Zion Lutheran Church (LCMS)

A Guide for Daily Prayer and Meditation: Jan 5-12, 2025

Pray and confess out loud as much as you are able or based on your family size and ages. (Alternative orders in LSB pp295-8)

+++

The sign of the cross + may be made by all in remembrance of their baptism.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Hymn of the Month for January LSB 940 Holy God, We Praise Thy Name

One or more verses from the hymn of the month are sung, or another hymn may be chosen.

Verse of the Week: Matthew 2:2

Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.

Daily Lectionary

The Ninth Commandment: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not scheme to get our neighbor’s inheritance or house, or get it in a away which only appears right, but help and be of service to him in keeping it.

The Tenth Commandment:  You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not entice or force away our neighbor’s wife, workers, or animals, or turn them against him, but urge them to stay and do their duty.

The Apostles’ Creed is confessed † Lord’s Prayer † Prayers for Others and Ourselves (see LSB 305-318 for prayers)

In Our Prayers: Those who are suffering:  Shirley Arndt, Dan Drinkman, JoAnn Ehlers, Lois Eichinger, Louis and Mary Gettler, Richard Hanson, Marlys Jones, Pastor Jones, Rick Lahner (Carter’s grandfather), Greg Leland, Missy Lien (Thomas family friend), Lacie Miles (Chrystal’s sister-in-law), Marlene Paulson (Dianne Schroeder’s sister), Kathy Peterson, Doris Post, Arlene Potts, Michael Potts, Mark Radl, Dianne Schroeder, Kara Simmons (Pastor & Susan Thomas’ goddaughter), Leah Sparks (Marty Swearingen’s  sister), Pastor Szedlak, Jeff Thomas, Cookie Ziebarth

Collect for the Epiphany of Our Lord

O God, our Maker and Redeemer, You wonderfully created us and in the incarnation of Your Son yet more wondrously restored our human nature.  Grant that we may ever be alive in Him who made Himself to be like us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Prayer based on the Ninth and Tenth Commandments[1]

Heavenly Father, You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living creature. Cause us to fear and love You above all things, that our hearts would not covet that which You have given to our neighbors. Rather, lead us to trust in Your provision of daily bread, be content with what You provide, and reject every evil scheme or enticement that would secure for ourselves that which You have given to others. Enable us to serve our neighbors by helping them keep and guard all that You have given to them; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Let us bless the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Excerpts from the Large Catechism on the Ninth and Tenth Commandments

-No one should consider or intend to get what belongs to another, such as his wife, servants, house, estate, land, meadows, cattle. He should not take them with a show of right, by a trick, or to his neighbor’s harm. For above, in the Seventh Commandment, the vice is forbidden where one takes for himself the possessions of others or withholds them from his neighbor. A person cannot rightly do these things. But here it is also forbidden for you to alienate anything from your neighbor, even though you could do so with honor in the eyes of the world, so that no one could accuse or blame you as though you had gotten it wrongfully. (393:296) 

-For our natural instinct is that no one wants to see someone else have as much as himself. Each one acquires as much as he can. The other may do as best he can. Yet we pretend to be godly, know how to dress ourselves up most finely, and conceal our base character. We resort to invent tricky ways and deceitful works (like those that are now most ingeniously invented). We act as though these ways were derived from the legal codes. In fact, we even dare properly to refer to the law and boast about it. We will not have this called trickery, but shrewdness and caution. Lawyers and jurists assist in this who twist and stretch the law to suit their cause. They stress words and use them for a trick, despise fairness or their neighbor’s need. (393:297-299)

-This commandment, therefore, is given not for cheaters in the eyes of the world. It is for the most pious, who want to be praised and to be called upright people. (393:300)

-He especially wants us to have a pure heart, although we will never attain to that as long as we live here. So this commandment will remain, like all the rest, one that will constantly accuse us and show how godly we are in God’s sight! (395:310)

Bible Verses for Meditation on the Ninth and Tenth Commandments: 

-Luke 12:15; Matthew 6:25, 33-34; Philippians 1:21

[1] Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. St. Louis: Concordia, 2017.