Christianity does not locate freedom in radical autonomy. It does not tell either men or women that happiness consists in escaping obligations arising from relationships we did not entirely choose.
Jesus never promised me a World Series championship. He never promised that my children would always succeed or that life would go according to plan. He promised something better.
In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).

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The Psalms do anything but present a sugar-coated presentation of the Christian life. In fact, they are decidedly real about the missed expectations we face so often.
Dangerous Bible stories show us a God who has no problem whatsoever using the muck and mire of our worst days to make his progress toward his good goal happen.
Cliché preaching may be symptomatic of shallow, consumerist culture, perpetuating a problem rather than the solution.
A wonderful intimacy, eternal and beyond our understanding, lies beneath the surface of these words. What is even more wonderful is how this intimacy is also ours. Through the saving work of Jesus, this intimacy is extended unto us.
The point is that the whole lot was wicked. And so were the Galatian Christians. And so are we.
Zipporah and Moses were bound by blood. More than that, God and Moses were bound by blood.
Jesus is not celebrating diversity or difference. He is promising sameness. Redundancy. A repeat of what has happened before.
The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah written by Steve Kruschel is available for preorder through 1517 Publishing. The following is an excerpt.
The Word was preached into your ears, the Holy Spirit worked through that word, and wormed His way from the sinful preacher's mouth to your wicked ears and onto your sinful heart.
While faith forms the relationship with God and love the relationship with the neighbor, hope forms the Christian’s relationship with the future.
When we try to create meaning for our lives or transform Jesus into a mere example, the Holy Spirit comes to us, with a preacher in hand, ready to unleash a sermon like Louis Armstrong blasting out "When The Saints Go Marching In" on his trumpet.
How we feel is so often conditioned upon what we are experiencing. Faith grabs hold of something outside our experience, something objective and true that is not changed by circumstance.