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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For God to shine his face upon us is the same as saying, “Christ Jesus is with us.”
In our transactional view of our faith - “If I don’t… then God won’t.” “I need to, so God can” - we are seriously underestimating who we are dealing with.
My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
Fred Rogers did not teach children how to live through a pandemic, but he had many profound things to say about loving our neighbors and finding our identity in that calling.
Hannah’s story is the story of God’s great reversal.
Many of us have experienced what it feels like to wait and to remain patient this year. This Advent, we are reminded of how the saints before us experienced similar feelings of uncertainty, need, and hopeful expectation as they awaited - both faithfully and unfaithfully - for God to fulfill his promises.
God’s love does not have an off switch. You cannot earn it or deserve it. And your thankfulness for it will not determine if you get it or not.
Like Luther and like Hannah, we also receive God’s promise.
Life will not go as planned nor as we would hope, but "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
If you get out your red-letter bible and just read the red letters, as I did today, you're in for a shock. When you read just his words, Jesus seems harsh and pretty ticked off most of the time!
Love continues to gently but endlessly pursue the narrator, despite his persistence in pulling away in the opposite direction.
Although theirs is an impressive show of faith, the display of God’s faithfulness to them is far greater. After all, faith is only as strong as the object in which it is placed.