Grace Notes 2025-07-23

This week we finish with the list from the section of Luther’s Small Catechism entitled "Christian Questions with Their Answers”. Use these questions as a good spiritual inventory or health assessment… (page 329 in LSB)

19.  What should admonish and encourage a Christian to receive the Sacrament frequently? First, both the command and the promise of Christ the Lord. Second, his own pressing need, because of which the command, encouragement, and promise are given. (Note God’s Word consistently being front and center, and this includes both the command and the promise, ‘law/gospel’, and if we don’t sense our own pressing need, God’s Word will help us to discover that need.)

20.  But what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament? To such a person no better advice can be given than this: first, he should touch his body to see if he still has flesh and blood. Then he should believe what the Scriptures say of it in Galatians 5 and Romans 7. Second, he should look around to see whether he is still in the world, and remember that there will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say in John 15–16 and in 1 John 2 and 5. Third, he will certainly have the devil also around him, who with his lying and murdering day and night will let him have no peace, within or without, as the Scriptures picture him in John 8 and 16; 1 Peter 5; Ephesians 6; and 2 Timothy 2. (Note that when we grow to trust the Word of God we will all the more readily confess our shortcoming that we are blind to our deep need for forgiveness and communion with God and have lost our appetite for His nurture and sustenance.)

Don’t forget this wonderful inventory regarding our Christian Faith given birth in Baptism and meant to be sustained with Holy Communion!

Since You Asked

What good purpose is there in signing oneself (making the sign of the cross with the hand over one’s head and breast)? 

This gesture’s main purpose is to remind us of our baptism where the sign of the cross was first made on our foreheads. The cross is a powerful symbol which reminds us of the depths of God’s love for us – He loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us. In Holy Baptism we have been joined to Christ. Every time we sign ourselves we declare that we belong to Christ and that we desire to live for Him. We give visible expression that we serve the One, True God who has revealed Himself to us in three persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.