Week of Trinity XVIII - Monday

0:00Welcome to Luther for the Busy Man, the 18th week after the Sunday of Trinity Monday, our Scripture reading comes from 1 Samuel, chapter 16 verses 1 through 7. The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being King over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go, I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons. And Samuel said, How can I go if Saul hears that he will kill me? And the Lord said, Take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord, and invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do, and you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you. Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, Do you come peaceably? And he said, Peaceably, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. And come with me to the sacrifice, and he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them

1:03to the sacrifice. When they came he looked on Leab and thought surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees, man looks to the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. For scripture lesson comes from Matthew's Gospel chapter 22 verses 37 through 40. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment, and a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Jesus means to say here, He who has kept these two commandments dealing with the love of God and the love of one's neighbor has everything, and He has also fulfilled the law. For the whole law and the prophets concentrate on these two issues, namely how one should love God and how one should love one's neighbor. There may be those who feel inclined to wonder how everything depends on these two

2:06commandments when people like the Jews were given circumcision and many other laws which cannot so easily be related to these two chief commandments. In replying, we should note first of all how Christ explains obedience to the law. He says that we must obey it from the heart. For Christ obedience to the law is something spiritual. He who does not obey the law from his heart and tackle it with his spirit will never fulfill it. Hence the Lord hears such before the lawyers the basis and kernel of the law, saying that the chief commandment of the law is to love God from the heart and one's neighbor as oneself. It follows from this that anyone who does not keep the law from the heart is not really circumcised, does not fast and does not pray, even if he does perform such acts externally. External performances with obedience of the heart are nothing before God. God looks at the heart and not merely at the external work or appearance. It does not help a man to perform in a number of works if his heart is not engaged thereby.

3:08Let us pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, grant your people grace to serve you with pure hearts and minds in obedience to your holy law and with firm confidence in your gospel through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Find the print version of the Luther for the Busyman Daily Devotional at ambassadorpublications.org. Luther for the Busyman is produced by the free Lutheran Bible College and seminary in Plymouth, Minnesota.