Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?

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Luther recognized that in the penitential psalms, God gives us the words to cry out to Him in our distress, lament our sins, and confess trust in the promise of His righteousness in which alone is our sure and certain hope.
For Luther, those who refuse Christ as a curse want their sin removed not in Christ but in themselves.
When we own up to our sin, our Father is not scandalized, and his response is not to reconsider his calling us.
Confession is not another ecclesiastical bludgeon but is instead a gift. There we can tell the truth about ourselves, knowing that Christ has only mercy for us in response.
Luther had a living Word from God intended to land squarely among sinners.
God is mercy. He was mercy then. He’s mercy now. God showed them His glory, if only a reflection, in the face of Moses.
Christ powerless on the Cross is where the false definitions of glory theologies are exposed and everything is turned upside down.
The firestorm of the Reformation which turned Europe upside-down was not Luther’s doing. It was the Word, and the Spirit working through it.
I may feel today that the Lord has not found me, but in fact he has – he is intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Luther’s confessions and writings during that time demonstrated the diagnosis of the problem he faced had always been the same.
I finally watched the film “Encanto” with my kids. I had heard many people say the subtext of this movie was deeper than most. So, we snuggled up on the couch and watched it to see what everyone was talking about.
It is precisely from the cross that the glory of God shines most brightly into our lives, as dark and sinister as Golgotha appears from a sinful distance. Cross trumps crisis.