We live in the “already” but “not yet”. Peace is already ours but not yet. The resurrection is already ours but not yet. Justice is already ours but not yet. Until then be comforted by the fact that you are reconciled in Christ on account of his life, death, and resurrection.
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.

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How might your preaching of the work of the Spirit expand your own view of the Spirit’s work, and help your hearers gain an appreciation for the Holy Spirit’s activity in their lives beyond a standalone celebration, one day a year?
Pentecost is a flashback. It drives us back to the past. It also propels us forward into the future.
If you want something empty, the tomb is the way to go. The point of the manger is that Jesus was in it. The point of the cross is that Jesus was on it.
I trust that because of the gospel, God will continue to mend what I, in my sin, continue to break.
1517 would not exist without the leadership, friendship, and faithfulness of Pastor Ron Hodel.
There is someone outside of I, someone outside of you, that our faith and hope is in.
Jesus does not put us on trial and make us pay for our own sin, but he, himself, is put on trial in our place.
So, we pray. Not just in times of need, but we pray at all times. Because this is part of what it means to be saved.
We worry about the fact our days are as grass – so we try to scratch out a place for ourselves, to make a permanent, lasting place, to climb to higher places and succeed, more often than not, only to hurt each other in the process.
The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.
Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.
Jesus opens for us a way to walk through suffering and to sing our song of salvation as we talk to our heavenly Father.