1. We must also address the stigma surrounding addiction within so many churches.
  2. What if Jesus had said on the cross, “Earn it”?
  3. Is salvation by the law or not? Moses or Jesus? Indeed, we find a fundamental parting of the ways put forward here, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
  4. Honest confession brings us into the fatherly care of God where we are always greeted with grace, mercy, peace, love, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
  5. Lewis takes us to the planets to satisfy our cravings for spiritual adventure, which, as he says, “sends our imaginations off the Earth,” in the first place.
  6. God comes to us through the flesh and blood and spirit of Christ precisely where he promised to be manifest to us and for us.
  7. This is an excerpt from “Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment” by Bradley Gray (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  8. The gospel tells me that the revelation of weakness in myself, my husband, and my son is the occasion for the revelation of God’s strength.
  9. We may not all be mass-murdering Nazis. But we all have the same root sin that causes the most egregious criminal activity on the face of the earth. We all have the desire to be our own God.
  10. While we wait in tribulation for our white robes (or pants) to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, we confess to one another our seen and unseen stains.
  11. Christ Jesus brings his word and presence to where you are and he is even willing to do so through the likes of your personally present pastor.
  12. The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.