1. I want the beginning of my funeral to be focused on Jesus, as well as the middle, the end, and every point in between.
  2. False holiness is always a possession and achievement of the individual in isolation from the good of others. And so it isn’t holiness at all.
  3. Sometimes it’s important to go far away to learn of holy places back home.
  4. When we own up to our sin, our Father is not scandalized, and his response is not to reconsider his calling us.
  5. This is the patient love of God. He is stubborn about the salvation of sinners. He will not be rushed even if his name is mocked, and the trustworthiness of his promises are called into question.
  6. There is perhaps no better observation about the nature of anxiety and depression than its fundamental desire for avoidance.
  7. You might not know it, but every Christian hopes for the day when their faith will die. Really. I promise. Faith’s death is our celebration.
  8. Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever.
  9. Christians do have a hope that those who sleep in death will be awakened and their joy will never end, and we yearn for that day.
  10. Faith should later again flow forth from our heart’s depths to our neighbor freely and unhindered in good works; not that we wish to rest our salvation in them; for God will not have that, but wishes the conscience to rest in himself alone.
  11. As Christians, we rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross, and we yearn for our neighbor to be reconciled to God, to know the peace that we are resting in.
  12. God’s candle is not so easily extinguished. His promise is not some vague light at the end of the tunnel that we may or may not reach. In fact, God’s light has a name: Jesus Christ.