Christ is your Good Shepherd, and he has given to you eternal life; no one can snatch you from his hand; your salvation is secure and unlost.
Instead of offering more details or more information, he does something even better: he promises his very presence.
The danger is not destruction. It is reduction.

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It’s been my experience that All Saints’ Day, celebrated on November 1st and observed on the first Sunday following, gets overshadowed by the celebration of Reformation Day.
On this day, the church remembers all the saints who have gone before us.
My email was once hacked and read, then used to send emails to contacts in my address book.
Have you ever seen a mustard seed? If you have, you know it’s pretty tiny. When deciding how to describe the kingdom to us, Jesus purposely used the smallest known seed at the time.
Consolation is the breath of life filling our lungs, hearts, and minds with the fresh, incorruptible air of the new creation.
I’ve had a lot of nasty things done to me in my 43 years of life. Many of which were done by church people while we were worshipping and serving Jesus together.
The striking truth of this festival is not that the church remembers the saints who have gone before us, even though we rightly chime the bells and speak the names of those who in the past year have flown away (Ps. 90:10). The real joy of this day is that those who have departed are counted together with us as the church and we are counted together with them.
What do Habakkuk and Israel have? Nothing but the word of God. Nothing but the promise of God. Nothing but God himself. They have the vision that Yahweh gives, the words of hope he utters. And that, amazingly, is enough.
We don’t love little because we have little that requires forgiveness.
What do you think of when you hear the term “self-esteem”?
Nobody is going to crash Jesus’ wedding feast. Jesus is throwing the only party in town worth attending, and it’s going to be a celebration.
It’s by no means an ivory-tower theological question. It’s as real as the weight we’ve lost from the stress of our divorce. As real as the bottle of antidepressants on our nightstand. We believe in him. We love him. But every voice inside us and every shred of evidence outside us points to his abandonment of us in our hour of deepest need.