The “further up and further in” we go, the table keeps getting bigger, the guest list keeps getting longer, and the grace keeps on flowing.
Christianity does not locate freedom in radical autonomy. It does not tell either men or women that happiness consists in escaping obligations arising from relationships we did not entirely choose.
Jesus never promised me a World Series championship. He never promised that my children would always succeed or that life would go according to plan. He promised something better.

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Just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, so we, through the working of the Holy Spirit, recognize our Lord in the Word and Sacraments.
I trust that because of the gospel, God will continue to mend what I, in my sin, continue to break.
1517 would not exist without the leadership, friendship, and faithfulness of Pastor Ron Hodel.
We worry about the fact our days are as grass – so we try to scratch out a place for ourselves, to make a permanent, lasting place, to climb to higher places and succeed, more often than not, only to hurt each other in the process.
The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.
Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.
God’s gifts, in turn, conform our minds to the mind of Christ, and catechize our imagination in the image of God’s Son.
Both Paul and Martin Luther were Olympic champions when it came to ladder climbing.
God excludes our boasting out of his abundant mercy.
I wanted the devotions of this book to be a source of strength for everyone who has waited all night to see the sun come up again.
Make no mistake, sinners are in fact being pursued by a most hideous beast called sin, death, and the devil, unleashed and striking continuously.
Nothing stands against you. Only Christ stands now, and he is for you, more for you than you could ever know, for you like nothing else that has ever loved you.