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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She heard it before, but looking around she struggles to see how it matters.
One of my favorite things to do in the summer is read out under the shade of my backyard tree. There, I have a reclining chair and small little side table.
Abraham didn’t understand God very well (at least not early on). I don’t say that as a dig against the Patriarch. I don’t think any of us understand God very well either.
Heaven is not our ultimate hope. Our promise is not to live forever riding on rainbows and soaring in the clouds.
In a world so wired by law and rules, judgement is everywhere.
That week, I began to doubt myself. Did I really believe?
What if I just hadn’t repented enough? Or prayed enough? Or really, really given my whole heart to Jesus? What if I just wasn’t ready?
Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands, I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son.
It seems like the sky is falling every other day now. From politics to culture to religion to about anything else, there’s one purported cataclysm after another on the horizon.
As a pastor I am often asked if pets go to heaven? The question may sound childish, or even sentimental, but it is extremely important for those who ask it.
Likewise, when God says, "Do this and you will live," we go about under the illusion that we have the ability to accomplish what God demands of us.
Yes, when we die, we believe that we go to be with Jesus in a paradise called heaven. But that’s only a vacation destination, as it were.