Worship never existed as escape from the world, but preparation for life within it.
For many years, I held piety as my god.
The reasoning was always the same. The gods were angry. The gods were hungry. The gods required payment.

All Articles

The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw," written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
God hides from us on purpose so he can be God for us without limits or measures in the way of faithful, loving-kindness.
Your faith is not dependent on whether or not you suffer well. Your faith is dependent on the fact that Christ did.
Sometimes believers vigorously debate God, sometimes they nod a silent Amen. Together, their narratives paint a picture of a life of faith characterized by complexity and tension.
The real power of his hymn comes from the fact that Bonhoeffer does not offer a rosy picture of life or any of the tropes so typical of cheap piety that tell us that everything is always right, that things happen for a reason, and that we should try to stay positive.
On the other side of Christmas, we find (1) senseless suffering and (2) unstoppable salvation. A sermon on these verses should be honest about both.
Should we really be surprised that it would happen this way, that the servant would suffer for our salvation and die for our forgiveness?
While we are promised that God will always be with us, we are also told of the benefits that can come to us even in our pain.
Most days, we're not okay. We're not good enough, strong enough, or "Christian" enough.
Jesus isn't just "the reason for the season." He's the reason we don't have to cross off "spiritually bankrupt," "mentally compromised," and "physically vulnerable" from our Christmas list.
Our brokenness cuts deeper than just the times when we recognize it needs to be fixed.
It seems too good to be true, and yet it is the truest of all truths. This is our God. This God sees and chooses to trample our sins under his feet.