https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261105dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – righteousness that is by faith from first to last. Romans 1:17 True Religion According to Google, there are an estimated 4,000 to 10,000 distinct religions in the world. On the surface, they can all seem quite different from each other. When it comes down to it, though, all of them, with one exception, depend to some degree on the person to do the right things at the right time. All these thousands of religions can be lumped together under the category of ‘works righteousness.’ Do the right stuff. Say the right things. Avoid the really bad things. Work your way towards perfection. Keep after it, and eventually you will get where you need to be. Our religion is different. Biblical Christianity says that we cannot possibly do enough to be saved. Our works are not good enough because the standard is perfection. God’s standard for heaven is to be perfect. To be righteous. And this is not a future standard. It is what God requires of us today and every day. Our righteousness does not and cannot save us because it is not a perfect righteousness. In fact, it never will be. Thankfully, someone else does have perfect righteousness. The Bible says that righteousness comes from God, not from us. There is one person who lived a perfectly righteous life for us. God provided righteousness for us through Jesus. He came to this world to do what we could never do. He came to earn our righteousness. He came and lived a perfect life in our place. Through faith in Jesus, we are saved. This is Christianity in a nutshell. We are saved through faith in our perfect Savior who lived and died in our place. So, is your righteousness going to save you, or is Christ’s righteousness going to save you? You can only pick one. Put your trust in your Savior, who was perfect for you. Prayer: Dear Jesus, you are my righteousness. Thank you for being perfect in my place. Help me to place all my trust and confidence in you and what you have done for me. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. 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.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261104dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. Romans 1:16 Salvation is One Hundred Percent Jesus ‘I believe in Jesus, and I am a good person.’ ‘I believe in Jesus, and I have never killed anyone or stolen anything.’ ‘I believe in Jesus, and I give lots of my time and money to various charities.’ Jesus and something else, is a common religion in America today. If you were to ask someone why they think they will make it to heaven the answer is often, ‘I believe in Jesus, and …’ It is easy to think that way. In all areas of life, we are quick to want to add our own contributions. We want to do our part or pay our own way. We want to feel good about ourselves. We want to know whether we carried our own weight or held up our end of the bargain. All this is also true when it comes to getting into heaven. We want to feel like we did everything we could. But there is a problem. ‘Jesus and …’, is not the faith of the Bible or of Christianity. The gospel of salvation is Jesus and only Jesus. We are going to heaven always and only because of what Jesus has done for us. He lived a perfect life in our place and died an innocent death to take away all our sins and rose from the dead to give us eternal life in heaven. That’s it. We cannot add anything to that. It all has been done by Jesus, for us—one hundred percent! This salvation is for all who believe in Jesus—free of charge. Nothing further required. So, when someone asks about why you think you are going to heaven, take yourself out of the equation. Only Jesus saves. Only he can provide the confidence we need that we are saved. Our salvation is one hundred percent Jesus and zero percent us. And we would not want it any other way. Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, my salvation is entirely dependent on you. Help me not to look at my own efforts but to know and believe that you and you alone are my salvation. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. 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.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261103dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. Isaiah 25:9 His Salvation, Not Mine I used to play golf. I wasn’t in a league or anything, but I played frequently enough over the course of the summer to feel like I could call myself a golfer. Truthfully, I wasn’t any good, but I liked to try. Even though my ball ended up more often in the woods than on the fairway, or in the pond instead of on the green, I kept playing. Perhaps because of my poor scores, my favorite format of playing golf is undeniably the scramble. In this type of golf event, each team of four tries to compile the best score to win the tournament. To achieve this score, each golfer tees off on the hole. Then they decide which of the four shots was best, and all four hit their second shots from there. I always liked that style of play because I could use someone else’s shot when mine wasn’t good enough. Getting to heaven is a lot like that. We try hard. We aim to stay on the straight and narrow. But frankly, our best is not good enough. Our thoughts wander into the woods of greed, lust, and pride. Our actions are often so far out of bounds that we would be embarrassed if anyone saw them. Our words often fail to be on par with what is God-pleasing. Thankfully, there is someone else’s life we can use. If life in this sinful world is a scramble, we need someone on our team who can get it right. That someone is Jesus. He always got it right. He never let his thoughts stray into sin, and he always kept his words and actions perfectly in line with God’s Word. Believing in Jesus means we get to use his shot every time. We trust in his life and not ours. His life of perfection enabled him to present a perfect scorecard to his Father in heaven. We rejoice in his salvation because we are unable to achieve it on our own. Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, you are my perfect substitute. Thank you for all that you have done to ensure that I can be with you forever in heaven. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. 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.