1. Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
  2. Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
  3. The gospel's message is the scandalous announcement that Yahweh has stooped to our frame, to where we are.
  4. The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
  5. Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
  6. In Memory of My Friend, James Arne Nestingen
  7. We live again, not so that we will now pay our debt, but to proclaim that we live because our debt was paid!
  8. You’re not new because of what you do. You’re new and so you do new things, even in spite of yourself, because of your sinful nature.
  9. Even though All Saints is a day for remembering the dead, it is not a day of mourning.
  10. The good news is that with our God there is always more: more than we deserve, dare, ask, or expect, more than we can see, hear, feel, or think.
  11. Every incendiary move of God’s Spirit is accompanied by a group of penitent people rediscovering the power and preeminence of God’s Word.