March 31, 2025

Saved by Grace – Week of March 31, 2025

3 minutes

In that day you will say: I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense, he has become my salvation.

Isaiah 12:1-2

ECME Devotion March 31, 2025

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/ece-devotions/20250331ECME.mp3

See series: ECME Devotions

A four-year-old stood up and addressed the class, “What if we just stopped doing all the wrong things? Then Jesus didn’t have to die!” What a happy thought! If no one ever sinned, if Adam and Eve had never eaten the fruit, Jesus could have been spared from his suffering and death.

That four-year-old’s master plan was immediately shot down by his peers. “It’s too late,” one girl said. And another added sadly, “We already did the wrong things.” And they were right. We already did the wrong things. We can’t undo our sins and we certainly can’t make them go away on our own. We can’t hide them, erase them, or make up for them by doing “good” things.

As believers, we sometimes take sin lightly. We know we are forgiven and sometimes slip into the false notion that “it’s ok, I’ll just repent later.” But God hates sin. Yes, he loves us, but even what we think are “small sins” makes him angry. We deserve eternal life in hell for what we think are “small sins.”

Instead of being angry at us, he turned this anger towards Jesus. Jesus, the only human to ever live a perfect life, received everything that we deserved—God’s wrath and punishment. Jesus spared US from the suffering and death that we deserved.

And there’s more! After God forgives us, he comforts us! We don’t need to be afraid of God or the punishment that we deserve. In fact, God covers us with his grace. Grace is the underserved pardon, a forgiving love, that God gives to us through Jesus.

As the preschooler said, “We already did the wrong things.” But God is our salvation—he has saved us from this big problem of sin! May we daily ask God to help us resist our own sinful ideas and take comfort that we are made new through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for your gift of grace. I know that I have not earned and do not deserve the gift of heaven that you so freely give. Thank you for the comfort and peace that your forgiveness brings and help me to share this with others in my life. Amen.

Early Childhood Ministry Educator’s (ECME) Devotions are brought to you by WELS Commission on Lutheran Schools.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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