God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.
Salvation is not merely to be put in “safety” but to be put into Christ.
Bringing your family to church to receive “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) in Word and Sacrament honors and pleases God.

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There is truly only one commandment and only one sin. That one commandment is “You shall have no other gods,” and that one sin is idolatry.
But I remember that that’s how it ended. Words. Wine. Blood. A sudden halt to the conversation.
Behold the seemingly foolish ways of our wise God. He bids us embrace what appears impossible: that blood alone is our defense, that blood alone saves us from destruction, that the blood of a lamb is more than enough.
As I remember these stories of the other side of Christmas—where it’s not a wonderful life, where there’s no joy to the world, where silent nights are interrupted by screams and sobs and cursing and gunshots—I remember that this other side of Christmas is precisely why there is a Christmas in the first place.
We are like the spoiled children of kings who spit in the face of paupers on the street. We have been given so much, yet we treasure so little.
I could’ve stopped it, but I didn’t. I'm surprised that I didn’t turn my back to receive a pat as I let loose from lips, how good and saintly I was. What a reminder, that we are all susceptible to looking for the adulation of others.
Dan reminded me—in his words, in his patient suffering, through his unwavering faith in Christ, by his confidence in his baptism—that Jesus Christ does not abandon his own. No matter where they are, no matter what they’re going through, He is there.
There has only been one baptism in the history of the world: the baptism of Jesus. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
What if, while we were admitting all these serious infractions of the divine law, our pastor simply yawned?
To be justified means to be declared righteous in the forgiveness that is ours in the crucified Christ. It is a done deal, and by faith we have it all.
It doesn’t matter how good you seem to be, you’ll always be able to find someone who seems better than you. We’re addicted to comparing, measuring, quantifying, and judging.
We are a sinning church with a preaching problem.