Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?

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The Son of Eve disarmed Satan’s hold on humanity, not with an earthquake, atomic bomb, or brilliant essay, but with his dead body and final words, “It is finished.”
We long for the Great Thanksgiving that hasn’t happened yet.
When we ask ourselves, "My God, how did I get so lost," he answers, "I am the God who comes to seek and save the lost in the power of my resurrection.
In many ways [this text] brings to mind Judgement Day and the separation of the sheep from the goats when Christ the King comes to take His treasured possession home to be with Him in the courts of everlasting life.
The epistle text from Colossians 1 declares how the great drama of redemption and human history ends.
It is in the midst of a world marked by empty and deceptive hopes that have broken hearts and lives that we are sent to deliver the promise of a future that has as its last chapter the resurrection of the body to eternal life with the Lamb who was slain but is alive forevermore.
Through the means of grace, Christ grants us a share in all the blessings of this ancient hope.
We were lost. We didn’t know where we were going or which way to turn. We had been driving around in circles for hours with nothing to show for it. And now we weren’t sure how to find our way home - and losing hope by the minute.
If the resurrection were just a repetition of this world, then it would be ridiculous, indeed. But the resurrection is different. It is a world without death.
The devil knows our name and labels us by our sin. The devil breathes out death as he names us for what we are, sinners.
So long as we entrust death to Jesus, new life is ours. He has lunch ready and he is waiting for us in the power of his resurrection.
We expect the world to shoot its wounded. But not even the world expects Christians to shoot their wounded.