Believe and Be Joyful

I believed, even when I spoke: "I am greatly afflicted."
PSALM 116:10
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Believe and Be Joyful
But if you believe, then it is impossible that your heart will not laugh for joy in God, and become free, sure, and courageous. . .. Therefore, your love breaks forth and does for everyone whatever it can, preaches and proclaims the truth wherever it can, and rejects everything which is not preached or lived according to this doctrine. Then the devil and the world cannot hear or see such things, and do not want what they do to be rejected by you. They will hang around your neck everything great, learned, rich, and powerful, and make you into a heretic and a madman. Then, just like your Lord Christ, you will come to the cross for the sake of the truth; you must be reviled in the worst way possible, and put in danger your body, life, property, honor, friends, and everything, until they drive you away from them out of this life into eternal life. Still you must rejoice in all of this, gladly endure everything and regard it as good, and once again be good to them, always remembering that you were before as they are now in the sight of God. Such faith and love certainly does this. That is a truly Christian life, which does for others as God has done for him.

From the Church Postil, sermon for the Second Day of Christmas on Titus 3:4-8 (Luther's Works 75:233-34)
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