We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

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The following is adapted from Called to Defend written by Valerie Locklair (1517 Publishing, 2017).
True preaching arises when the Holy Spirit steeps the proclaimer in its own cycle of judgment and mercy.
Early in the church’s life, some Christians were dragged before the city authorities in Thessalonica and accused of “turning the world upside down,” (Acts 17:6). They were guilty as charged. They were turning the world upside down. Or, rather, they were putting the world right side up.
This is the sixth installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 11 and 12 by Caleb Keith.
Sehnsucht can echo the truth, but only Scripture reveals the God who experiences it.
Did Jesus ever marry? Yes, He married you!
Christians have long enjoyed an absurd love affair with white-washing biblical saints.
Prechers translate as a calling. Called by God, they are given a message, and for most of their hearers it is to one degree or another a message in a language from afar, with strange concepts, sometimes with a more familiar ring, sometimes with a strange sound.
The following is an excerpt from A Path Strewn with Sinners: A Devotional Study of Mark’s Gospel and His Race to the Cross written by Wade Johnston (1517 Publishing, 2017).
Whatever loss you’ve undergone, whatever grief resides in the hollow of your heart, however much it seems like God has abandoned you, God sees that void as the place he wants to fill with new life and mercy.
Don’t say you’re beyond hope, for there is not one beyond God. Don’t say you’ve done too much evil, for there is no wrong bigger than God’s heart of forgiveness.
The Confessions instead look forward and provide a critique of the world and of all my various religions and idolatries.