We are invited to entrust everything to the one who accomplished what we could not: living and bleeding and dying and rising again, so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). To put it another way, when it comes to the kingdom of God, there’s no room for DIY’ers. Best leave it to the professionals.
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.

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The empty space in our hearts that we try to fill with stuff is filled only by the Maker of all things. An iPhone won’t fill that gap. Only a crucified and resurrected God fits in there.
His forgiveness gives us the courage to watch out for our neighbor in both the present and the future, and to act with wisdom while understanding failures are still ahead.
Christian freedom and Christian love go together in a most wonderful way.
In Christ we are freed to be for our neighbor without fear of sin and damnation falling upon us.
So bondage meets freedom, and God becomes our Master through Christ.
The only churches that live are churches that have died. That still die. And that rise to newness of life in Christ’s life alone.
The conversation between four year-old Jackson and his mom in the car after dropping off his siblings at school was all-too-typical.
In Christ we are already dead to sin and the eternal consequences of sin. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul (Romans 8:1).
Yet, just as the Jews had two choices, true God or no God, the Christian has the same, true Jesus or no Jesus.
As long as we hold tight to a life that was never ours to possess in the first place, so long as we refuse to lay down our life so others can live, Jesus can't do a thing for us.
This rather unique human being is God grounded in our humanity. The man Jesus.
The fact is no one dies with dignity.