Justified by God’s grace through the death of Christ and claimed in baptism as His own, we are freed to live for God and serve our neighbor. The questions that naturally arrive in life become how can I serve my God and neighbor in fear and holiness all the days of my life? Then another issue raises it’s head. You served God in the past in various ways according to your station in life. Often you succumbed to temptation. Many fears led you to forget God. Old enemies strive to make you forget God and others, or depend on others and on yourself for help in life’s struggle. That is sin and at the same time we know God’s promises are true. We know that you can begin to fear, love, and trust in God above all things and to love our neighbor as our self. Since God’s promises are true, we know you can do all these things without fear, for God supplies all the necessary strength and forgives all shortcomings.
When we study the short comings we do it in confession and absolution. Asking God for forgiveness and strength to do better, not to gain eternal life, we have that already, but in order to better serve. How do we that?
Luther says, “look to your station in life”. What does that mean? “Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments: Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done any harm?”
Notice that stations in life seem to be specific as to gender. 58 designations for gender are listed today including non-binary folks who want to be addressed with non binary pronouns such as one, ze, sie, hir, co, ey or singular “they”, “their” and “them. So do we need to add all 58 gender designations to the table of duties. Do I have to add calling someone him or her to “hurting someone by word or deed? If I simply refer to everyone as “it”, would that be bad.
Is it any wonder that we all seem to be going insane and that common language is being perverted to nonsense. If words mean things and they do we, are descending into a world of nonsense. We are getting to a point where even trying to identify our place in life is questioned.
