In the end, your story isn’t an epic of personal glory. You aren’t the hero. Your Savior Jesus is.
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.

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Pastor Craft: Essays and Sermons is now available through 1517 Publishing
Our Advent anticipation of the coming of the Savior to liberate us from sin and its wage of death, from the condemnation of God’s Law and the wrath of a loving heavenly Father, is indeed a daring and defiant stance.
This Messiah is not a continuation—He is the fulfillment and the beginning of something new.
The creation of this word reminds us that the Magnificat, like Christmas itself, is charged from the start with joy and praise.
When Jesus assumes the body prepared for Him to do God’s will, the end of an old era has arrived, and with it, the beginning of a new.
He also took our own history and suffered all the agony and pain of our own lives.
Big or small, potential or certain, the despair we may grapple with during this time of year tends to find its end in the fact that things are not as they should be.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 27 in “Pastor Craft: Essays and Sermons” written by John T. Pless (1517 Publishing, 2021). Now Available for Preorder
Preparing for Advent? Discover Seven Ways to Better Know the Christ of Christmas in this free guide.
The thought of losing even one of those for whom his Son died pains God beyond belief, and the angels rejoice when even one of his children repents.
So what, if anything, makes us different from those who are waiting on the grassy knoll in Dallas, TX? Can we be any more sure of our belief in the resurrection?
Jesus is both the image bearer and the image giver. In Jesus’ incarnation we are redeemed and re-imaged.