The confessors at Augsburg remind us that every generation of Christians is called to bear witness to the gospel amid the challenges and pressures of its own age. As they confessed Christ before emperors and kingdoms, so the Church continues to confess Him before the world today.
When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.
The life we are trying to manage, improve, and secure is not something to be mastered. It is something to be surrendered. And this is where everything changes. Because in Christ, the approval we are seeking has already been spoken.

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Our Lord has told us not to make these fine distinctions in grades of sin.
God the Father Almighty is good. And He must be good in ways that surpass my earthly father.
People lamented that ancient paganism was dead, but the same people who profess that they would love an old pagan feast ignore Christmas, where the best of paganism has survived.
If there was a proclamation of grace, it was an afterthought, given in the sense of “just in case anyone needs this.”
(This article first appeared in Modern Reformation and is posted here with permission.)
King has some kind of belief in God, but was probably under no inner compulsion to do anything we would term evangelism.
Mutual Conversation and Consolation of the Brethren V — Some Examples from Rod Rosenbladt
This summer, I made my first trip to Europe since 1984. One of the things I signed up to do was a food tour of the Marais District of Paris. My guide Catherine took us on a circuit through a small area of a neighborhood showing us the best in many food categories.
"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." This should therefore be our starting place for understanding the basis of the doctrine.
We have to trust that there is value in these conversations. They are not valuable only when they can be counted as a program. And what are most programs but attempts to get us to “act like” Christians at some future point of time?
As with many teachings, the Lutheran teaching on Mutual Conversation and Consolation of the Brethren fits in with other teachings. The various teachings don’t stand alone, but they fit together as an organic whole.
One of the strongest elements in the evangelicalism of my youth has a place in Lutheranism that might be surprising to many. This is what our confessions call “The Mutual Conversation and Consolation of the Brethren."