We live in the “already” but “not yet”. Peace is already ours but not yet. The resurrection is already ours but not yet. Justice is already ours but not yet. Until then be comforted by the fact that you are reconciled in Christ on account of his life, death, and resurrection.
Luther neither removed the Apocrypha from the Bible nor discouraged its use. Rather, he received and preserved the ancient distinction inherited from the fathers: the Apocrypha is valuable, edifying, and worthy of reading, but it is not Holy Scripture and therefore cannot serve as the foundation of Christian doctrine.
The confessors at Augsburg remind us that every generation of Christians is called to bear witness to the gospel amid the challenges and pressures of its own age. As they confessed Christ before emperors and kingdoms, so the Church continues to confess Him before the world today.

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The kingdom I seek is the lower-case realm ruled over by the almighty upper-case Me.
As a prophet, Jeremiah only speaks the LORD’s words. Obviously, this is the difference between a true and false prophet.
Jeremiah trusts the LORD to be faithful. He knows the LORD must answer, even though he is not certain how He will answer.
As the storm waves of life crash into us, threatening to pull us down into the undertow of sin, Jesus comes and stands between us and the furious tides.
In worship there is always the movement up which brings one closer to the holiness. The higher up you go, the closer to the presence of God and the closer to holiness.
We discover in the book that all of history is unfolding according to a plan, but the plan is hidden from our typical ways of seeing.
Before the Fall the waters were one dimensional—they gave life. After the Fall, another dimension is added. The waters kill/drown and they give life. This becomes the New Testament language of Baptism.
Our use–or disuse–of language reveals a deeper need than a bubbly carbonated soda. It highlights a gift given and a gift fallen, and it leaves us thirsting for a gift restored.
To understand the meaning of the Pentecost miracle for the life of a Christian, we must first learn to see it through the lens of the history that came before it.
At the foot of Mt. Sinai, God told Israel how to celebrate Pentecost once they reached the holy land. Generations later, on the day of this Old Testament festival, Christ poured out his Spirit in Jerusalem. What made Pentecost the ideal day for this gift to be given?
When Revelation’s words read against their original context, old meaning and new meaning are simultaneously brought to light as language and imagery is translated from the Old Testament to the New.
Of course it is the same Holy Spirit, but on this Day of Pentecost, it is important to explore the differences between the Old Testament Spirit and the New Testament Spirit.