1. With every bone in our bodies, we declare war on grace. We declare war on the gift.
  2. The Trinity is a handy shorthand for all that God has done to justify sinners.
  3. After the big, splashy, exciting day of Pentecost in Acts 2, church life faded into the ordinary life of ragtag sinners encountering the God of the cross coming to them in seemingly unawesome ways. What can we learn from this?
  4. That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.
  5. The relationship between faith and prayer or belief and worship is mutual. Faith produces prayer and prayer expresses faith.
  6. Just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, so we, through the working of the Holy Spirit, recognize our Lord in the Word and Sacraments.
  7. We worry about the fact our days are as grass – so we try to scratch out a place for ourselves, to make a permanent, lasting place, to climb to higher places and succeed, more often than not, only to hurt each other in the process.
  8. Armed with great analogies, airtight logic, and razor sharp wit, Lewis keeps you spellbound from one chapter to another as you find yourself going “further up and further in.”
  9. Every part of Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene in John 20 was incredibly intentional and personal for God to systematically redeem what was lost.
  10. History won’t judge us, Jesus will. We already have his judgment. He gave it to us from the cross, where he acquitted us with his death.
  11. Free-range Christ is fearful Christ because he is present, speaking, and I just crucified him.
  12. Sometimes loss is gain. Sometimes defeat is victory. Sometimes weakness is strength. Sometimes death is life. Sometimes, that is, when Christ is at the center, on his cross and not in his tomb.