A Note from Pastor

As we enter the penitential season of Lent, now is a good time to review how Luther taught on God’s Law, Gospel and of the need for repentance. Luther wrote, “This, then, is the thunderbolt of God by which He strikes in a heap and hurls to the ground, both manifest sinners and false saints, and suffers no one to be in the right, but drives them all together to terror and despair. This is the hammer, as Jeremiah 23:29 says: Is not My Word like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? This is not “manufactured” repentance, but torture of conscience, true sorrow of heart, suffering and sensation of death.
This, then, is what it means to begin true repentance; and here man must hear such a sentence as this: You are all of no account, whether you are manifest sinners or saints [in your own opinion]; you all must become different and do otherwise than you now are and are doing [no matter what sort of people you are], whether you are as great, wise, powerful, and holy as you may. Here no one is [righteous, holy], godly, etc. But to this office the New Testament immediately adds the consolatory promise of grace through the Gospel, which must be believed, as Christ declares, Mark 1:15: Repent and believe the Gospel, i.e., become different and do otherwise, and believe My promise.” (Schmalcald Articles, part III, Article III)
May God, by His grace, enable us to do this, not just during Lent, but always.