February 16, 2024 

Today's Reading: 

Daily Lectionary: Job 12:1-6, 12-25; John 5:30-47

For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. John 5:36

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Jesus gives us so much in those few words: “the works that the Father has given me.”

What does it mean to be Son of the Father? For Jesus, it means to receive all things by way of gift. Jesus, as God the Son, has all power. Is anything outside His grasp? Yet, Jesus considers nothing according to how He can grasp it (see Philippians 2:6-7). Rather, Jesus receives all things as a gift. Before He ascends to Heaven, He tells His eleven Apostles (Judas has not yet been replaced), “all authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28). The word of Gospel Jesus speaks, this, too, is given Him by his Father (John 17:8). 

What does it mean for Jesus to be Son of the Father? It means that from His Father He receives all things not by way of power and grasping, but by way of gift.  

You are a child of the Father—a son or daughter. After all, Jesus gives you to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven …”

You belong to Jesus because you have been given to Him by His Father (see John 17:6). In this way, everything Jesus did to redeem you, to purchase you with His own blood and atone for your sin, to gather you into His Church—He has done it all because it was given Him to do by His Father.

So now, you are a child of the Father. Everything comes to you by way of gift. Our temptation is to think that things come to us by way of our work, by power, by what we can grasp. This is, indeed, the way of the world, which is under the Law. So in our world, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. If you don’t study, you don’t pass. If you don’t take the bull by the horns, you come up empty-handed. That is the way of the Law, and it remains thus in our world until our Lord comes again.

But in our life before the Father, our life of faith, it is all a gift. The Father gives His words to Jesus, Jesus receives the gift. Then Jesus speaks His words to us, and by those words, He makes us children of the Father. You belong to the Father.  In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Father in Heaven, let your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Your will is that your Son’s word go forth to all sinners. Let me daily hear your Son’s word, and let me rejoice in speaking His word Jesus to comfort my fellow Christians and, where you give me opportunity, to bear witness to my neighbor. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

-Pastor Warren Graff is retired from Grace Lutheran Church, Albuquerque.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, Ky.

The Lutheran Reader’s Bible helps you develop a habit of devotion and Bible reading so you can slowly but intentionally understand and grow in God’s Word. Through introductions to the sixty-six books of the Bible, guided reading plans, and more, this Bible builds your confidence to study Scripture on your own.