American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
The Passover wasn’t just Israel’s story; it’s ours.
God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.

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To be justified means to be declared righteous in the forgiveness that is ours in the crucified Christ. It is a done deal, and by faith we have it all.
I love stories with happy endings! My husband makes fun of me, but he has been known to graciously sit through a variety of schmaltzy chick flicks because he knows how I feel.
If there was a proclamation of grace, it was an afterthought, given in the sense of “just in case anyone needs this.”
A while back, I drove past my neighbor's house and right there in the street with the rest of the garbage were several golden trophies nearly half my height and still looking quite shiny and new.
Here’s what lurks beneath this seemingly righteous behavior: they wanted to make a name for themselves, these tower-builders.
Just how should we think about our good works in the Christian life of faith as we live that life before others... and before God?
Good people like fist-pounding on the pulpit about the bad things that bad people do in this bad world of ours. It makes them feel better about themselves.
I stumbled down labyrinthine paths, crawled in and out of cavernous pits, got lost a million times, and somehow ended up a little farther down the road to healing. Yet in all those crooked lines I see the hand of God writing straight.
The more law-centered a church becomes, the more it and the world become kissing cousins.
The kind of peace Jesus points to can't be achieved with words.
Asking whether one's beliefs are the right ones is terrifying.
What is most amazing to me is not that Jesus welcomed public transgressors into his company. What astounds me is that they came to him with the full expectation of not being turned away.