American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
The Passover wasn’t just Israel’s story; it’s ours.
God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.

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Fullness, truth, reality – all this God gives us as his gift in Christ.
The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
The nefarious thing about idolatry is that just about anything can become your idol: career, family, fame, wealth, status, spouse, you name it, any good thing can become a ‘god-thing” with ease. 
Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
In Memory of My Friend, James Arne Nestingen
To trust in the Lord, the Messiah, the Deliverer, is our salvation and our only hope. Yet he does not trust us to have this “trust” on our own or of our own will.
If Jesus shows up and you are a sinner, ‘tis more blessed to receive than to give
God is not calling us to “grow up.” He is calling us to dependence.
It is terribly easy to set up our theology as a buffer against the real coming of the Lord and its consequences.
We live again, not so that we will now pay our debt, but to proclaim that we live because our debt was paid!
Weak faith in a strong Christ is still saving faith.
We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.