God Grant It: Daily Devotions
from C. F. W. Walther
Translated by Gerhard P. Grabenhofer
Compiled by August Crull
This is a translation of the collection of lectionary-based devotions for the entire church taken from Walther's sermons and published by CPH in 1894. The translation aims to retain particular relevance for modern readers. Beginning with the first week of Advent, God Grant It provides a daily devotion for each day in the year, placing particular significance on the church year. Through these classic sermons of Walther, the modern reader will be reminded that God's mercies are new every day, that His mercies are ours by the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Translated into modern English, these readings are intended to encourage the laity, as well as pastors, and affirm them in their daily lives as redeemed children of God. Each devotion is accompanied by a Scripture reference and a hymn verse. The daily devotion will take less than ten minutes to read. Available for order online from CPH and Amazon in print and Kindle editions.
Topical Index for God Grant It [PDF]
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
The voice of C. F. W. Walther is one that needs to be heard today, not because he is a founding father of our Synod, but because he preached nothing but the truths of Scripture. Although written more than 150 years ago, these sermons still apply to us today. We will do well as a Synod to listen to the voice of our founding father, seminary professor and president, and our first synodical president proclaiming the timeless truths of Scripture as we navigate through the twenty-first century, seeking to be a faithful and confessional Lutheran Synod.
Walther, the champion of the congregation and the laypeople, wrote and preached these sermons for laypeople. By reading these devotions daily, the layperson will certainly grow tremendously in the faith. These devotions were translated with the twenty-first century reader in mind. The original lengthy sentences were broken down into the shorter sentences of today. Some rhetorical devices and redundancies were removed or consolidated to have free-flowing modern English. This was done while maintaining accurate content and meaning…
These devotions follow the Church’s historic one-year lectionary, which today is used by only a minority of our congregations. About the only time a great difference occurs between the order of the historic and modern Church Years is in the Epiphany season. The modern Church Year goes directly from Epiphany into Lent. The historic Church Year has a three-week pre-Lenten season that begins three Sundays before Ash Wednesday with the week of Septuagesima. This translation also contains an index of Bible verses used as the text of the devotions and another with verses quoted in the devotions to help the reader study Scripture.
The translator thanks the people of Immanuel Lutheran Church, Copperas Cove, Texas, and of Faith Lutheran Church, Corning, New York, who read some early translations of these devotions in their newsletters or heard them before meetings. Thanks also to Mr. Daniel Fraser for his consistent encouragement to have these devotions published, and to Mrs. Shirley Olinger for her work on the preparation of the manuscript. A very special thanks goes to Mr. Richard Price who spent untold hours typing the manuscript and offered countless, invaluable suggestions to make this translation possible in its current form.
Gerhard Grabenhofer
Corning, New York
15 January 2004
© 2006-07-30 Concordia Publishing House