Thursday, November 22, 2007
I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
THANKSGIVING WORDS
From Martin Luther's "Large Catechism," the first article of the Apostles' Creed
Someone might ask, "What sort of person is God? What does He do? How can one praise or picture or describe Him in a way that will really let people know Him? What do you know about Him?"
You could say: "First, my God is the Father who made heaven and earth. I take nothing and no one else as God except Him alone, for there simply is no one else who could have made heaven and earth."
What do you mean by those words?
Answer: "What I mean to say and what I believe is that I am a creation of God, that is, He gave me and continuously preserves for me my body, soul, and life, my bodily members great and small, all my senses my reason and intellect, and so on, also food and drink, clothing, livelihood, wife and child, servants, house and home, etc." Besides this He causes the necessities and comforts of life to be provided for me by everything in creation -- the sun, the moon, the stars in the sky, day and night, air, fire, water, the earth and all that it can produce, birds, fish, animals, grains and all manner of produce. He also gives whatever other physical and temporal blessings there may be, such as good government, peace, security."
It follows self-evidently that, since everything that we possess as well as everything else in heaven and on earth is daily given, sustained, and preserved by God, therefore we in turn certainly owe it to Him to love, praise, and thank Him without ceasing and, in short, to serve Him wholly and completely, as He requires and enjoins us to do in the Ten Commandments.
