newness of life. To that new person, for whatever reason God intends, the flesh still adheres and, before that new person can even step away from the baptismal font, the sinning begins again. The Old Adam or the Old Eve reaches out of baptism’s watery grave, contending over the newness of life. Luther described this struggle. He taught, especially in his Large Catechism, the Christian life consisted simply of returning to the promises, the righteousness, of baptism through daily repentance and the forgiveness of sins. In this way, the old sinner who would contend with Christ as our life, is drowned daily so that the life of Christ would come forth anew.

Prayers from those whose old sinner contends daily with the life of Christ within them…

Heavenly Father, bring the fullness of the Godhead to contend with my Old Adam or my Old Eve who still believes the lies of Satan. Grant me to confess and repent… Grant me to hear my sins absolved… Grant me to return to the promises of my baptism. For you have commanded, Lord, that I be baptized.

Heavenly Father, bring the fullness of the Godhead into the life of Christ within me so that I receive his victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil. Grant me the joy of his triumph…  Grant me to bask in his glory… Grant me to find his triumph and glory only on the cross. For you have commanded, Lord, that I be baptized.

Heavenly Father, bring the fullness of the Godhead as the Holy Spirit works faith within me so that I am possessed of faith and trust in a God who does not lie. Grant me to walk by such faith as opposed to walking by what I can see… Grant me your Word to reveal the truth about myself and about my God. For you have commanded, Lord, that I be baptized.

Heavenly Father, bring the fullness of the Godhead to me as I walk among the things of this world. Grant me freedom from the oppression of religious striving… Grant me freedom from coveting those things that are yours alone… Grant me freedom from coveting the things of my neighbors. For you have commanded, Lord, that I be baptized.

Heavenly Father, bring the fullness of the Godhead to me as I live among my neighbors—those as close to me as the ones of my household and those as far as on distant shores—so that in them I see a person like me… a sinner for whom Jesus Christ died. Grant me the humility of a common humanity. For you have commanded, Lord, that I be baptized.

Heavenly Father, bring the fullness of the Godhead to bless the work and labors of the Institute of Lutheran Theology that it may be fruitful in delivering forth preachers that go out to baptize and teach in the name of Jesus Christ. For you have commanded, Lord, that I be baptized.

Heavenly Father, bring the fullness of the Godhead to the days of my baptism so that I would not be bereft of hope as the signs of the end accumulate around me—wars, pestilence, disasters, and cosmic disruptions. Hold me fast in that baptismal faith that came to possess me.  For you have commanded, Lord, that I be baptized.