One might say that the first statement of the Reformation was that a saint never stops repenting.
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).

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He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters, even as we curse and yell at him for not pleasing us with our pettish wishes.
It is one thing to pray against death’s slow and aggressive assault on God’s creation. It is another to trust in the one who has conquered the grave.
The Earth itself, into which the blood of Christ seeped, will be redeemed and renewed, just like our spirits in Holy Baptism, just like our bodies on the day of the resurrection.
We have seen a vision better than an angel. We have seen God on the cross. A God who is willing to suffer for us.
Love is to be the interpreter of law. Where there is no love, these things are meaningless, and law begins to do harm.
Our passage from Romans steers us between these two dangerous misconceptions: The mythical monster Scylla of believing the body to be evil on the one shore, and the beast Charybdis of believing the body constitutes all there is on the other.
Ever since the tragedy of the Garden, God’s plan of redemption has been in motion. His movement upon this world has never ceased, and it never will.
When we are hurt, we cry out to God. But sometimes when the hurt gets really intense, our lament turns to complaint. Not only is this normal, but almost every lament in scripture contains a complaint.
Comfort is not a platitude; it is a promise. A promise from our God who left his place of glory and died a sinner’s death for poor sinners.
That is why we dance on graves. That is why we smile in the midst of sorrowful tears. That is why we retell old stories and share humorous memories.
When it comes to God’s word, our help only obscures his power and grace.
If the world could have been saved by bookkeeping, it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus. The law was just fine.