1. What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
  2. This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
  3. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  4. Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
  5. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  6. The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
  7. All of Scripture, every last syllable of it, is meant to drive us to "consider Jesus," the One who comes to "make us right" by gifting us his righteousness.
  8. The sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.
  9. The good news of the Gospel is Jesus has come, and Jesus will come again.
  10. When and how did the church start this season of anticipation?
  11. Preachers and church workers must also hear the gospel preached to them.