We don’t flinch at sin. We speak Christ into it.
One might say that the first statement of the Reformation was that a saint never stops repenting.
Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.

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The Second Edition of “The Christian Life: Cross or Glory?” by Steven Hein is now available from 1517 Publishing.
Jesus does not remain at a distance from our suffering. He fully enters it and bears its burden.
For all mankind, the answer is terrifically simple and remains the same: God wants to turn us towards the cross and then turn us back to our neighbors.
Our enemy is both external AND internal. Outside of us AND inside of us. It is the old evil foe who prowls around us AND the old Adam who wreaks havoc inside each of us.
The grace of God does not save us at the beginning only in order to keep ourselves in his good graces by our good enough readiness.
No longer do we read about Jesus promising to satisfy and raise and abide in His people. Instead, we encounter a Jesus who goes on the attack.
Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity, the agent of creation, the Savior of all people, promises to abide IN His people.
Jesus promises more than a disembodied “spiritual” existence after death. He has promised to raise our perishable, mortal bodies to immortality.
It isn’t that God struggles to believe our repeated cries of “wolf.” Rather, we struggle to believe God when he repeatedly comes to us with forgiveness and mercy on his lips.
In His grace, Jesus promises that all who come to Him in faith will live abundantly and eternally.
When the One who created the world comes to you, there is reason for courage and never reason to fear.
Because Jesus turns desolate, dying places into holy landscapes of life.