Lent exists because we are forgetful creatures. We forget how hungry we really are.
The Pharisee valued fasting and giving tithes, but could not find value in his fellow sinner.
God is not a tool in our hands. He does not exist to serve our goals, our metrics, or our platforms.

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When your identity is tied up in the judgment of others—you're in deep trouble. Because, however well-curated and photo-shopped your life may be, sooner or later someone is going to look at you, they'll swipe, and they'll move on.
As long as our illusions of control over storms and germs persist to govern our thinking, we will never be able to take the saving work of Christ as seriously we ought.
Suddenly, this word was. It was no longer a breath, or an idea, or a wish.
By basing our assurance on the promises of God, which we not only hope for in the future but live in now, the Christian can finally rest in the comfort that they are both saved and not responsible for their own salvation.
Love for our neighbor can be taxing. We may even decide it’s not worth the cost. But in this moment I found a blessed reminder of how different God's love is, and how our value rests in Christ alone.
The gospel does not proclaim the results of our practical reasoning about things we experience, but the horror of God crucified for our sins and at our hands.
Before the Fall the waters were one dimensional—they gave life. After the Fall, another dimension is added. The waters kill/drown and they give life. This becomes the New Testament language of Baptism.
The true miracle of springtime isn't simply its beauty, but in the way it foreshadows the sprigs of life that spring forth when God creates faith from the fallow ground of dead sinners.
What fundamentally and truly matters about me is not what I do, but what has been done for me. Discipleship isn’t a virtue or habit that is honed through practice. Instead, the emphasis is placed on the one who has made it his mission to forgive sinners, raise the dead, comfort the troubled, and exorcise the demons that haunt us.
Virtue, like all good things, can easily be weaponized. And not only can, but constantly is. Indeed, I would argue that, for churchgoing, rule-following, tradition-honoring, morality-applauding people, virtue often becomes the cancer that we deem a badge of honor.
Advent draws us to the Lord who comes. We might even say that Advent really does begin in creation as the Father through His Eternal Word breathes His Spirit over the depths of darkness and calls into existence that the culmination of things that are not.
If you want to boil Schleiermacher down to some foundation upon which to build up his theology, think feelings.