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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It was happening again. I sat across from my dear friend at one of our favorite restaurants. We were finishing our glass of wine and eating the end of the sushi when the waitress approached.
I’ve come to realize at the tender age of 47 that sometimes church doesn’t work.
I was angry at heaven, at earth, and everything in between, for my life and my love and my hopes had all gone wrong, terribly, irreversibly, wrong.
I was asked to write one on Hebrews 4:14-16, to be read on Thursday, February 20. Among the finds that Luke and I discovered this weekend was that meditation.
But there’s more to this movie than excellent Lego graphics and artistic; in other words, imaginative storytelling.
The wine of communion is a gift from God and the blood of Christ we receive at the rail an inebriant that encourages and frees us.
An understanding and appreciation of the goodness (and given-ness) of place and family, and the vocations attending each, can of course be taught and learned in a classroom or by means of a book.
Waits wants to pen the songs with beautiful melodies and lyrics dark as sin. Whatever his church background, he sings “the big print giveth, and the small print taketh away."
A couple of weeks ago I ordered pizza for dinner. I didn’t pray, “Lord, give me pizza.” I called the store. The pizza did not drop down from heaven at my doorstep like manna from heaven.
I am lord of all I eat. I lord it over meat, potatoes, pecan pie. I make those foods serve my body, transforming them into me. But it is not so with the meal of Jesus.
For all our best efforts—political and evangelistic—our approach should always be through the Theology of the Cross. Our gardens are still bloody, but the blood of the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world will one day restore peace to our gardens.
The concept of Theology as science is foreign to our ‘enlightened’ century where the subject has been removed to the Liberal Arts category.