1. The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.
  2. We live for the most part, on the strength of our moral fiber, under the law, by our zeal for God and all that which tickles our proud fancy.
  3. What might Christians of the Reformation tradition think of claims like these about the nature of salvation?
  4. What if sin was truly removed and what if the one who took it from us had the power to conquer it’s curse and spit in the face of death?
  5. It’s scary to share my struggle and to show that I have cracks because once I’ve shown my cards, I open myself up for judgment.
  6. Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
  7. Even as he was dying, the heart of God poured itself out for the sake of sinners.
  8. Repentance is meaningless unless we are willing to acknowledge who we are: sinners needing mercy.
  9. You are the friend in low places. It’s only from this place that you are free to look outside yourself for the remedy to the issues that plague you and humanity.
  10. That is the task of preaching in these last weeks of the Church Year, to enable the people given to our care, to praise God from the perspective of the end when our Lord will return in glory bringing us into His Kingdom of glory.
  11. This is an excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).