When you remember your baptism, you're not recalling a ritual. You're standing under a current of divine action that has not ceased to flow since the moment those baptismal waters hit your skin.
“The fear of the Lord” is our heart’s awakening to and recognition of God’s outrageous goodness.
The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.

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The devil is effective with this attack because it calls out all the things a Christian sinner experiences as simultaneous sinner and saint.
Every Christian is abundantly rich through baptism.
Christians are Christians not because of anything that they have done but because of everything Christ has done for them.
Many Christians (including preachers) have succumbed to the idea that good preaching must be about practical living, and so most sermons are geared to scratch this pragmatic itch.
I once heard an old, retired Lutheran professor give in interview on a podcast. He was asked by the interviewer why people should bother going to church if they could just be saved through a personal relationship with Jesus?
We who fall within the Protestant camp of Christianity have longstanding issues with ritual. I get that. Ritual is often abused. Idolatrized. It can easily devolve into a hollow act of religious farce.
So, what do we do when someone doesn't believe God's promise of forgiveness, life, and eternal salvation is for him?
He lavishly pours out His rest in the waters of Baptism, in the spoken words of absolution from the pastor’s lips, in the preaching of the cross and resurrection, in the consumption of heavenly cuisine from the table at which He is host and meal.
Looking back, I see that the biggest problem (besides heresy) was that my faith was first about what I did or didn’t do, but it was also intangible and spiritual.
We are continuing our summer series on a theology of worship through the lens of language. Before moving forward, let me highlight a few points by way of review.
Why was Jesus crucified? Not to save victims, but to save sinners.
The dying words of Jesus were not, “Make it worth it,” but “It is finished.”