We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

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How does that sit with you? It frightens me. Naked, exposed in the eyes of the One to Whom I must give account?
From the very beginning, God made everything out of nothing. For mankind’s redemption, God’s Son did everything while we did nothing
Jesus came to lay down his life for us. He didn’t come to slip 6’ leashes on the necks of his canine followers. He came to set us free.
Instead of burning them up with unquenchable fire, He comes in solidarity, to be God with us and God for us. Jesus is baptized into our life, so that He could gift us His life.
The text says there was no room for them. And this should give us cause for a little head-scratching.
Babies need to be baptized for the same reason that all Christians need to be absolved: All of us are born into and contribute to this sin-wrecked show of a life.
Christ has come, does come, and will come. He has set you free from the prison of sin and death.
I bet you have seen this verse pop up in Bible study before.
“Christ is pretty ok doing all the redeeming that needs doing Himself—and He has redeemed you, and redeemed me.
The empty space in our hearts that we try to fill with stuff is filled only by the Maker of all things. An iPhone won’t fill that gap. Only a crucified and resurrected God fits in there.
His forgiveness gives us the courage to watch out for our neighbor in both the present and the future, and to act with wisdom while understanding failures are still ahead.
You are made new by the eternal satisfaction for sin in Christ, by the precious treasure at God’s right hand.