One great thing about our post-denominational age is that it has opened up opportunities to make common cause with other Lutherans who, despite their differences and eccentricities, can agree on some of the most important things.
Pride builds identities that leave no room for grace.
We can willingly admit the fact that we're just like tax collectors and thieves.

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Jesus was not killed in Bethlehem as a baby, or in Galilee or Samaria as an adult. He couldn’t be, for it was necessary for him to die in Jerusalem, where Moriah is.
The soles of the holy feet of God traverse the soil of the holy land of promise.
What is most amazing to me is not that Jesus welcomed public transgressors into his company. What astounds me is that they came to him with the full expectation of not being turned away.
When I’ve dipped my brush in the midnight black of lust or greed and smeared those sable sins all over the walls of my life, he’s come along with a bucket of paint and covered over that black with a white so bright it blinds the eyes.
His reaction was totally wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When I’d finished confessing, he didn’t start yelling. Out of his mouth came words like forgiveness, grace, Christ, clean slate. He was saying all the wrong things.
Poor Samson, he always seems to make the list of bad role models in the Bible. He’s put out there as the ripped hippie who whacked Philistines, chased skirts, got his head shaved, and eventually got himself killed.
Headhunters have a straightforward job. There’s a position to fill, usually in the corporate world, so they hunt down a candidate for that position.
Dead men don’t get taught. Dead men don’t get un-lost. Dead men don’t heal.
From creator to priest, our God now moves, from forming animals to slaying them, all so that His Adam and His Eve might remain truly His.
God uses our stupid as well as our best thought out plans and efforts
I didn’t know it, in fact I consciously rejected it, but the truth is that throughout those years, both in times of success and failure, God was up to something.
Whatever numbers you want to plug in, ours must be greater than zero. We’re in a partnership with God, after all. We both do our part. We’ve got to meet the Lord halfway. If only he does all the giving, and we do all the receiving, the relationship is doomed to fail.