One great thing about our post-denominational age is that it has opened up opportunities to make common cause with other Lutherans who, despite their differences and eccentricities, can agree on some of the most important things.
Pride builds identities that leave no room for grace.
We can willingly admit the fact that we're just like tax collectors and thieves.

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From the junkyard of my past, I assembled the scrap metal of self-preservation, self-righteousness, and unalloyed selfishness, to weld together a hollow divinity. In its core, I stuffed myself: a god without divinity, offering forgiveness with conditions, to sinners without love.
Character development? Change? Saying that it’s behind you? Yeah right. You’re just saying that because you want your nice polished image back. You haven’t changed. We know. We’ve got the receipts.
What greater friend could we have than Jesus?
We don’t just need someone to bear our guilt and die for us. We also need someone to defeat all of the forces of sin and darkness and anxiety and depression that overwhelm us.
In both Psalms, we hear the Messiah becoming sin for us, and thus he pleads on our behalf before the Father
God doesn’t give us second chances. No one earns another shot at forgiveness. We cannot earn forgiveness, it’s too costly.
How does God feel about us sinners? God loves us so much that His stomach aches. His insides hurt. He refuses to let our sins separate us from Him. He refuses to let us die.
Jesus continues to breathe His gifts on His beloved. He continues to breathe absolution upon sinners like me and you, He continues to fill us with the Holy Spirit and all His comfort.
Jesus is our confidence because he reveals truth from falsehood, right from wrong, and reality from appearance, so that we may rely on him for our every need of body, soul, and mind.
Sometimes I think I've gone through the whole forgiveness process, but forgiveness for me often feels like I'm weeding my garden. I forgive and another offense pops up.
Our Creator wants to restore us to a right relationship with him and all creation. So, in his goodness and mercy, he sent his Son to for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
There is a power that is stronger and mightier than the power of separation in death. And that power is the power of God’s love for you and me.