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.
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09/02/26
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.
08/28/26
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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05/24/19
For Luther, Jesus does something much better for those who grieve than simply identify with them: He brings suffering and evil to an end in His own death.
05/21/19
Death is quite the undertaking. To die when one wants desperately to go on living is the most gruesome kind of labor any of us will ever know. It’s painful and bloody and empties our pockets of the fortune we think is ours. But we must do it.
05/20/19
The words “for you” are what deliver burdened hearts into the glorious light of freedom, for they deliver the precious, life-giving cargo of God’s relentless grace to each of us.
05/19/19
I know some of us get excited to show that faith and reason are like oil and water, and natural theology is the death of a theologian of the cross. But there’s a bit of nonsense in that. If we teach our people only to suffer (which they will do anyway), and to expect nothing more than suffering, we are sometimes unintentionally teaching them to want less. But Christ is more. His resurrection means there’s more.
05/19/19
When you are not experiencing this kind of tribulation, the promise of “you will” hardly seems comforting. But when you are in the midst of it—when the pressure of this world is bearing down on you—it is comforting to know it has not caught God unawares.
05/17/19
As usual, Luther took what he received and turned it inside-out, so that it shifted from a series of demands and became a bestowal of God’s gracious promise.
05/16/19
The minister’s clothing represents his office of service, derived from the ministry of Christ, and never himself.
05/15/19
We can take comfort in the knowledge that He kills the sinner so we can get a new shot at life and life eternal.
05/14/19
In these two stories - one ending and the other beginning just a day apart - we find many ingredients that are uniquely American. We find grit, determination, and conquest.
05/14/19
Do you remember fairy tales? Tales of magical creatures and far away fantasy lands? They were legends of lore that included dragons, magic, a moral to the story or a hero saving the day.
05/13/19
Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.
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05/13/19
Our stories are decidedly unserious when viewed through the lens of the seriousness of God’s affairs. Jesus put the matter succinctly: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Human affairs are not serious in and of themselves. Rather, they are consequential because they garner meaning and significance within the overarching story of God and man.
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