1. Unprompted, without any warning, for no reason at all, without any instigation say, "I love you." And that will wash over your parents like a beautiful absolution.
  2. God gives us the power and authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to burdened sinners who entrust us with their pain, guilt, and defeat.
  3. Repentance is meaningless unless we are willing to acknowledge who we are: sinners needing mercy.
  4. Luther's September Testament not only shaped the reformers’ theology but also was as big an influence on the German language as Shakespeare was for English.
  5. When we cry to the Lord in our trouble, he will send us a preacher with words that deliver us from destruction.
  6. This is an excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).
  7. It’s the notion of mercy that leads us to the atonement, and it is the atonement that provides a foundational basis for the justification of sinners.
  8. Increasingly, to forgive is seen as winking at evil, as shrugging one’s moral shoulders, and as being complicit.
  9. A group of unassuming apostles was given a graphic illustration of how the Lord would use them to turn the world right-side-up through the upside-down logic of grace.