1. 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.
  2. The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.
  3. Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.
  4. God’s gifts, in turn, conform our minds to the mind of Christ, and catechize our imagination in the image of God’s Son.
  5. Both Paul and Martin Luther were Olympic champions when it came to ladder climbing.
  6. God excludes our boasting out of his abundant mercy.
  7. I wanted the devotions of this book to be a source of strength for everyone who has waited all night to see the sun come up again.
  8. Make no mistake, sinners are in fact being pursued by a most hideous beast called sin, death, and the devil, unleashed and striking continuously.
  9. Nothing stands against you. Only Christ stands now, and he is for you, more for you than you could ever know, for you like nothing else that has ever loved you.
  10. What the gospel promises is not escape from our humanity, but resurrection from the dead.
  11. This book is not in your hands so that we can simply commiserate with each other’s difficulties. It is meant to pierce your sin-darkened night with the light of God’s Word.
  12. I want the beginning of my funeral to be focused on Jesus, as well as the middle, the end, and every point in between.