The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1910, Page 49

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The Lutheran Pioneer. —

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SyNopIcAL ConFERENCE OF Nortrn AMERICA.
R. A. BISCHOFF, Eprror.

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XXXII. ST. LOUIS, MO., JULY, 1910.

‘“‘He First Loved Us.”’

‘Tis not. my love to Thee

That I delight to tell,

But on Thy love, O Christ, to me,
Oh, how I love to dwell!

Lord, help me to believe

Thy wondrous love to me,

Then I in grateful love will give
My life, my all to Thee.

—_--— —_> 0->- --. ---—

A Real Savior.

Christ is a real Savior. Not a sham savior, not
a mere semblance or likeness of a savior, but a real
Savior. And He came into the world to save sin-
ners — real sinners.

Not all men consider themselves real sinners.
There are many that do not consider themselves
sinners at all and do not feel the need of any
Savior. There are others that call themselves sin-
ners, but are sinners in name only. Many a man
says: “All men are sinners, and I know I am a
sinner, but I do not know that I did much wrong.
I have a good heart and have always been honest
and correct.” Such a person does not consider
himself a real sinner. He is a sinner in name only.

. He is a sham sinner, and a sham Savior would suit

him well.

But when a man has by God’s Law come to a
true sense of sin; when he has come to know his
own sinful nature, rotten all through to the core;
when he has come to know and feel his sins as
grievous offenses against the just and holy God, as
transgressions of Goii’s holy Law by which he has

deserved everlasting damnation; when he labors
under his sins as under a heavy burden and cries
out with David: “My iniquities are gone over my
head; as a heavy burden they are too heavy for
me,’”’- Ps. 388 —then he will know himself to be a
real sinner and will feel his sins as real sins.
A real Savior only can do such a sinner good. In
a real Savior only will he find peace and comfort.

When Martin Luther was still in the darkness
and bondage of popery and did not yet know the
Gospel of Christ, he one day was in great distress
of soul, complaining under a bitter sense of sin:
“OQ my sin, my sin, my sin!” His friend Staupitz
comforted him by telling him, “Christ is the for-
giveness for real sins. He is a real Savior, and you
are a real sinner. God has sent His own Son and
delivered Him up for us.”

Yes, Christ is a real Savior, come into the world
to save real sinners. If you are a real sinner, you
should rejoice that a real Savior has come for your
salvation. He was delivered up as a real sacrifice
for us. He made a real atonement for real sins.
It is a real Savior that comes to us in‘the Gospel.
In Him we truly have forgiveness of sins, life, and
salvation. ; ‘

How. gladly we should help to make known the
glad tidings of Christ, the real Savior! How ear-
nestly we should pray the Lord to open men’s ears
and hearts that those who hear the glad tidings
may accept this Savior who has come to save them!

Have Farrn 1x Gop. — “Take, therefore, no
thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof,” Matt. 6, 34.