He doesn’t consume us, even though that is what we deserve. Instead, Jesus comes down to us and consumes all our sin by taking it on himself.
This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335

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What comes to us at Christmas is not a great seasonal bargain to enhance our happy holidays. It is the priceless gift of God’s Son.
We aggrandize time. It certainly possesses power over us. It irreversibly moves us in one direction and can’t be replayed to different ends.
Blessedness comes to us camouflaged as simple earthly words, water, bread and wine.
Christ rose from the grave so that the eternal Light of Christ would be your forever identity.
God graciously bursts our foolish plots by coming our way, into our very flesh, and being God with us.
I’m going to begin at the beginning. But which one? Birth? Kindergarten? My first drink? The first time I had sex?
We are all sojourners in a perilous cosmos, what is sometimes conceptualized as the theology of the pilgrim.
Even “our faith” is a gift from God’s fatherly hand. Our performance, desire, and perseverance do not factor into God’s will for us.
Jesus loves His church. He cleans her up. He takes her as His own. And He leads her.
Our little congregation is part of a much larger church—the body of Christ, both here on earth as well as in heaven. And that church worships 24/7, never ceasing in its adoration of Jesus our Savior.
“Christ is pretty ok doing all the redeeming that needs doing Himself—and He has redeemed you, and redeemed me.
Above all, Luther understood the importance of the Biblical narrative as the story of God’s love and man’s salvation revealed in Christ Crucified.