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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What we notice less often is that this same fear wonders about both the efficacy of the Gospel and the Law.
The Christian sees himself or herself as one just as guilty as the rest of the world. But we see ourselves not just as what’s wrong with the world, but in the One by whom the world has been redeemed.
When I hear the word “repentance” my mind quickly goes to those old terror inducing Chick Tracts.
Don’t say you’re beyond hope, for there is not one beyond God. Don’t say you’ve done too much evil, for there is no wrong bigger than God’s heart of forgiveness.
Too often, we equate “repent” as the final warning to stop a particular sin before God ceases to love you and sends you to hell for your evil deeds.
When we imagine we’re living an evil-shunning, virtue-practicing, morally superior Christian life, the problem is not that our halos are too small, but that our heads are too big.
Jesus is in the business of proclaiming such a beautiful redundancy.
Advent accents preaching, making known that it is the Lord who comes to bring salvation, to proclaim this in all the earth.
God’s Law is a death sentence for us sinners. There is no winning beneath the Law of God.
God has given us a way out of our plight of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” It is the way of the cross.
Gone, abolished, put away with, undone, and destroyed are any and all notions that my repentance unlocks, sets free, or earns God’s forgiveness.
Neither did Christ’s absolution “run out” nor “reach a limit” due to Judas’ sin.