1. Faith sees your neighbor not as a means to an end, not as a way to score points, but as an object of love: Christ's love and yours.
  2. Jesus’s story in Luke 16 draws definitive attention to whom God helps — namely, God always comes close in order to help those who cannot help themselves.
  3. It is of the utmost importance that pastors teach their congregation that through faith in Jesus Christ, they are fortified against the machinations of the adversary.
  4. In that moment of greatest despair, we find the antidote for all our fears. We know we are beloved of God and there is salvation in Christ’s atoning death.
  5. Jesus weeps because his heart pulses with furious rage and fierce love.
  6. Christ shows up in the middle of our storms and our nightmares. That’s where he sets up shop.
  7. Is salvation by the law or not? Moses or Jesus? Indeed, we find a fundamental parting of the ways put forward here, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
  8. Honest confession brings us into the fatherly care of God where we are always greeted with grace, mercy, peace, love, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
  9. While midnight might seem long, the mercy of God assures us that the morning will come.
  10. This is an excerpt from “Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment” by Bradley Gray (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  11. In the tumultuous sea of information, opinions, and ideologies that break over us each day, we hold fast to the anchor of our faith—Jesus, the true prophet.
  12. A pastor is sent to proclaim the unconditional grace of God, reminding us again and again that it is our Heavenly Father who reaches out to us in love through his Christ-won forgiveness, and not the other way around.