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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The season of Lent gives almost unparalleled opportunity for preachers to placard before their auditors the Cross of Christ and beckon Christians to take up their cross and follow Him.
Since the law is our mother-tongue, we naturally assume it’s the only language that exists; this ceaseless, damning voice reminding us that we are not all that we should be.
We can celebrate what others consider mundane and ordinary because it's miraculous. After all, it's God-given.
"A Lutheran Toolkit" is available for purchase today from 1517 Publishing
God is not what we experience him to be, what our emotions narrate him to be, or what our intuition thinks he might be. God is what and who he says he is.
Bonhoeffer was in the unenviable position of trying to break a spell. The spell was the Nazi crisis, where the totalitarian state threatened the church, and yet to many, seemed to be saving the culture and nation from mortal dangers.
Regardless of my experience, my talents, or even my mood, it’s these gifts of Christ that I have to give away. They are all I have, and they are everything.
Our anxiety about the future is a consequence of our old self’s attempts to achieve freedom for himself apart from Christ Jesus.
Trusting in Christ’s promise of new life and deliverance pours the ability to abandon fixing our eyes only inwardly and lets us see ourselves as others see us.
And because Jesus on the cross was sin in its entirety, God cannot look at him. He turns his face away, causing Jesus to cry out in utmost agony, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Has the modern world taken too strong a dose of the gospel as its inheritance from the Reformation?
Freedom and reconciliation were significant themes for both of the Martin Luthers.