September 3

Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High. Psalms 50:14.

Some vows are wrong and must be broken. When monks or nuns vow to be blindly obedient to their superiors, to live in poverty, and to abstain from marriage, their vows are against the Word of God and are not made with a view of showing thankfulness, but of meriting heaven. Also the lodge vows are wrong and must be broken because they are frivolous and are made in uncertain things. But lawful vows should conscientiously be kept.

Now, there is one vow which we all have made and which we are obliged to pay to the Most High — our baptismal vow. In Baptism we have renounced the devil and all his works and all his pomp and promised to serve the Triune God, and Him only. In your infancy Christ received you into His Kingdom of Grace in Holy Baptism and made you His child that you should serve Him forever. But have you always remained with Christ? Countless numbers break their baptismal vow, sever their connection with Christ as they grow up, and deliver themselves to the devil and his works and his pomp, which in Baptism they had renounced. And what does Baptism benefit them if they throw away and cast aside those heavenly treasures which God had given them? What good does it do them? No good; on the contrary, if, having been made God's children in Baptism, they afterwards live like heathen, their sin is all the greater, as our Savior warned the man who was healed at Bethesda: "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more lest a worse thing come upon thee." But, sad to say, many break their baptismal vow and fall away. Even among children, young, unconfirmed children, we sometimes find some who have forgotten their God and waste their lives, serving sin and not their Savior.

Have you forgotten God, or are you on the point of forgetting

Him? Without faith we cannot be God's children nor heirs of salvation. But all who return to Him will be received and not cast out.

Prayer.

Hereby, God Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I return to Thee and renew the covenant of Baptism, this day and for all times renouncing the devil, all his works, and all his pomp, also the ways of the wicked world and of my sinful flesh. To Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I consecrate anew my body and soul and commit to Thee the temporal, spiritual, and eternal welfare of both myself and my kin. Grant me grace, O Lord, always to draw new power and a strengthening of my faith from the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments, and ever to be willing to serve Thee. Amen.

Jesus, Master, whom I serve,

Though so feebly and so ill,

Strengthen hand and heart and nerve

All Thy bidding to fulfil;

Open Thou mine eyes to see

All the work Thou hast for me.