Whether a Christian enjoys high church, low church, or something in between, aesthetics in the Church are not about any one individual person and their particular tastes. Aesthetics are, fundamentally, not a matter of legalism, but of edification—that the Gospel of Christ might be preached and taught to all peoples, unhindered by its medium.
Let us live by walking with Jesus, so that our Neo-Pagan neighbors, the witch, and frankly a lot of us Christians, can put down our crystals, our superstitions, our vision boards, and our bound sage in order to live out a liturgy of life, with rituals, practices, and behaviors that reflect who we are as followers of Christ.
As Jesus hung on the cross there would be no last second escape. No Greek goddess would swoop in to rescue him. He suffered alone. And yet even in that suffering he declared his victory on the spiritual battlefield to be your victory.

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God’s gifts are received, and the faithful heart offers gratias, and thanks are given in return.
When we say in the benediction, “The LORD make His face shine on you,” grace is what we mean.
But I can’t evade the question. And neither can you. Because every day God puts it to us. We don’t hear his voice, but nevertheless his voice echoes within us. Asking, prying, confronting us: What do you want me to do for you?
Galatians 5 isn’t a move beyond Christ to the Christian life. Galatians 5 is the Christian life in Christ.
Rather than calling me to pick burrs off my coat, God’s love strips me of my delusions and cuts to the heart of my disease.
But these good works aren’t done under compulsion. They’re done freely. They aren’t done so that God will love us. They’re done because He loves us.
Love is the sum of the law. Love God with all your heart, spirit, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. That means that if love can't be done when it needs to be done then get rid of the law, because it's not lawful.
Perhaps if we indulged our Christian freedom around them, they would come to see that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever received a gift for which you were less than thrilled, but you had to pretend you really liked it so as not to offend the giver?
Only because He is an outsider can he afford the costly fee insiders could never afford no matter how hard they work.
As every nail that Jesus hammered was a delight to his Father, so every email you send, every purchase you ring up, every table you wipe down, is a delight to the Father.
This is the third installment in our special series on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation. Translation of Theses 5 and 6 by Caleb Keith.