When we consider our own end, it will not bring us into a final wrestling match with the messenger of God, but into the embrace of the Messiah of God.
What do such callings look like? They are ordinary and everyday.
This is the third in a series meant to let the Christian tradition speak for itself, the way it has carried Christians through long winters, confusion, and joy for centuries.

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Christianity is about forgiveness for the sake of Christ. Yet often, we who have been forgiven much are sitting around expecting much from others.
We must put away a whitewashed Christianity that says that God simply forgives because He is nice, kind, loving, gentle, etc. That is not how forgiveness works.
Long ago, the people of Israel began to sing words of encouragement to each other in times of distress. In their songs, the psalms, are three Hebrew words that provide stability for us. They are more than just words—each one encapsulates the way of God with his people. They serve as helpful handholds in times of stress and upheaval. The words are these: רָפָה (be still), קָוָה (wait), and שָׁמַר (watch).
This petition is proof that the Christian life is not a practice in perfectionism. Rather, it is a life of dying and rising, lived under the cross of Christ, in the continual forgiveness of our sins.
The primary point of Joseph’s life (and every story in Scripture) is to point us to Christ. To tell us something about what God is like and how He interacts with His Creation.
Christ has forgiven you, and all of your worship, all of your prayers, all of your offerings are accepted because they are built on the foundation of Christ’s forgiveness.
We all share a common hope. The same hope that converted Augustine, drove Martin Luther out of the monastery and calls horrible sinners to new life every day.
In our search for absolution, human beings leave no stone unturned. We’re desperate to have our uneasy consciences soothed.
What then does this sequence of stories teach us? It teaches us a pertinent lesson about the Christian life.
Have you ever felt haunted by fear, shame, and guilt? Have you ever worried that Jesus couldn't love you anymore? I have.
If someone confesses their sins into my ears, I have no options but to forgive them in the name of Christ.
It is in the midst of a world marked by empty and deceptive hopes that have broken hearts and lives that we are sent to deliver the promise of a future that has as its last chapter the resurrection of the body to eternal life with the Lamb who was slain but is alive forevermore.