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).
How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?

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There is no meaning, life is all vanity, if one is not in relationship with God. Keep life simple: trust in God and enjoy the life He has given.
What Jesus promises is better than justice. Jesus promises grace.
God is in control, but God is also in relationship with His children and asks us to pray, to lament, and to ask Him to change His mind as we participate as the Bride with our Bridegroom.
This is not just a pericope about hereditary sin and actual sins, nor is it providing a pattern for prayer. It is fundamentally about God our gracious Father and His promise to hear us, answer us, and provide for us.
We can see this as a foreshadowing of how the LORD always comes to His people—the people do not come to Him. So, it is God who sent His Son to us, His Promised One, up close and personal.
But it is not always helpful to create tidy categories of good and bad and to say, “Stop being ‘a Martha’ and do a better job of being ‘a Mary.’” That is a dangerous sermon to preach. In doing so, we can fall into the very thing we see Martha doing.
[Because] of the relationship of presence the LORD has with His people, His holiness ‘gets on them,’ and, as a result, this is what their life now looks like because the holy LORD is their God.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is both a call to faith in Jesus and a call to love our neighbor.
Following Jesus, we gimp our way down the dark and slippery paths of life. As we do, we discover, ironically, that the longer we follow him, the weaker we become, and the more we lean on our Lord.
The worship service is less like servants entering the throne room to wait on the king’s needs and more like a father joining his family around the dining room table.
At first, one might think bones would strictly be associated with death, but in the Old Testament the most significant references to “bones” are associated with life and even resurrection from death.
Despite the very real obstacles and difficulties, this entire scene is marked by God’s gracious work.