Handbook, or Short Instruction

judgment with your servant, for before you no living person is righteous. Even if I were as pious and holy as all the prophets, I still would not dare to step before Your Majesty for the sake of my own piety. If I wished to pray on account of my piety, I would be a thief of honor original: "Ehren-Dieb," a person who steals the glory or credit that belongs solely to God and claims it for themselves, stealing from Christ the honor due to Him and attributing it to my own false piety—even though Christ is my piety, holiness, and righteousness (1 Corinthians 1).

Just as it is a great sin for someone to want to pray and be heard based on their own piety or holiness, so too is it a great sin to postpone or neglect prayer because of past sins. For on that side to the right referring to the spiritual temptation of pride and self-righteousness, one becomes a thief of Christ's honor, who is meant to be our holiness. On this side to the left referring to the spiritual temptation of despair and excessive guilt, one becomes like a blasphemer, acting as if Christ’s death had not taken away the sins of the whole world.

Therefore, I say with the holy prophet in Psalm 130:

Though our sins are many, with God there is far more grace; His hand to help has no limit, no matter how great the harm may be. This is a translation of the final stanza of Martin Luther’s hymn "Aus tiefer Not," a poetic paraphrase of Psalm 130

Where sin is powerful, grace is much more powerful (Romans 5). For it is indeed a precious and worthy word, that Christ came into the world for the sake of sin—