What does it take to draw near to God? It takes a perfect priest, a finished work, and a broken body to open the way. In short, it takes everything, which is exactly what Christ has given for you.
Christianity need not retreat from investigation. Its central claim is that the Word became flesh, entered history, was crucified, and on the third day rose from the dead. That is not an embarrassment to be overcome. It is the claim we have been given to declare and defend.
Christ remains the epic hero of your life. Watch the glory of his victory on your behalf. Look to him and his strength in your times of trouble.

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The Holy Spirit gathers us together and keeps the church in the true faith, and He does it all by way of the Gospel.
While the Holy Spirit does work within us, He always comes to us from the outside, through the external Word and Sacraments.
Today’s advice for the anxious and worried would have likely horrified Luther.
In the biblical world, having a few extra inches on your waistline was not a reason for dieting but dancing.
My family fills a row of chairs in the sanctuary of our church. I always feel bad for the people who sit around my noisy family. Our pastor loves children and has told me once he struggles to preach on the Sundays when they are all whisked off to Children's Church after the music once a month because the sanctuary is too quiet.
With this declaration of peace, Jesus was telling His disciples, ‘Because I died for you, you are now justified.’
People say only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. But there are other certainties. Like the daily rising and setting of the sun. And like the fact that life itself has its risings and settings as well.
Death is quite the undertaking. To die when one wants desperately to go on living is the most gruesome kind of labor any of us will ever know. It’s painful and bloody and empties our pockets of the fortune we think is ours. But we must do it.
The words “for you” are what deliver burdened hearts into the glorious light of freedom, for they deliver the precious, life-giving cargo of God’s relentless grace to each of us.
The minister’s clothing represents his office of service, derived from the ministry of Christ, and never himself.
Our stories are decidedly unserious when viewed through the lens of the seriousness of God’s affairs. Jesus put the matter succinctly: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Human affairs are not serious in and of themselves. Rather, they are consequential because they garner meaning and significance within the overarching story of God and man.
Forgiveness. Reconciliation. They are beautiful notions until we have some reconciling and forgiving to do. It is easy to say we believe in forgiveness.