The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335
Why did the church dedicate a day to St. Michael anyway? Who is he, and what does he do?
The Antichrist offers another continual presence. It is every whisper that tempts us toward autonomy, that tells us to carry it alone, that insists suffering is meaningless.

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Did the Apostle Paul just say that “he fills up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ?" That seems a little at odds with Jesus’ statement, "It is finished."
Many sit and wait for judgment day to come, running through their performance in this life, hoping that the electing Judge found some reason to love them like Jacob.
Scripture is clear: God’s Spirit pursues sinners from conception to the grave with his life-giving Gospel and gifts.
God has gifted pastors with a terrible privilege. We’re invited to go inside peoples’ pain. A stranger stands emotionally naked in front of us begging, “I can’t get what he did out of my head. Please, help me!”
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News. But it is always Good News that comes to us best on the lips of another.
Just as we believe ourselves to be forgiven because God sees us in Christ, so to forgive others is to see them as God sees them in Christ. To forgive, in other words, is to put God’s eyes in our eyes and our eyes in God’s eyes.
Despite the death all around us, the death that is assured us, we know there is a way out.
We surrender confidence in God because we lack faith in Christ, and we lack faith in Christ because we rebel against the fact that each, single moment of self-destruction is nailed to that cross.
Blood is the thing. In the Scriptures, sin must be covered or "atoned for" as it's called, by blood.
Even after Jesus made it clear in His actions and commands that God’s grace is for all sinners, the apostles forgot the promises they received from their Savior.
I grew up playing baseball – mostly “street” baseball, with a bunch of friends. It was one of my passions in life.