1. Confession and absolution offer more than assurance, they gift real and genuine Divine promises.
  2. The legacy of Jonah is troubled with most remembering him not for what he said but for what he did: run away.
  3. Charles V, for all his power, his lands, and his riches, was ultimately unable to hinder the spread of the precious Gospel.
  4. Dyson demonstrated a pious persistence with Lewis, something we can emulate in our own friendships and conversations.
  5. The Lord assures Jeremiah he has not forgotten him. He is there and will rescue him.
  6. The Lord has remembered to help his servant Israel, to fulfill his promises to Abraham and to his offspring forever, not mostly or mainly because of his mercy, but exclusively so.
  7. When God remembers his covenant with Noah and causes the flood to subside, he also chooses to forget.
  8. The issue is not the existence of so-called inner rings, but our desire and willingness to spend our lives in order to gain from an inner ring what is freely promised in Christ: hope, security, and identity.
  9. Jesus’s story in Luke 16 draws definitive attention to whom God helps — namely, God always comes close in order to help those who cannot help themselves.
  10. While midnight might seem long, the mercy of God assures us that the morning will come.
  11. 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).