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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We are given, so we give thanks, and we give thanks by giving.
God’s love does not have an off switch. You cannot earn it or deserve it. And your thankfulness for it will not determine if you get it or not.
Jesus desires for us to watch. The question, however, is, “How do we watch for the return of Jesus?”
If you get out your red-letter bible and just read the red letters, as I did today, you're in for a shock. When you read just his words, Jesus seems harsh and pretty ticked off most of the time!
Love continues to gently but endlessly pursue the narrator, despite his persistence in pulling away in the opposite direction.
In this context where death looms large, Jesus reveals a kingdom where life looms even larger.
Unlike human marriage, which is marred by sin, Jesus never seeks to divorce us due to irreconcilable differences.
The tragedy of this parable is not the failure to serve. It is the failure to truly know your Savior.
The parable is harsh. It judges. If you do not believe, you will not be saved. But let us pause for a moment and think about why Jesus is telling the parable.
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.
Jesus breaks through our barriers in His beatitudes. He shatters our conceptions of the blessed life and opens the Kingdom of God to all people.
The Gospel is gift, pure and simple. It is backwards. It is upside down. It is foolish. And as long as people are sinners, it is as relevant as ever.