The greatest obstacle to friendship in middle age isn't that nobody wants friends. It's that everyone is waiting for someone else to go first. But here's the good news: Christ has already gone first for you. And because He has, you are free to go first for someone else.
Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything under heaven. But God has also placed eternity in our hearts, and that makes us strange creatures: able to rejoice in this life yet always aching for a life that only Christ can give.
What does it take to draw near to God? It takes a perfect priest, a finished work, and a broken body to open the way. In short, it takes everything, which is exactly what Christ has given for you.

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"A Lutheran Toolkit" is available for purchase today from 1517 Publishing
God’s plans and purposes for this world aren’t dependent upon us. They’re dependent upon him. This means our faith is liberated.
It is hard to see clearly these days. While we have never been able to see as much as we would like, today we are more aware of our inability to perceive things as they really are.
Because we have this hope and calling, we must speak boldly and plainly; no veil, no shiny veneer, just the truth about God nailed to a tree.
Elijah crosses over the Jordan to be taken into Heaven. Later, Elisha will cross the Jordan again into the Promised Land.
This is an excerpt from “A Lutheran Toolkit” written by Ken Sundet Jones (1517 Publishing, 2021), pgs. 23-25.
God is not what we experience him to be, what our emotions narrate him to be, or what our intuition thinks he might be. God is what and who he says he is.
Bonhoeffer was in the unenviable position of trying to break a spell. The spell was the Nazi crisis, where the totalitarian state threatened the church, and yet to many, seemed to be saving the culture and nation from mortal dangers.
Our anxiety about the future is a consequence of our old self’s attempts to achieve freedom for himself apart from Christ Jesus.
Trusting in Christ’s promise of new life and deliverance pours the ability to abandon fixing our eyes only inwardly and lets us see ourselves as others see us.
What is Jesus' conception of, “How is God’s kingship made effective?” It would happen through preaching.
Saint Paul recognizes the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus is how the Spirit of God translates people from death and darkness to life and light.