While God can, and often does, appear to people face to face, he also often employs the use of several types of messengers.
The “further up and further in” we go, the table keeps getting bigger, the guest list keeps getting longer, and the grace keeps on flowing.
Christianity does not locate freedom in radical autonomy. It does not tell either men or women that happiness consists in escaping obligations arising from relationships we did not entirely choose.

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What if Jesus had said on the cross, “Earn it”?
Jesus’s story in Luke 16 draws definitive attention to whom God helps — namely, God always comes close in order to help those who cannot help themselves.
It is of the utmost importance that pastors teach their congregation that through faith in Jesus Christ, they are fortified against the machinations of the adversary.
In that moment of greatest despair, we find the antidote for all our fears. We know we are beloved of God and there is salvation in Christ’s atoning death.
Christ shows up in the middle of our storms and our nightmares. That’s where he sets up shop.
Is salvation by the law or not? Moses or Jesus? Indeed, we find a fundamental parting of the ways put forward here, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Honest confession brings us into the fatherly care of God where we are always greeted with grace, mercy, peace, love, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
Lewis takes us to the planets to satisfy our cravings for spiritual adventure, which, as he says, “sends our imaginations off the Earth,” in the first place.
This is an excerpt from “Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment” by Bradley Gray (1517 Publishing, 2023).
The gospel tells me that the revelation of weakness in myself, my husband, and my son is the occasion for the revelation of God’s strength.
We may not all be mass-murdering Nazis. But we all have the same root sin that causes the most egregious criminal activity on the face of the earth. We all have the desire to be our own God.
When properly distinguishing law and gospel in the Word of God, it is important to use the God-given gift and abilities of the imagination as your ears.