In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).
Yahweh who is pierced and mourned in prophecy is Jesus who is pierced and mourned in fulfillment.
There is indeed a responsibility for the church to share the gospel in the world, but never at the expense of the church’s charity and mercy for those neighbors who are nearby.

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The psalmist writes that our earthly lives last “seventy years, or eighty, if we have the strength.” As if proving the poet right, and showing the world that she did have that kind of strength, Alvena fought on to her eightieth year.
There is hope and healing for you in Jesus Christ, the God who immersed Himself so deeply in our sufferings that He, too, wept over the death of a dear friend.
I was angry at heaven, at earth, and everything in between, for my life and my love and my hopes had all gone wrong, terribly, irreversibly, wrong.
I say I was dead before Jesus called me, but actually, I was worse off than that. Imagine a corpse who is at war with life, who is an enemy of the Life-giver. That was me.
We love because we find in the beloved something that is lovable. We see, we know, and then we love. Or, at least, we promise to love.
Though I had studied four prior years at that institution, the one course I had with him shaped my pastoral care more than any other. Ken Korby was this pastor’s name, and when I grew up, I wanted to be just like him.
Eat, yes, but season your turkey with the ashes of repentance as it preaches just how little your faith is, just how little you trust God, just how little you believe the Father is good to you.
The reason is much simpler than that: to learn to pray, you must first die. The language of prayer is taught in the school of death.
Why would God reject from Cain what he later accepted from and mandated of his people? So as far as the material itself, neither Cain’s nor Abel’s offering was superior.
When the angel told Mary she had become a mother, she replied simply, ''Let it be to me according to your word.'' Therein is a grateful acknowledgment that the Creator had formed life in her womb.
On that day the mourners were shocked to discover that behind the veneer of her bright smile lurked a fathomless darkness, whose depths she made manifest only when she despaired of life in this world.
She against whom I preached, in her unexpected response actually “preached” to me three truths I have never forgotten.