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.
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.
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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The Church, having turned the Gospel into a moral performance, a judgemental system of do's and do-nots, must come to grips with the fact that the culture has moved on.
As I weigh briefly here the advantages and disadvantages of preaching original sin and preaching actual sin, I don’t mean to argue for one and against the other. Instead, I mean to suggest a benefit in focusing a given sermon on one or the other, and that neither type of sermon should be the only type a Christian hears.
The Father knows our needs because he knows everything. This is a comforting thought, but only if He is gracious.
Martin Luther is not–or, at least should not–be the object of our affection.
One area where my theology was completely backward was the Lord's Supper. Growing up I remember that it felt more like the Lord's Funeral.
Here, we read the mystery and majesty of the incarnation of the Son of God wrapped up into a single package
Pain is our birthright, but Jesus’ resurrection is our irrevocable end.
The real problem with the way we talk about Baptism in particular, and the sacraments at all, is that we are simply afraid of letting God’s Word get us.
Indeed, baptism is life because resurrection is life. Nothing short of regeneration—renewal of life—is accomplished by God through sheer grace because of Christ Jesus.
Jesus names what life does not consist of, and in doing so he gets to something near and dear to our hearts as Americans—our possessions.
Everything was perfectly teed up to move the needle on the baptism metric, but I just couldn’t do it. I told her she shouldn't get baptized.
The following is a Question and Answer session with author and pastor Donavon Riley where we talk about his latest book, “Crucifying Religion: How Jesus is the End of Religion”.