The greatest obstacle to friendship in middle age isn't that nobody wants friends. It's that everyone is waiting for someone else to go first. But here's the good news: Christ has already gone first for you. And because He has, you are free to go first for someone else.
Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything under heaven. But God has also placed eternity in our hearts, and that makes us strange creatures: able to rejoice in this life yet always aching for a life that only Christ can give.
What does it take to draw near to God? It takes a perfect priest, a finished work, and a broken body to open the way. In short, it takes everything, which is exactly what Christ has given for you.

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The term Gospel came to mean a new kind of proclamation so that the Law and the new doctrine [Gospel] are distinguished in such a way that the new doctrine gains primary influence.
Really, once you’ve heard and believed the Gospel, the goal now is to learn more and more about the law of God, so that you can mature into a commandment-keeping, law-loving, obedient disciple of Jesus. Right?
Christ alone has finished your salvation. Christ alone could and has made satisfaction for your sins.
By Philip Melanchthon (from the 1535 Loci Communes), translated by Scott L. Keith, Ph.D.
So what's the back side? What's the promise? We shall not have other gods, but we do have the one, true God—the promise of a God for us.
All other subjects—even Biblical subjects—were subservient to an accurate view of the Person and work of Jesus Christ for sinners.
The pirates spent their lives seeking after the treasure and after finally attaining it, they discover that it was cursed. Instead of satisfying their empty souls, it only intensified their cravings.
The biblical witness is clear: all the so-called gods and lords and idols who are the object of people’s devotion, to whom they offer their sacrifices, to whom they pray, whom they call God and Lord, are sadly nothing but a front for the father of lies.
Have you ever read scripture and been caught by a crippling wave of guilt, shame and fear? Have you sat with your Bible open in front of you and thought, “Well, if this is the case, I might as well pack it in right now, because there’s no hope for me!”
Dan reminded me—in his words, in his patient suffering, through his unwavering faith in Christ, by his confidence in his baptism—that Jesus Christ does not abandon his own. No matter where they are, no matter what they’re going through, He is there.
What if, while we were admitting all these serious infractions of the divine law, our pastor simply yawned?
Last night our family watched Pixar's Inside Out and yes, I'm very late to that Pixar party. I enjoyed the film. The personification of Joy and Sadness was extraordinary.