The “further up and further in” we go, the table keeps getting bigger, the guest list keeps getting longer, and the grace keeps on flowing.
Christianity does not locate freedom in radical autonomy. It does not tell either men or women that happiness consists in escaping obligations arising from relationships we did not entirely choose.
Jesus never promised me a World Series championship. He never promised that my children would always succeed or that life would go according to plan. He promised something better.

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Christ strikes a blow first against the presumption of those who would storm their way into heaven by their good works.
This opening section of Ephesians is a virtual treasure trove of gospel promises, praising God for who He is and the abundant blessings He pours out upon His saints.
The giver of life, the source of joy, stands weeping together with the human family as they grieve under the curse of sin.
With Jesus, troubles and sorrows, problems and worries, heartbreak and mourning are gathered up like left-over crumbs from a feast marking the celebration of victory over the enemy's forces.
We can not give our Heavenly Father anything that will make him love us more or less. He gives and we receive.
Mankind’s “thoughts and ways” on the matter of pardon and forgiveness do not even come close to exhausting, let alone fathoming, God’s “thoughts and ways.”
Take away the communal aspect, take away the communal gathering around Christ’s body and blood, and the Christian will begin to suffer a malnutrition of faith.
“Poverty of spirit” is not an ethical value we strive for. It is an act of God’s mercy spoken to the deepest recesses of our soul when it’s overwhelmed by God’s grace.
God invites you to confess the skeletons in your closet so that he might bury them in the grave for good.
Our certainty is of Christ, that mighty hero who overcame the Law, sin, death, and all evils.
This is an edited excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).
This article comes to us from 1517 guest contributor, Karen Stenberg.