We are invited to entrust everything to the one who accomplished what we could not: living and bleeding and dying and rising again, so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). To put it another way, when it comes to the kingdom of God, there’s no room for DIY’ers. Best leave it to the professionals.
We live in the “already” but “not yet”. Peace is already ours but not yet. The resurrection is already ours but not yet. Justice is already ours but not yet. Until then be comforted by the fact that you are reconciled in Christ on account of his life, death, and resurrection.
Luther neither removed the Apocrypha from the Bible nor discouraged its use. Rather, he received and preserved the ancient distinction inherited from the fathers: the Apocrypha is valuable, edifying, and worthy of reading, but it is not Holy Scripture and therefore cannot serve as the foundation of Christian doctrine.

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The One who has defeated sin, death, and the Devil himself is now living in Heaven and praying for you.
We all know what I think (maybe) Rachel knows: Celebrating ourselves isn’t enough. It won’t ever be enough.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted written by Gretchen Ronnevik (1517 Publishing, 2021), 122-125. Now available for preorder.
Luther saw that God demands not that we become perfectly righteous like God but that we simply receive the gift of righteousness; a gift that actually makes us worthy.
Jesus will suffer, die, and rise again for them. By this love, they are forgiven. By this love, they are made His friends: Friends of God.
Love, as it pertains to divine qualities, is an unconditional love, love to the loveless and unlovable, divine love. God is agape. God is love.
Yes, Christ has come and delivered us, but He will come again in glory to judge the world in righteousness and the people with equity.
Evangelism is hard work requiring lots of patience. Churches and mission boards are often too impatient and want to see numerical growth explode overnight.
Absolution is the word God speaks to cause his sin-dead creation to live.
Those called out for their sins, who find themselves knee deep in their transgressions, always need grace.
Preaching needs to recover the recognition that it is a monumental event, setting forth through proclamation the monumental Gospel.
The expectation of the Old Testament is NOT first and foremost obedience, but rather adoration!