What Israel’s story makes painfully obvious is that following the Lord is a lifelong lesson in “I believe, but help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
Faith holds on to the truth of who Jesus is revealed to be, despite our sometimes incongruent experience with God.
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 1-3.

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Recovery helps us see beauty in the ordinary; the miracle and wonder of creation in the oak leaf or the evergreen needle.
Conflict demands resolution, tension demands a balancing act in the face of uncertainties.
How strange and yet how comforting: God prays to God for us, the Spirit to the Father. He sees through the fog of our emotions to what we truly need.
While Lynch might not be everyone’s cup of tea, he certainly paints a world that many of our neighbors can relate to: a strange place governed by inexplicable entities, causes and forces.
The Law though it does many things—restrains, exhorts the Christian unto righteousness, punishes—always rightly accuses and condemns sinners of their sin before a righteous, holy, and just God.
When we say, “I’ve screwed up big time. I’ve betrayed my spouse, my family, my friends. I’ve hurt lots of people,” we don’t need to hear, “Yes, you have. You need to make that right, learn to walk the talk, and act like a Christian next time."
This emphasis in Luther also applied to his understanding of the sacraments, and particularly comes out in his writings on the Lord’s Supper in his Large Catechism.
God's doing for us that gets done is Word and Sacrament stuff. Everything else flows from His speaking to us, baptizing us, bodying and bloodying us. Jesus sees our need.
These studies can expose some very disturbing truths about Christianity in America.
There is a mirror that we Christians look into with daily repentance.
One thing that makes John different than the other three Gospels is the absence of the Lord’s Supper.
When the Holy Spirit is at work in the office of the holy ministry, the man is ridden by the Spirit and so his only concern is for preaching the Gospel, baptizing, absolving, and feeding sinners in the Name of Christ Jesus.