The gospel isn’t for the strong but people who know they aren’t.
One great thing about our post-denominational age is that it has opened up opportunities to make common cause with other Lutherans who, despite their differences and eccentricities, can agree on some of the most important things.
Pride builds identities that leave no room for grace.

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“The lack of assurance of one’s standing before God causes a person to do anything to make things right in a vain attempt to gain eternal certitude. ”
To be sure, the devil has an incredible arsenal of assaults with which he can waylay believers into ineptitude and ineffectiveness.
When we imagine we’re living an evil-shunning, virtue-practicing, morally superior Christian life, the problem is not that our halos are too small, but that our heads are too big.
The question at hand was quite short, “Who is Jesus Christ?
The Law gets a bad rap. There is certainly a negative component to the Law. The work of the Law is very different than the work of the Gospel.
The commonly accepted wisdom is that we feel guilt over what we’ve done and we experience shame over who we are. If guilt is the blemish on our face then shame is the cancer in our heart. It’s deeper, harder to dig out.
The reason the U.S. is blessed by God is that we are essentially a “good” nation. And this is the root of Bob’s problem (and that of all civil religion).
I’ve found that most people struggle to agree with God that we are fully forgiven, redeemed and justified by pure grace alone, for the sake of Jesus Christ alone.
Jesus is in the business of proclaiming such a beautiful redundancy.
Hus held that Christ alone grants salvation and that popes do not.
My Grandmother recently lost a long battle with cancer. Her name was Joy, and a name has never been more fitting.
We need a God who can heal us of true guilt and false guilt. We need a Christ who not only removes the shame we feel for what we’ve done, but who washes away the shame that others have smeared upon us.