Luther neither removed the Apocrypha from the Bible nor discouraged its use. Rather, he received and preserved the ancient distinction inherited from the fathers: the Apocrypha is valuable, edifying, and worthy of reading, but it is not Holy Scripture and therefore cannot serve as the foundation of Christian doctrine.
The confessors at Augsburg remind us that every generation of Christians is called to bear witness to the gospel amid the challenges and pressures of its own age. As they confessed Christ before emperors and kingdoms, so the Church continues to confess Him before the world today.
When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.

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For God to shine his face upon us is the same as saying, “Christ Jesus is with us.”
As human beings, we usually think that mercy should have limits; that it should never exceed its confines. This attitude is rooted deeply in the human heart.
In our transactional view of our faith - “If I don’t… then God won’t.” “I need to, so God can” - we are seriously underestimating who we are dealing with.
God makes all things new. He refashions us from those turned in upon ourselves, turned to idols of our own choice and making, to experience the freedom He gives by pronouncing us His righteous children.
My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
Hannah’s story is the story of God’s great reversal.
The proclamation of Christ's coming is for all people, at all times.
Many of us have experienced what it feels like to wait and to remain patient this year. This Advent, we are reminded of how the saints before us experienced similar feelings of uncertainty, need, and hopeful expectation as they awaited - both faithfully and unfaithfully - for God to fulfill his promises.
To a world enslaved to time (because it has no future), the Church's disregard for clocks and calendars is ridiculous.
We are given, so we give thanks, and we give thanks by giving.
Like Luther and like Hannah, we also receive God’s promise.
Jesus desires for us to watch. The question, however, is, “How do we watch for the return of Jesus?”