If you haven't already, I recommend that you buy the Repristination press translation of John Gerhard's 'Sacred Meditations.' It's the best devotional book I've ever read. It is filled with the warm, faithful meditations of one of the classic "rock-ribbed" Lutheran dogmaticians of classic Lutheran orthodoxy. It manages to be pious without becoming pietistic. It is a must read for the serious Christian.
Here is an excerpt:
"When the people would have made Christ a king He fled from them; but when they sought to put Him to a shameful and ignominious death upon the cross, He freely and voluntarily offered Himself. If thou wouldst become more and more conformed to Christ, take more satisfaction in the shame the world heaps upon thee, than in the empty glories it offers to thee. If thou canst not lightly esteem the honors of this world for the sake of Christ, thy Savior, how couldst thou rise to that point of love that thou wouldst pour out thy life for Him? There is no other path to the attainment of true glory with Christ than through a holy contempt for world glory, just as Christ Himself thorugh the ignominy of the cross entered into His glory. Therefore choose rather to be despised, to be lightly esteemed, to be scorned in this world, that thou mayst be honored of God in the world that is to come."
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