God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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"Every one must stand and give account before God for himself; and no one can excuse himself by the action or decision of another, whether less or more.”
Spy Wednesday asks us to look inward. It's the day the liturgical calendar acknowledges what we already know: we are not the best version of ourselves.
God is not a tool in our hands. He does not exist to serve our goals, our metrics, or our platforms.
One great thing about our post-denominational age is that it has opened up opportunities to make common cause with other Lutherans who, despite their differences and eccentricities, can agree on some of the most important things.
The Church’s unity is not uniformity in every matter of her well-being. It is faithfulness in what constitutes her being.
The Supper doesn’t depend on the faithfulness of the Church. It depends on the faithfulness of Christ.
A rightly-oriented heart and a rightly-oriented love will consistently do what is best for God and best for our neighbor, which is why St. Augustine speaks of sin as a disordered love.
While we often talk about our growth, our progress, and what we are doing for the kingdom of God, the reality is that any goodness in a Christian does not originate in us.
Your exhaustion may not be a sign of weakness of faith. It may be the fruit of enthusiasm. It is Lent. Fast from your fever. Embrace the exhaustion. Curb your inner enthusiast and cling to Christ.
Surveying Scripture, it is an immense comfort to know we’re not alone in our sinfulness.
Christian faith is never a solitary possession. When the congregation confesses, the old speak for the young, the strong for the weak, and the clear-voiced for the trembling.
The entire history of Protestantism is downstream of a goldsmith in Mainz figuring out how to cast identical pieces of lead type in less than a minute.