He doesn’t consume us, even though that is what we deserve. Instead, Jesus comes down to us and consumes all our sin by taking it on himself.
This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335

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Imagine a world in which it is always winter but never Christmas. Imagine a place where Deep Magic from the dawn of time requires the blood of the innocent be shed to save the guilty.
Today I have a hankering to talk about beavers. Who doesn’t love beavers? The binomial nomenclature reads Castor canadensis.
Whatever numbers you want to plug in, ours must be greater than zero. We’re in a partnership with God, after all. We both do our part. We’ve got to meet the Lord halfway. If only he does all the giving, and we do all the receiving, the relationship is doomed to fail.
Some consider apologetics, with its emphasis on rational arguments and empirical evidence, a distinctly “modern” enterprise. Thus, however legitimate or useful it might once have been, now that we have taken an allegedly “postmodern” turn.
Who are we, really, but a bag of blood and bones, in which are mixed in bittersweet memories and the shards of shattered dreams and broken hearts?
I pray Thy name be hallowed, Lord, But want my name to be adored.
In an American evangelical landscape that emphasizes the importance of an individual’s personal decision to follow Jesus—as if that were the basis for God’s grace towards a man or woman—Lutherans and Reformed Christians insist that justification before God is based solely on Jesus’ work, two millennia ago.
You think the sower sowed his seed in you because he saw such good soil, such a good, generous, noble person.
Huxley, Dawkins, Hodge, and Plantinga characteristically illustrate Ian Barbour’s conflict model. The idea is that the universe is not big enough for the likes of science and religion to coexist. The conflict proponent, whether pro-science or pro-religion, adopts an attitude of total domination.
Paul is on a roll. He's adding up all the things that can separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ. And the total? Nothing, zilch, zero.
Have we made Christianity too easy? No, God has made Christianity “too easy” because He has made it pure gift.
There is hope and healing for you in Jesus Christ, the God who immersed Himself so deeply in our sufferings that He, too, wept over the death of a dear friend.