Through baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, Christ meets you with his radical forgiveness which changes everything, even the self!
Despite evidences to the contrary, chaos does not reign. Jesus does.
The temptation for many believers is either despair or outrage: despair that Christendom is fading, or outrage at the civilization replacing it.

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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.
I can look at all of my failings and foolishness because I know who Christ is for me. I rest in his wisdom and life not my own.
Each day gives us occasion to die to our sinful identities of all kinds and to live out a life in Christ’s footsteps as children of God.
Golgotha is the point where not only Mary and John’s family life assumed a new character, but it is the point of orientation for all human community that uses the cross to straighten out the lives of individuals turned in upon themselves.
The cross does not remain on a hill far away. It pursues us into the valleys, the ravines, the crevices in which we get trapped as we wander in search of a fixed point for our lives.
This is not a plea for us to be given the strength to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. It is our helpless cry when boots – straps and all - slip off the edge of temptation’s cliff.
This is an excerpt from Vocation: The Setting for Human Flourishing written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2021). Now available for preorder.
Paul wants us to see this “present evil age” is dominated by a theology of glory and “the age to come” is dominated by a theology of the cross. They are two ways of understanding and interpreting all of reality, but especially the ways and nature of God.
Ultimately, there is only one Lord of the Universe, and he does not share power. If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.
The petition not to be led into temptation is found in just the right place within the seven petitions.
If Jesus is better than Moses, then everything changes. If Jesus is better than Moses, then the ultimate becomes the penultimate.
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.