1. The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.
  2. It’s not our eloquence or persuasive rhetoric that changes hearts, but the Word of God that pierces through the hardened shells of unbelief and breathes life into the dead bones of sinners.
  3. This is an excerpt from chapter 9 of “What Can Really Know?: The Strengths and Limits of Human Understanding” by David Andersen (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  4. No matter how far away they wander, God always hears the prayers of his children.
  5. Prayer is not just about asking for things. It's about receiving what has already been given to us in Christ.
  6. When we forget that we live by promise, that's when the danger tends to creep in. Because failing to embrace promise means we usually fall back into notions of luck, or even worse--into works.
  7. Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
  8. In the sacrament, we receive an earnest of that future promise here and now in the body and blood of Jesus given and shed for us.
  9. Jesus makes David’s words his own, because David’s words were Christ’s to begin with.
  10. The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
  11. This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
  12. What is undoubtedly true, however, is that St. Peter wasn’t left outside. He wasn’t left weeping. He was restored, as am I, as are you.