Lutheran Daily Devotional 31st July 2022 || Sing Praise to God, the Highest Good

Lutheran Daily Devotional 31st July 2022 || Sunday Message By Lutheran Hour Ministries

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TOPIC: Sing Praise to God, the Highest Good

Lutheran Daily Devotional 31st July 2022 MESSAGE

“Sing praise to God, the highest good, The Author of creation, The God of love who understood Our need for His salvation. With healing balm our souls He fills And ev’ry faithless murmur stills. To God all praise and glory!

“All who confess Christ’s holy Name, Give God the praise and glory. Let all who know His pow’r proclaim Aloud the wondrous story. Cast ev’ry idol from its throne, For God is God, and He alone: To God all praise and glory!”

There were many men who wrote the Scriptures, but God is the one Author of His Word. Scripture is inspired, or God-breathed, and “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21b). As described in our hymn, God can also be called the Author of creation.

By the power of His Word, God spoke the world into existence and creation bears the fingerprints of its Author: “His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20a).

The divine Author wrote life and light into all that He made, but human sin plunged His creation into death and darkness. We daily participate in that sin, and even before He created the world, God “understood our need for His salvation.” As long foretold in the inspired words of the prophets, when the time was right God sent His Son into the world. Jesus, the Word made flesh, “was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4b).

According to God’s plan and foreknowledge, Jesus was delivered into the hands of His enemies, who “killed the Author of life” by nailing Him to a cross (Acts 3:15a). For the sake of our salvation, God the Son, the Author of life, submitted to death at the hands of His creation. But the story does not end there. On the third day after His crucifixion, Jesus rose up in triumph over death. The Word continues. Jesus is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13b).

Baptized into Christ, by faith we are created anew by the divine Author as “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10b). Called to faith by the Holy Spirit, we “proclaim aloud the wondrous story” so that others may hear and believe. The names of all who trust in Jesus are recorded in another work by the same Author, the Lamb’s “book of life” (see Revelation 3:5).

The inspired Scriptures draw to a close with the vision of our Lord’s return and the restoration of creation. The Author will proclaim, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 21:6a). And for us, the wondrous story will continue.

WE PRAY: Author of life and creation, help me to proclaim aloud Your wondrous story. Amen.

Lutheran Daily Devotional 31st July 2022 was written by Dr. Carol Geisler. It is based on the hymn “Sing Praise to God, the Highest Good,” which is number 819 in the Lutheran Service Book.

Reflection Questions:

1. Can you think of any examples where God has left His writing, so to speak, on creation?

2. What has God done to satisfy our “need for His salvation”?

3. What good works has God created you to do?

Today’s Bible Readings: Psalms 116-118 1 Thessalonians 4

Lutheran Daily Devotional 31st July 2022. Lutheran Hour Ministries is a trusted resource in global media that equips and engages a vibrant volunteer base to passionately proclaim the Gospel to more than 150 million people worldwide each week. Lutheran Daily Devotional 31st July 2022.