Daily Devotion for 01 April 2026 (Wednesday in Holy Week)

Welcome to the Daily Devotions Podcast from Confident Faith.

I am Corey J. Moller, a contributor here at Confident Faith and I will be your reader today.

This Wednesday and Holy Week, the 1st of April, in the year of our Lord, 2026, in the time

of Easter.

There are no feasts, festivals or commemorations on the calendar today.

Our readings for today are Psalm 89, Psalm 32, Exodus starting with chapter 10, verse

21 and reading through chapter 11, verse 10, Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1 through 16, and

paragraphs 11 through 15 of Article 5 of the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord.

We will close, as always, with the Lord's Prayer.

Today's first reading from the Psalter is the 89th Psalm.

Of your mercies, O Lord, I will sing forever to generation and generation.

I will proclaim your truth with my mouth, because you said, forever, mercy will be built.

In the heavens, your truth will be prepared.

I made a covenant with my chosen ones.

I swore to David my slave, forever I will provide offspring for you and will build your

throne for generation and generation.

The heavens will acknowledge your wonders, O Lord, indeed your truth in an assembly of

Holy Ones, because who in the clouds shall be deemed equal to the Lord, and who among

divine sons shall be compared with the Lord.

God is glorified in a council of Holy Ones, great and awesome to all that are around

Him.

O Lord God of hosts, who is like you, you are powerful O Lord, and your truth is around

you.

It is you who rule the might of the sea, and the surge of its waves you calm.

It is you who brought low a proud one like one wounded, with the arm of your power you

scattered your enemies.

Yours the heavens and yours is the earth, the world and all that is in it you founded.

The north and seas you created, tabore and Hermann rejoice in your name.

Yours is the arm with dominance.

Let your hand be strong, let your right hand be exalted.

Richestness and judgment are a provision of your throne.

Mercy and truth will go in front of you.

Happy are the people who know a shout for joy, O Lord, in the light of your countenance

they will walk.

And in your name they will rejoice all day long, and in your righteousness they will be

exalted, because you are the boast of their power, and by your favor our horn shall be

exalted.

Because support is of the Lord, and of the Holy One of Israel our King.

When you spoke in a vision to your devout ones and said, I added help to one who is powerful.

I exalted one chosen from my people.

I found David my slave, with my holy oil I anointed him.

Indeed my hand shall sustain him.

My arm also shall strengthen him, and enemy shall not profit by him, and a son of lawlessness

shall not add to harm him.

And I will crush his enemies from before him, and those who hate him I will route.

And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name his horn shall be exalted.

And I will set his hand in a sea, and in rivers his right hand.

He shall call upon me, my Father you are, my God and supporter of my deliverance.

And I will make him a firstborn, high among the kings of the earth.

Forever I will keep my mercy for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm.

And I will establish his seed forever and ever, and his throne is the days of the sky.

If his sons forsake my law, and by my judgments do not walk.

If my statutes they shall violate, and my commandments they do not keep, I will visit their lawlessness

with a rod, and with scourges their sins.

But my mercy I will never disperse from him, nor be unjust in my truth.

Or will I violate my covenant, and set aside with proceeds from my lips.

Once and for all I swore by my holiness, if I will lie to David, his seed shall remain

forever, and his throne is like the sun before me, and like the moon established forever,

and the witness in heaven is faithful.

But you, you spurned and rejected, you put off your anointed, you renounced the covenant

with your slave, you defiled his sanctity in the dust.

You broke down all his defenses, you reduced his strongholds to cowardice.

All the wayfarers plundered him, he became a reproach to his neighbors.

You exalted the right hand of his enemies, you made glad all his enemies.

You turned away the help of his sword, and you did not support him in battle.

You dismissed him from purification, his throne you smashed to the ground.

You diminished the days of his time, you covered him with shame.

How long O Lord, will you turn away completely, will your wrath burn like fire?

Remember what my substance is, for surely you did not create all the sons of men in vain.

Who is the person who shall live and not see death?

Shall rescue his soul from the power of Hades.

Lord where are your mercies of long ago, which you swore to David by your truth?

Remember O Lord, the reproach against your slaves, which I bore in my bosom from many nations,

with which your enemies reproached O Lord, with which they reproached what had been exchanged

for your anointed.

Blessed be the Lord forever, may it be, may it be.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forevermore, Amen.

Today's second reading from the Psalter is the thirty-second Psalm.

Happy are those whose lawless behavior was forgiven, and whose sins were covered over.

Happy the man whose sin the Lord will not reckon, and in his mouth there is no deceit, because

I kept silence my bones grew old, from my crying all day long, because day and night

your hand was heavy upon me.

I was turned to wretchedness when a thorn was stuck in me.

My sin I made known, and my lawlessness I did not cover.

I said I will declare to the Lord against myself my lawlessness, and you you forgave the

impiety of my sin.

Over this every devout shall pray to you at an appropriate time, but at a flood of many

waters, these will not reach him.

You are my refuge from affliction that besets me.

My enjoyment redeemed me from those that encircle me.

I will instruct you and teach you in this way in which you should go.

I will fix my eyes upon you.

Do not be like horse and mule who have no understanding, with bridal and muzzle squeeze

their jaws when they do not come near to you.

Many are the scourges of the sinner, but mercy will surround him that hopes in the Lord.

Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, so righteous, and boast all you upright in heart.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning

is now, and will be forevermore, Amen.

Today's Old Testament reading comes from the book of Exodus, and we will be reading from

verse 21 of the 10th chapter, through verse 10 of the 11th chapter.

Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out the hand towards heaven, and let there be darkness

over the land of Egypt, palpable darkness.

So Moses stretched out the hand toward heaven, and there was darkness, gloom, hurricane

on all the land of Egypt, for three days, and no one saw his brother, and no one rose

up from his bed for three days.

And for all the sons of Israel there was light in all places where they were dwelling.

And Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron saying, Go, serve the Lord your God, only leave behind

the sheep in cattle, and let your shadows depart with you.

And Moses said, But you also will give us whole burnt offerings and sacrifices that we

shall make to the Lord our God, and our animals will go with us, and we shall not leave behind

a hoof.

Or from them we shall take to serve the Lord our God, but we do not know how we should

worship the Lord our God until we go there.

But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was unwilling to send them away.

And Pharaoh says, Depart from me, Watch out that yet again you see my face.

Now on whatever day you should appear to me, you shall die.

Then Moses says, You have spoken, I shall no longer appear to you in person.

And the Lord said to Moses, Still one plague I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt,

and after these things he will send you away from here.

Now whenever he sends you away, with everything he will expel you with expulsion, speak then

secretly to the ears of the people, and let each one ask from his neighbor and a woman

from her neighbor, silver and gold articles in clothing.

Now the Lord gave favor to his people before the Egyptians, and they supplied them.

And the man Moses became very great before the Egyptians, and before Pharaoh, and before

all his attendants.

And Moses said, This is what the Lord says, Around midnight I am going to enter into the

midst of Egypt, and every first born in the land Egypt shall die, from the first born

of Pharaoh who sits on the throne, to the first born of the female slave by the millstone,

and to the first born of every animal.

And there will be a great cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as has not been

and such as will not again be repeated.

But among all the sons of Israel, a dog will not snarl with his tongue, from human being

to animal, in order that you might know by what means the Lord shall distinguish gloriously

between the Egyptians and Israel.

And all these servants of yours shall come down to me, and do obeisance before me, saying,

Leave, you and all your people whom you are leading away, and after these things I will

go out.

And Moses went out from Pharaoh with wrath.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not listen to you, in order that I may multiply

my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.

So Moses and Aaron did all these signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, before Pharaoh,

but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was unwilling to send away the sons of Israel,

from the land of Egypt.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Today's New Testament reading comes from the book of Hebrews, and we will be reading

the fourth chapter, verses 1 through 16.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear less any

of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them,

because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

For we who have believed enter that rest, as he is said, as I swore in my wrath, they

shall not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.

For he is somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh

day from all his works.

And again in this passage he said, they shall not enter my rest.

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good

news failed to enter because of disobedience.

Again he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David so long afterward, in the words

already quoted, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort

of disobedience.

For the word of God is living inactive, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the

division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and

intentions of the heart, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and

exposed to the eyes of him, to whom we must give account.

Since then we have a great high priest, who is passed through the heavens, Jesus the

Son of God.

Let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy

and find grace to help in a time of need.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Today's reading from the Book of Concord comes from the solid declaration of the formula

of Concord, and we will be reading Article 5, paragraph 11-15.

Christ's spirit was not only comfort, but also through the office of the law, convict

the world concerning sin.

In the New Testament, as the prophet says, he must do the work of another, that is, reproof,

in order that he may afterward do his own work, which is to comfort and to preach grace.

To this end the spirit was obtained for us through Christ and sent.

For this reason he is also called the Comforter, as Dr. Luther has explained in his comments

on the gospel for the fifth Sunday after Trinity, in the following words.

Anything that preaches about our sins in God's wrath, let it be done however or whenever

it will.

That is all the preaching of the law.

Again, the gospel is such a preaching as shows and gives nothing else than grace and

forgiveness in Christ.

Yet it is true and right that the apostles and preachers of the gospel, as Christ himself

also did, confirm the preaching of the law.

They begin the law with those who do not get acknowledged their sins, nor are terrified

at God's wrath, as Jesus says, when the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world

concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, John 16, 8 through 9.

Yes, what more forceful, more terrible declaration and preaching of God's wrath against sin is

there, than the suffering and death of Christ is sun.

But as long as all this preaches God's wrath and terrifies people, it is not yet the

preaching of the gospel, nor Christ's own preaching, but that of Moses and the law against

the impenetraint.

For the gospel and Christ were never ordained and given, for the purpose of terrifying and

condemning, but for comforting and cheering, those who are terrified and timid.

And again Luther wrote, Christ says, the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin,

John 16, 8, which cannot be done except through the explanation of the law.

So to the small-called articles say, the New Testament keeps and urges the office of

the law, as St. Paul does when he says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against

all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, Romans 118.

But to this office of the law, the New Testament immediately adds the consoling promise of grace

through the gospel.

The apology says, in the preaching of repentance, it is not enough to preach the law, or the

word that convicts of sin, the gospel must be added.

Article 5 paragraph 136, therefore the two doctrines belong together and should also be taught

next to each other, but in a definite order and with a proper distinction.

The antinomians or nomenclas, destroyers of the law, are justly condemned.

They abolish the preaching of the law from the church and want sins to be rebuked and

repentance and sorrow to be sought, not from the law, but from the gospel.

This concludes our reading from the book of Concord.

I now invite all of you to join me in reciting the Lord's Prayer, one of the most ancient

prayers of the church.

I do encourage you to say it aloud if you are somewhere reasonable to do so, but praying

it silently is, of course, also fine.

The Lord knows what is in your heart.

Lord, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who

trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine

is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen.

Go in peace and grace to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whatever calling

has been given you, or tasks that before you, until tomorrow, God be with you.