A rightly-oriented heart and a rightly-oriented love will consistently do what is best for God and best for our neighbor, which is why St. Augustine speaks of sin as a disordered love.
For Bonhoeffer, Christ crucified, and the cross of the Christian life were not of peripheral importance, but foundational.
While we often talk about our growth, our progress, and what we are doing for the kingdom of God, the reality is that any goodness in a Christian does not originate in us.

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Trusting in Christ’s promise of new life and deliverance pours patience and hope into the way we think and the way we experience life.
Repentance means to turn or change your mind. It is not a turn from sin to righteousness. It is a turn from sin to the righteous Son of God who has defeated all sin.
Good Friday encompasses the silence of God, even as it focuses on our salvation in the cross of Christ.
This is not a plea for us to be given the strength to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. It is our helpless cry when boots – straps and all - slip off the edge of temptation’s cliff.
This is an excerpt from Vocation: The Setting for Human Flourishing written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2021). Now available for preorder.
The petition not to be led into temptation is found in just the right place within the seven petitions.
Though envy whispers to us that peace can only be found by “keeping up,” Jesus whispers to us a better word: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”
If we want to see evidence of our Father’s answer to the fifth petition, we need only to look at the cross and the empty tomb.
In Defense of Christian Ritual is now available for purchase from 1517 Publishing
There is joy in Lent, but it is the kind of joy that comes in being made whole.
In schools and on barstools and in delis and where two or three gather, your Savior turns you loose to encounter those who are delightful and loveable.
Even though the horn of plenty on our table is there as the fruit of our labor, that is also a gift of God’s grace