Mark 6:4 Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor."

1. Christians will always struggle with ____________ against God.

2. In the Bible, ____________ means that we are ____________ God's Word.

3. We need to stop ____________ and ____________ God's promise: I ____________ you.

Scripture Readings
Ezekiel 2:1-5
2 Corinthians 12:1-10
Mark 6:1-13

Take It With You!

Here are some further thoughts to help you contemplate and celebrate Christ's Easter victory over sin, death, and the devil!

How may we obtain remission of our sins? Paul answers: "The man who is named Jesus Christ and the Son of God gave himself for our sins." The heavy artillery of these words explodes the papacy, works, merits, superstitions. For if our sins could be removed by our own efforts, what need was there for the Son of God to be given for them? Since Christ was given for our sins it stands to reason that they cannot be put away by our efforts.

This sentence also defines ours sins as great, so great, in fact, that the whole world could not make amends for a single sin. The greatness of the ransom, Christ, the Son of God, indicates this. This vicious character of sin is brought out by the words "who gave himself for our sins." So vicious is sin that only the sacrifice of Christ could atone for sin. When we reflect that the on little word "sin" embraces the whole kingdom of Satan, and that it includes everything that is horrible, we have reason to tremble. But we are careless. We make light of sin. We think by some little work or merit we can dismiss sin.

This passage [Galatians l:4], then, bears out the fact that all men are sold under sin. Sin is an exacting despot who can be vanquished by no created power, but by the sovereign power of Jesus Christ alone.

Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle of Galatians