Bible Readings and Devotion for October 29, 2020
Here are the references for the readings. Please look these up in your print Bible, your smartphone app Bible, or your online Bible:
Devotion for October 29, 2020
By Pastor David Tinker
In Psalm 147:7 we read, “Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre.” Giving thanks to God is an essential part of our relationship with the Lord. It is our entry point and our daily way of living. It is how we remember who provides all we truly need. Giving thanks to God is how we make it through each day, especially when all else seems lost.
There is a great hymn of the church called, “Now Thank We All Our God.” It was written by a pastor named Martin Rinkart. Here is the story of this hymn and Pastor Rinkart’s ministry:
“German pastor Martin Rinkhart served in the walled town of Eilenburg during the horrors of the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648. Eilenburg became an overcrowded refuge for the surrounding area. The fugitives suffered from epidemic and famine. At the beginning of 1637, the year of the Great Pestilence, there were four ministers in Eilenburg. But one abandoned his post for healthier areas and could not be persuaded to return. Pastor Rinkart officiated at the funerals of the other two.
As the only pastor left, he often conducted services for as many as 40 to 50 persons a day–some 4,480 in all. In May of that year, his own wife died. By the end of the year, the refugees had to be buried in trenches without services.
Yet, while living in a world dominated by death, Rinkart wrote this timeless prayer of thanksgiving for his children.”
(Adapted from an account written by Deacon Greg Kandra)
Prayer
As a way of giving thanks today, and any day, here is this powerfully hymn. Ponder these words as these relate to Pastor Rinkhart and to your own life with Christ.
Now thank we all our God,
with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things hath done,
in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mother’s arms
hath blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.
.
O may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us,
with ever-joyful hearts
and blessed peace to cheer us;
and keep us in his grace,
and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ills
in this world and the next.
.
All praise and thanks to God
the Father now be given,
the Son, and Holy Ghost,
supreme in highest heaven,
the one eternal God,
whom earth and heaven adore;
for thus it was, is now,
and shall be evermore.
Amen
Special notes on this hymn:
- First stanza – a general expression of gratitude to God for His “countless gifts of Love.”
- Second stanza – a petition for Rinkart’s own personal hardships, “Guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills…”
- Third stanza – a grand doxology of praise to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – “the one eternal God.”
Martin Luther Lutheran Church 