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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Nuance and subtlety have been replaced with scorched-earth contempt. It is us versus them. Compromise is not an option. Jesus, however, would have none of it.
This week, we are grateful to publish a series of sermons from our beloved late Chaplain, Ron Hodel. This is the fifth installment of that series.
God has a plan for this world that he put into place from eternity, a plan that is carried out in Jesus Christ and promises unimaginably great blessings for believers.
Jesus comes to people and changes everything. “Before” is long gone. “After” is a whole new world.
For Japan’s highly secularized elite, alienated by collapsing opportunity and the materialistic void left behind, Bach’s music was a balm.
As astounding as co-eternity and co-equality with the Father in majesty and glory is, this is not the most significant answer Jesus gave in this Gospel reading, not for us at least.
Celebrate the 4th Year of the 1517 Podcast Network with a Special Gift.
Pentecost is a flashback. It drives us back to the past. It also propels us forward into the future.
1517 would not exist without the leadership, friendship, and faithfulness of Pastor Ron Hodel.
There is someone outside of I, someone outside of you, that our faith and hope is in.
So, we pray. Not just in times of need, but we pray at all times. Because this is part of what it means to be saved.
Jesus opens for us a way to walk through suffering and to sing our song of salvation as we talk to our heavenly Father.