We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

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God spoke into the black depth. “Let there be light."
Is there no sweeter sound than Immanuel? Christ’s name, God with us. Those three words heal an ocean of hurts, give courage to the weakest heart, and lifts the head of the weariest pilgrim.
On the television show Portlandia—a satirical comedy centered on hipster culture in Portland, Oregon—one episode highlights a conversation between the characters as Carrie and Alexandra look through Fred’s endless photo album of the places he’s traveled.
God coming to us at Christmas encapsulates the essence of Christian faith: we don't make ourselves strong and then work our way up to a strong God.
He created us with an eye on recreating us. He made humanity in his image because one day he would assume that image. The Creator would become a creature while remaining Creator.
Have you ever grown despondent from trying so hard to stop behaving in certain destructive ways, but always failing?
The devil is effective with this attack because it calls out all the things a Christian sinner experiences as simultaneous sinner and saint.
If the devil took over a church, I suspect it would be bursting at the seams every Sunday, with smiling faces, clean noses, straight morals, conservative voting, institutional fidelity
Still, sadly, many polls suggest that above 50% of Americans get their news from social media sites as opposed to actual news sites.
It was Jesus who appeared to Hagar, comforted her, and gave her the promise of future blessings. It was Jesus who came to her when it seemed everything and everyone else had let her down.
Every Christian is abundantly rich through baptism.
It's easy to forget that today, just like then, most people who laud Luther publicly as a reformer, revolutionary, and so on, secretly reject his teaching because it's too much to take.