Nothing good happens when you get ahead of God and take matters into your own hands.
To confess Christ crucified and risen as the only hope in a world that has lost its mind to wickedness and rage.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s upcoming book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 191-192.

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Imagine if Zacchaeus posted on Jerusalem's Facebook a selfie with Jesus. The top dog among the tax-gougers with Christ at his dinner table. Oh, the outrage! The puritanical zealots would have been tweeting and blogging about it for months.
We see someone driving a fancy car, owning a big home, having healthy children and an attractive spouse. Instantly, almost without a second's thought, we assume they are successful. Life is good for them.
This old preacher, Zechariah, didn't abolish holiness. He spread it out. He pushed it beyond the boundaries of the temple.
Why was Jesus crucified? Not to save victims, but to save sinners.
We're of little faith. Or rather, we have big faith, but it’s in something else. Our faith is in our ability to control situations, manipulate them to our advantage.
Should we consider the tomb of Jesus completely empty, or just somewhat empty?
Before you ever know what happened, Satan has taught us to doubt the promise of the crucified and risen Christ.
On this night of nights, Christ arises victorious and sends the devil’s hordes running with no darkness to find cover; death’s dark shadow is gone
“Why do you seek the living One among the dead?” the angel asked the two women. The time for Jesus to die has passed.
700 years before the first Noel, the prophet Isaiah prophesied that Christ would bear our grief and deliver us in grace. Scholars often refer to Isaiah 52:13-53:12 as the "fifth gospel" because it describes both that Christ was crucified and why Christ was crucified with incredible detail.
He has Israel right where he wants them: a body of water in front of them, their enemies behind them, and God above them, ready to save. Our Lord is always undoing us that he might redo us, killing us that he might enliven us.
In Christ, we become part of the group of eight on the ark. The eight does not increase to nine or ten but swells to contain us all. God recreates us in this saving flood of baptism. We enter the new creation in Christ.