“O Father, it is indeed true that we cannot be strong by our own power.  How can we stand before your might if you do not strengthen and comfort us?  Therefore, dear Father,  embrace us, accomplish your will in us, that we may be your kingdom to your praise and glory.  But, dear Father, strengthen us in this life with your holy word.  Give us our daily bread.  Establish in our hearts your dear son Jesus Christ who is the true bread of heaven.”

From:  Luther’s Prayers, ed., Herbert F. Brokering.

Martin Luther’s prayers emphasize the fact that the Gospel is for us.  This can be seen in a nice anthology edited by Herbert F.  Brokering, Luther’s Prayers.  Over and over again, Luther prays to God – help us, hear us, guide us, teach us, convince us, assure us, guard us, protect us, defend us, grant us, inspire us….  Over the next few weeks we will be posting some excerpts from this book.

The Fourth Commandment:  “You shall honour your mother and father.”

“…children forget their parents, as we all forget God, and no one takes thought how God feeds, guards, and protects us and how many blessings of body and soul he bestows upon us.  Especially when an evil hour comes do we rage and grumble impatiently and forget all the blessings we have received throughout our life.  Just so we act toward our parents, and there is no child that recognizes this, unless he led to it by the Holy Spirit.”

The Third Commandment:  “You shall sanctify the holy Day.”

“Note, then, the power and force of this commandment consist not of the resting but of the sanctifying, so that this day should have its own particular holy work.  Other trades and occupations are not properly called holy work unless the doer himself is made holy.  But here a work must be performed by which the doer himself is made holy; this, as we have heard, takes place only through God’s Word.”

The Second Commandment:  “You shall not take the name of God in vain.”

“For to lie and deceive is in itself a gross sin, but it is greatly aggravated when we attempt to justify and confirm it by invoking God’s name and using it to cover our shame.  So from a single sin a double one results – indeed, manifold lies.”

The First Commandment:  “You shall have no other gods before me.”

“To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart….To have God, you see, does not mean to lay hands upon him, or put him into a purse, or shut him up in a chest.  We lay hold of him when our heart embraces him and clings to him.  To cling to him with all our heart is nothing else than to entrust ourselves to him completely.”