This is an excerpt from Remembering Your Baptism: A Sinner Saint Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2025) by Kathy Morales, pgs 74-77.
“The Church exists to tell anyone and everyone who knocks on her door wondering what’s inside: Come and see” (pg. 58). Such reminders make The Church a worthwhile read.
The way of the cross is the actual way of victory. Jesus absorbs the worst of what humanity and even the devil can do to him, and he spurns the shame of it all.

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Pastors are built from the same stuff as everyone else. That’s good, and that’s bad.
“There is no obedience that does not have its eyes on either God or neighbor. An obedience that is motivated by what we will get out of it is no obedience at all.”
The Father uses this last festival of Epiphany, the Transfiguration, to announce one more time to us just who Jesus is: His beloved Son, the Chosen One
When we say “forgiveness,” we mean, “Jesus.” When we say, “righteousness,” we mean, “Jesus.”
Christ and the Evangelists, along with saints Peter and Paul, show a deep attachment to the Book of Psalms...it was because the Psalms were about the Messiah, the Christ of God.
The resurrection of Christ is not God’s way of loving the last enemy (15:26). He despises it; defeats it. He makes such a mockery of it that it loses its name among Christians. Death is dead and can no longer be called death, but merely sleep, just a sweet and momentary sleep until the living Christ’s parousia (v. 23).
This week Jesus continues by discussing the behavior of his people. He’s particularly interested in the way his people treat others—especially those who mistreat them. Like last week, the only way to describe it is backwards.
And so, when you preach the Law, you are also instructing the conscience and thereby forming it. For some of your hearers, this will result in activating their consciences, making them more sensitive, so they become more aware of their sin and more urgently seek the Gospel. For others, it is a re-instruction.
The basis of Christian proclamation is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a historical event. But what His death and resurrection are as events, now become reality for us, delivered to us through preaching and holy baptism, so all who receive His death and life have the hope of resurrection.
Backwards. That is the only way to describe the world Jesus portrays in Luke 6. Consider what He says about blessings. The blessed, He says, are the poor, the hungry, those who weep. It is those who are hated, excluded, reviled, spurned. Who among us wants to be “blessed” like that?
Peace comes when we give up worrying about self-interest, self-preservation, and self-satisfaction and instead keep our eyes fixed on good God and Savior Jesus.
The preached word ensured the work of the Holy Spirit, so long as it was the written word of the Gospel. Gospel preaching was the one domain in which we could be assured of the convicting, saving, and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.