Luther for the Busy Man

EASTER - WEEK 3 - MONDAY LESSON: PSALM 30:1-5 “A little while, and you will see me no more; again, a little while, and you will see me.” John 16:16 “A little while,” Jesus says, “and you will see me no more.” He is about to be taken captive and put to death on the cross. But this will not be for long. During this “little while” they will certainly be sad. “But cling firmly to Me and follow me,” th...

EASTER - WEEK 3 - SUNDAY LESSON: JOHN 16:16-23 “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” John 16:20 You see here how Christ announces to His disciples that they will become sad because He is about to leave them. They are still quite simple and unlearned, considerably disturbed by what Jesus said wh...

EASTER - WEEK 2 - SATURDAY LESSON: MATTHEW 5:13-16 I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16 The source of all power in Christ’s kingdom rests in God’s Word of truth and salvation. Those who hear that Word and believe it are members of God’s kingdom. Among the members of God’s kingdom, the Wor...

EASTER - WEEK 2 - FRIDAY LESSON: PSALM 23 He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. Ephesians 4:10 You have heard how our Lord Jesus Christ, after His suffering and death, was translated and entered an immortal existence. We must not understand this to mean that Christ is now sitting idly up in heaven and that He is nothing but an object of...

EASTER - WEEK 2 - THURSDAY LESSON: ROMANS 2:19-26 The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John 1:17 You have often heard how God sent a twofold proclamation into the world. The one is to proclaim God’s Word as Law and tell men: “You shall have no other gods before me.…You shall not kill, commit adultery, steal” (Exodus 20:3,13-15). In this proclamation, men also...

EASTER - WEEK 2- WEDNESDAY LESSON: PSALM 85 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Psalm 103:8 In preaching Christ, it should be made quite clear that Christ rejects no one, no matter how weak he may be, but readily accepts everyone. He comforts and strengthens His sheep, like the good shepherd that He always is. If Christ is proclaimed in this way, as H...

EASTER - WEEK 2- TUESDAY LESSON: 1 TIMOTHY 2:1-6 A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench. Isaiah 42:3 Matthew declares that these words of Isaiah were fulfilled in Christ (Matthew 12:20). A bruised reed is a reed very close to breaking point. One who has received a very serious injury or is carrying a very heavy wound—that is, a Christian who is not only weak...

EASTER - WEEK 2 - MONDAY LESSON: LUKE 5:27-32 “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Matthew 9:12 Even though we are weak and sickly, we should still not lose heart and begin to think that we do not belong to the kingdom of Christ. The more we become aware of our infirmities, the closer we should walk with Christ. For it is His office to heal us and to make us we...

EASTER - WEEK 2- SUNDAY LESSON: JOHN 10:11-16 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11 Pastors can never become any more than the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ and the instruments whereby He continues to proclaim His Word visibly here on earth. He permits His Word to go out into public so that all may heart it, but the inward acceptance of the Word...

EASTER - WEEK 1 - SATURDAY LESSON: COLOSSIANS 3:12-17 “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” John 20:22-23 This is a great and powerful authority which no one can adequately praise, bestowed upon poor mortal man and valid over sin, death, hell, and all things. The pope boasts that Christ has given him authority...

EASTER - WEEK 1 -FRIDAY LESSON: EPHESIANS 4:9-16 “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” John 20:21 The most important work of love that any Christian can perform after coming to faith in Christ is to bring others to faith in the way he was brought to faith. In this connection, Christ lays an obligation upon every individual Christian and sets up the office of ministering the external Wor...

EASTER - WEEK 1 - THURSDAY LESSON: 2 CORINTHIANS 2:14-17 I can do all things in him [Christ] who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13 If I really believe from the bottom of my heart that my Lord Jesus Christ, by His resurrection from the dead, has gained the victory over all that can distress me (sin, death, and all evil); that He wants to be close to me and with me so that there is nothing lacking to...

EASTER - WEEK 1  - WEDNESDAY LESSON: ACTS 14:19-22 We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character. Romans 5:3-4 True Christian peace, which calms the heart and brings contentment to the soul, is not necessarily the accompaniment of a time when no misfortune is at hand, but it can come to men in the midst of misfortune, when all without is...

EASTER - WEEK 1 - MONDAY LESSON: ROMANS 10:14-17 “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” Luke 10:16 Christ enters our hearts and takes His stand there through the office of the ministry. Since God has given orders that His Word should be preached, we should never in any manner despise the mortal man in whose mouth that Word has...

EASTER - WEEK 1 - SUNDAY LESSON: JOHN 20:19-31 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” John 20:19 As Christians, we must apply the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ to ourselves individually. It is not enough simply to believe that He rose f...

THE WEEK OF EASTER - SATURDAY LESSON: MATTHEW 27:1-14 In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10 You must learn to look right through the sufferings of Christ and see His friendly heart, how it is filled with love for you, and how it moved Him to assume the heavy load which your conscience and sins laid on Him. In this...

THE WEEK OF EASTER - FRIDAY LESSON: MATTHEW 26:69-75 Jesus our Lord … was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Romans 4:25 You cast your sins from yourself on to Christ when you firmly believe that His wounds and sufferings are your sins, that He bore them and paid for them as Isaiah declared: “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Peter also...

THE WEEK OF EASTER - THURSDAY LESSON: 2 CORINTHIANS 4:13-15 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” John 20:17 In these words of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, as reported in John’s Gospel, Jesus sets forth a very clear explanation of the benefit and profit...

THE WEEK OF EASTER - TUESDAY LESSON: ROMANS 8:14-17 [Let your adorning] … be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. 1 Peter 3:4 The title that we are Christ’s brethren is so exalted that no human heart can really comprehend it. Unless the Holy Spirit confers this grace, no one can say, “Christ is my brother.”...

THE WEEK OF EASTER  - MONDAY LESSON: REVELATION 1:4-8 He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Hebrews 2:11 The fact that Christ receives such abandoned wretches as you and me and calls us brethren is a fact full of all consolation for us. If Christ is our brother, I would like to know what we still lack? The situation in which we find ourselves is very much like that which exists among earthly br...

EASTER DAY - SUNDAY LESSON: MARK 16:1-8 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” Matthew 28:10 Jesus Himself pointed out the benefit of His suffering, death, and resurrection when He said to the women, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” This is the first word that they h...

HOLY WEEK - SATURDAY LESSON: 1 JOHN 5:6-12 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavishe...

HOLY WEEK - GOOD FRIDAY LESSON: 2 CORINTHIANS 5:14, 15 Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. 1 Peter 3:18 Thorns pricked the sacred head of Christ, but you have actually deserved the pricks of more than a hundred thousand thorns. To be sure, you have deserved to be pricked by such thorns in all eternity, and much worse than He was pric...

HOLY WEEK - MAUNDY THURSDAY LESSON: ROMANS 15:1-6 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 Not the least part of love or self-surrender is for me to be able to give away my self-conceit or arrogance. I can no doubt give my neighbor temporal good and bodily service with my painstaking toil. I can also serve him with instruction and intercession, for example, by vi...

HOLY WEEK - WEDNESDAY LESSON: PSALM 19:7-14 They understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them, and they did not grasp what was said. Luke 18:34 What Jesus said to the disciples had no meaning for them at this time. “This saying was hid from them.” This amounts to saying, “Reason, flesh, and blood cannot understand or grasp that Scripture should declare how the Son of Man must be...