1. Jesus cries on the cross for us. He suffers and cries and dies in our place. He is forsaken by his father so we don’t have to be.
  2. This is an excerpt from part two of “On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service” by Mike Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  3. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  4. To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
  5. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  6. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  7. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  8. The gospel's message is the scandalous announcement that Yahweh has stooped to our frame, to where we are.
  9. As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
  10. God resolves his wrath through the unexpected giving of his Son.
  11. The nefarious thing about idolatry is that just about anything can become your idol: career, family, fame, wealth, status, spouse, you name it, any good thing can become a ‘god-thing” with ease. 
  12. Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.