1. A pastor is sent to proclaim the unconditional grace of God, reminding us again and again that it is our Heavenly Father who reaches out to us in love through his Christ-won forgiveness, and not the other way around.
  2. The Lord’s Prayer is liturgy and catechism, action and instruction, praxis and theology.
  3. Prayer is not just about asking for things. It's about receiving what has already been given to us in Christ.
  4. God cares about our real life where we actually are. He is present in the everyday.
  5. The Lord knew how it felt to be a rejected stone.
  6. Jesus cries on the cross for us. He suffers and cries and dies in our place. He is forsaken by his father so we don’t have to be.
  7. As I look back, I choose to remember her as a soul redeemed by Christ.
  8. The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
  9. The testimony of every son and daughter of God is, God has brought us through.
  10. What is undoubtedly true, however, is that St. Peter wasn’t left outside. He wasn’t left weeping. He was restored, as am I, as are you.
  11. If the season of Lent is a journey, Holy Week is the destination.
  12. Human history, our history, is the story of two Adams with two very different encounters with the devil.