This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335
Why did the church dedicate a day to St. Michael anyway? Who is he, and what does he do?

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God always keeps his promises even if/when we don’t. God is always faithful even if/when we aren’t.
God leads us to the refuge that’s more secure and safe than any man-made thing, more than anything we own, more than anything that owns us.
Now, if there were another way to heaven, doubtless, he would have made it known to us.
It’s God’s love that sets us free to love in the first place.
The Holy Spirit does what his name implies. He makes us holy. We believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and come to him only by the Holy Spirit who calls us with the gospel.
We will always need comfort until the reign of God, his kingdom, comes in full with Christ’s return, and our suffering and the sin that causes it is no more.
God loves you no matter what. Loves you no matter how many times you have screwed up. Loves you to death, he does.
Tomorrow Jesus will laugh his way out of the tomb, spit in the face of death, and kick the devil in the throat as he dances to the clapping glee of angelic masses. But today he just rests.
Good Friday encompasses the silence of God, even as it focuses on our salvation in the cross of Christ.
Ultimately, there is only one Lord of the Universe, and he does not share power. If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.
Repentance means being cut down by the law’s declaration of judgment. It’s not an activity we do to prepare for grace, but a point of despair worked by God himself.
Our ears are opened by the Spirit through the word. Then, faith in Christ is present in us.