Luther neither removed the Apocrypha from the Bible nor discouraged its use. Rather, he received and preserved the ancient distinction inherited from the fathers: the Apocrypha is valuable, edifying, and worthy of reading, but it is not Holy Scripture and therefore cannot serve as the foundation of Christian doctrine.
The confessors at Augsburg remind us that every generation of Christians is called to bear witness to the gospel amid the challenges and pressures of its own age. As they confessed Christ before emperors and kingdoms, so the Church continues to confess Him before the world today.
When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.

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Love continues to gently but endlessly pursue the narrator, despite his persistence in pulling away in the opposite direction.
God's justice is marked and measured by sacrificial love, not power as the world defines it.
The following is an adaptation from "Law and Gospel in Action" written by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Unlike human marriage, which is marred by sin, Jesus never seeks to divorce us due to irreconcilable differences.
A life of faith is a life of wisdom, which is a life lived knowing that it is God’s authority — and his alone — that prevails as the consummate active power in the cosmos.
When we genuinely measure ourselves, we will find ourselves dreadfully lacking.
Whoever your president is, you have a King. A King who elected you.
This new life is marked not by fear of death but hope in eternal life.
We subject ourselves to the governing authorities for the sake of our neighbor, that they might be protected from our sinful nature that seeks our advantage over theirs (and vice versa)
Cast your vote with an air of bold and defiant levity. Don’t take yourself, or this election, so seriously. No string of unfortunate events can stop Christ's beating heart of mercy. No politician can un-Easter our Lord.
This is an excerpt from “Unveiling Mercy: 365 Daily Devotions Based on Insights from Old Testament Hebrew” written by Chad Bird (1517 Publishing, 2020). Used with permission.
We need a God who acts for us, each of us in particular. We need a God who sticks to His Word that He will never abandon or forsake us.