Encore Post: Life can sometimes be confusing. Maybe you have two good opportunities that you have to choose from. Maybe a series of setbacks or changes in your life hit you in quick succession. Or life just seems to drag on. Maybe you lose someone close to you. Or you discover the harder you try to obey God’s law, the more you fail to do so. You begin to wonder who you are.
That is a good time to remind yourself of who you are and whose you are. The basic fact of your life, my life and every life is that God made you. Martin Luther put it this way: “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses” (Small Catechism 2.1) He made you who you are — a man or a woman, tall or short, blue eyes, brown hair and more — written in every cell of your body. Even twins are unique in their own ways. There is no one like you.
But the Father not only made you — he made you new again. In Baptism, he adopted you as his son. You belong to him now and forever. So, you can answer the confusion of the world, the accusing devil and the lure of our sinful self. “Go away! I am made by God and baptized his own.” Such a statement can bring peace no matter the mess around you.
Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana
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The closer you grow to Jesus, the more acutely you recognize your own sin. How else can you be molded into the image of Jesus without that awareness. Thank God for the gift of Justification and Sanctification.