Since joining SparkPeople 35 days ago, I've lost around 25 pounds. I've mostly been watching my caloric intake (not to mention working very hard to make sure that I get 64 oz. of water every day), and I am planning to more seriously focus on the exercise portion of my fitness plan (starting with something simple like going for a walk every day).

I'm the Team Leader for two different teams, "Quick Oats" (guess what I'm trying to find a tasty way to eat...) and "Lutherans" (so far, there are five of us). I'm also walking a "Virtual 5K" on Palm Sunday.

If you'd like to join, it's easy and free. (If you say that spark_father referred you, I get SparkPoints!) :) Maybe you would like to try a:

Free Calorie Counter at SparkPeople.com

Thoughts on Mission

Pastor Weedon offers a good post entitled "Confusing the how with the what". It reminds me of the song "I love to tell the story" that never actually tells the story... Check out Weedon's post. It's well worth your time.

Sparkpeople

My wife (among others) will be very pleased to learn that I have joined her in the online health/diet/fitness program at Sparkpeople.com. Check it out at the link below. If you tell them that "spark_father" referred you, I get sparkpoints.



Get a Free Online Diet

I almost forgot: I get points if I tell you that (1) I'm not going to eat in front of the tv; (2) I'm going to get 10 minutes of cardio exercise; (3) I'm going to tell 1 person about my goals. There. Done.

Good Works are Necessary

(Article VI.)

#7 in the series:
What implications or applications may be drawn

from a quia subscription to the Book of Concord?

Good works are indeed necessary. The faith (about which the previous articles spoke) is the kind of faith that "must bring forth good fruits and good works", on account of this faith "we must do all manner of good works". Why? What sort of good works are we talking about? They are the necessary good works that are required and commanded by God.

Article VI. is quick to note what kind of necessity this is. These good works are in no way required or commanded by God as necessary for meriting salvation. These good works should by no means give someone the impression that he is "meriting favor" before God. (The good work that merited God's favor for us was done by Someone else.) The good works spoken about in Article VI. are necessary for a different purpose (than earning salvation) altogether.

So what are these good works with which God is well pleased? What are these things that God has commanded, that He wants His Christians (of necessity) to do?

**Update** Once again, I'd like to direct you to the excellent post and discussion taking place on this topic at Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions: Roundtable 7: The New Obedience.

Roundtable 6 is up at the Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions blog, and the topic is Article V. It is an excellent post, and the comments are equally worth reading. My favorite part of their post:

But how does one receive such faith? Faith does not concern itself with “finding Jesus” by somehow traveling backward through time to the historical event of Jesus’ crucifixion. Salvation was achieved on the cross at Calvary, but it was not delivered there. The “instruments” extolled in AC V (Word and Sacraments) deliver salvation, but do not accomplish it.

When a theologian is asked to yield and make concessions in order that peace may at last be established in the Church, but refuses to do so even in a single point of doctrine, such an action looks to human reason like intolerable stubbornness, yea, like downright malice. That is the reason why such theologians are loved and praised by few men during their lifetime. Most men rather revile them as disturbers of the peace, yea, as destroyers of the kingdom of God. They are regarded as men worthy of contempt. But in the end it becomes manifest that this very determined, inexorable tenacity in clinging to the pure teaching of the divine Word by no means tears down the Church; on the contrary, it is just this which, in the midst of greatest dissension, builds up the Church and ultimately brings about genuine peace.

from the Fourth Evening Lecture of C.F.W. Walther, translated by W. H. T Dau in The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1929, 1986; page 28.

The Kurt Marquart Fund for Theological Education in Haiti was recently announced. Initiated by the CTSFW class of 2007, information on the fund may be found by going here.