Preparing for Worship - May 12, 2024

The Psalm for this week is Psalm 1. Truly blessed is the person who delights in the Lord and His Word and will and avoids the way of the evil around him. He is blessed like a fruitful, well-watered tree, in contrast with the wicked, who are like chaff and will be in great trouble on judgment day.

The Epistle lesson is from 1 John 5:9-15. John makes it very clear that righteousness and eternal life come only as a gift through believing in Jesus, the Son of God. He who has the Son of God has “the testimony of God” in him and knows that he has eternal life through what Jesus has done for him. He can pray with confidence in God and knows he is heard as he prays, asking that God’s will be done in his life through Christ.

Jesus strengthens that confidence in Him in the Gospel lesson, John 17:11b-19. He has been watching over His disciples and prays that the Heavenly Father would keep them in faith in the Name of Christ, too. There is much hatred of Christ and His believers in the world, and Jesus prays that they will be safe from “the evil one” and stick closely to His Word of Truth. They have been saved by that Word of Truth and sanctified (counted holy) by that Word, as well, even though they are sent out into a very troubled world.

In the First Lesson, Acts 1:12-26, the early Christians were following Christ and staying in Jerusalem after His ascension into heaven and awaiting the promise of the coming Holy Spirit at Pentecost. They were devoted to prayer and encouraging one another and chose, by God’s leading, another disciple, Matthias, to replace Judas, who had taken his life. Matthias had been around through much of Jesus’ ministry, from His baptism, and was a witness to His resurrection. He could be a faithful sharer of the Good News of Christ as Savior, along with the eleven “apostles.”