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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This restoration is understood as a resurrection—restoration/return to the Land is equated with the resurrection to the courts of Heaven.
This text is chosen for Maundy Thursday and involves eating and drinking with God—in His presence, real presence. This is only possible with the shedding of blood.
No matter who or what chooses us as their enemy, we've received God's promise that there's nothing to fear. He will be our Light and Salvation. He will be our strength.
In this final article in the series, “The Lord’s Prayer During Lent,” Philip Bartelt talks about the 7th Petition (“Deliver us from evil”) and the Conclusion (“For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”)
The throne of grace is always available to us. For the Christian, it isn’t and never will be a throne of judgment. All of the judgment for all of our sin was laid upon our perfect Savior.
Heaven may seem like a long way off right now, but it is as close to you as a gentle word spoken, a splash of water, a bit of bread, and a sip of wine.
Our God-given faith, despite our lack of sight, has made us sons and daughters of light who walk in the light even during dark times.
Look to the crucifix. There you see God as God is, in Himself. You see God in action for you.
In this text, Isaiah is quite explicit and reflects the suffering and disgrace this Servant will suffer as He faithfully does the will of God.
The gospel promise is that God in Christ knows exactly what your temptations are and still bids you find protection from them in him.
The resistance to rest has nothing to do with hatred of naps and has everything to do with wanting control, and wanting a safety net outside of God.
When Luther's barber, Peter Beskendorf, asked him how to pray, Luther wrote him an open letter that has become a classic expression of the "when, how, and what" of prayer. It is as instructive today as when it was first penned it in 1535.