The way of the cross is the actual way of victory. Jesus absorbs the worst of what humanity and even the devil can do to him, and he spurns the shame of it all.
The IRS says churches can endorse candidates from the pulpit. But just because they can doesn’t mean they should.
Chapter 3 of Habakkuk, which is often referred to as “the Psalm of Habakkuk,” is a song of catharsis, relief, faith, and profound emotion.

All Articles

The following conversation occurred between one of 1517's readers/listeners and Dr. Rosenbladt via email in February of 2016.
“Why now,” I said to no one, or to myself, or to God. Whoever. I was drunk, strung out, mostly dead, hopeless in the darkness. I knew I’d done it all to myself. I didn’t need God to drive the point home.
If there’s going to be a celebration, why not celebrate fidelity, obedience, hard work?
We spend the first nine months of our lives in utter darkness. There are no tiny fluorescent bulbs beaming from the ceiling of the womb, no fetal flashlights, not even a pinprick of illumination.
I was excited and eager to start my journey. I was driving from NYC to Florida to attend the Christ Hold Fast Conference in Orlando, meet some dear friends, and make some new ones.
For many, there are days when they’re as excited about going to work on Sunday morning as you are about going to work on Monday morning.
Cindy’s tragedy was that she was blind to the Christ from whom all her good gifts came.
We hang on to our sins not despite the fact that they hurt, but precisely because they do hurt. We need to hurt, to fret over them, to cry over them, to make amends over them, because by doing so, we will grease the wheels of God’s forgiveness.
Christ alone has finished your salvation. Christ alone could and has made satisfaction for your sins.
I looked up at the cross and saw what God had become to bring me home. He had become what I was.
Our faith is not a mountain but a grain of sand, not pure gold but gilded plaster. And all it takes is a few nicks and scratches to reveal its shallowness.
What is really good for the soul is not so much confession as absolution. If confession is us telling the truth about ourselves to God, then absolution is God telling us a truer truth about ourselves.