• Achieving Virtue

  Contributed by Michael Walther on Jul 4, 2011 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  None

  Tags:  Sanctification

  Denomination: Lutheran

ACHIEVING VIRTUE

The word "virtue" is taken from the Latin word virtus and actually means "strength" or "manliness." So you see that the real strength of this life is found by successfully winning the inner war of faith. It is because of weakness that we are ruled by passions and controlled by sin.

But God has called us out of this. He has called us to virtue through the victory of Christ on the cross and empty tomb. "For we are not called to ease," Luther wrote in his lecture on Romans chapter seven, "but to struggle against our passions. But only to those who manfully struggle and fight against their faults, invoking the grace of God, does God not impute sin." "Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord." Amen.