The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335
Why did the church dedicate a day to St. Michael anyway? Who is he, and what does he do?
The Antichrist offers another continual presence. It is every whisper that tempts us toward autonomy, that tells us to carry it alone, that insists suffering is meaningless.

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The people should find their lives in your sermon, and no one’s life is unaffected by the coronavirus right now. It is the very fact that I can make such a blanket statement, free of all caveats, which makes it so necessary for us to preach on it.
Jesus does not give as the world gives. With Jesus, everything is guaranteed and has been finished from the start.
In the vortex of uncertainty and upheaval, what’s the best thing we can do? Seize the ordinary.
Can we fully experience the joy of the Festival of the Resurrection if we do not seriously stare boldly into the sad state of our own faithlessness to Him who promises to be faithful even when we are not?
Paul says that the power of sin is the law. The more clearly we understand the law, the more sin oppresses and stings us.
Ashes and dust do not need the services of spiritual EMTs; we need a Second Adam from whom we regain life itself.
Christ teaches that we are not lost, but have eternal life. That God has so loved us that he allowed the ransom to cost him his only beloved child.
The original sin of Genesis 3 was not gutter-style-sin, but glory-style-sin. It was more of an upward grasp than a downward fall. - Nathan Hoff
What the law is powerless to do, Jesus accomplishes for us. Jesus delivers what the law demands.
For what end does the Law exist? The Law exposes us so that we might find the remedy in the person and work of Jesus.
Sometimes we have to strain hard to hear words deeper than our hearts. Words not from inside, but outside. Words from God, not our own self-spun narratives.
The end of the pursuit isn't regeneration, but degeneration. We're fighting fire with bottles of gasoline.