Jesus dove into the waters of baptism, plunging into our deepest need to rescue us.
Alligood is at pains to stress that glorification is not the result of our own efforts any more than sanctification or justification.
Forgiveness from Jesus is always surprising to us.

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The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw" written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
Even when God doesn’t take away the troubled waters of our life, he is the Bridge we can lean on no matter what storms may come our way.
The following is an excerpt from “A Year of Grace: Collected Sermons of Advent through Pentecost” written by Bo Giertz and translated by Bror Erickson (1517 Publishing, 2019).
We sing, and in so doing, we are blessed as we are instilled with the word of God in word and song.
Sometimes believers vigorously debate God, sometimes they nod a silent Amen. Together, their narratives paint a picture of a life of faith characterized by complexity and tension.
One moment, we pray for our rescue from sin and death. The next moment, we beg our Father to do unto others what we hope he will never do to us.
We preach, teach and confess the virgin birth, and rightly so, but the actual sign is not the Virgin giving birth, it is the Child who is born.
The Church becomes anti-church when the new world order Christ inaugurated by eliminating demographic division through the commonality of Baptism is exploded by allegiance to cults of personality.
This is the wonder which is present in the calling of the disciples. Not how they drop their nets to follow Jesus, but that Jesus does not need to go far to find disciples. He chooses the people He lives among.
Indeed, the law said, “You shall love the Lord your God,” but the law cannot give me such love, nor can it take my hand to grasp on to Christ.
What then does this sequence of stories teach us? It teaches us a pertinent lesson about the Christian life.
Have you ever felt haunted by fear, shame, and guilt? Have you ever worried that Jesus couldn't love you anymore? I have.