God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.
Salvation is not merely to be put in “safety” but to be put into Christ.
Bringing your family to church to receive “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) in Word and Sacrament honors and pleases God.

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We are caught up in a battle between two kings and two kingdoms. And, whether we like it or not, we are ruled by one king or the other.
As every nail that Jesus hammered was a delight to his Father, so every email you send, every purchase you ring up, every table you wipe down, is a delight to the Father.
Writer’s Block, however, entertains no such fantasies. It goes straight for my ego’s jugular and pounds home the fact that I’m not good enough.
Today’s world has replaced Anfechtung with an entirely new sort of despair.
Our meditation listens to the King of Kings when He says; it is finished.
No matter how loving we are, we don’t get bonus points with the Almighty for imitating Jesus. We love each other because we recognize that “this is one for whom Jesus died.
When we think God is doing something for us here or there or everywhere, we are simply fixing labels and putting value on what we imagine God is doing for us.
Out of His mind indeed, as He took our place between murderers and received the insults and torture of humanity.
Our crucified Lord makes it clear that the widow’s worthless giving was far greater than a million dollars because she gave all she had.
There in that moment, the waters of baptism reached down deep into the forsaken path of the grave with a man whose body and mind could no longer hold onto any reality otherwise.
Some lie and tell us that to sin is to be ourselves. But it is not. Sin is not natural to humanity.
In Martin Luther's Small Catechism he borrows a line from St. Augustine about what defines a "god."