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 article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
Despite the best efforts of that council to silence Jesus of Nazareth and his message, it wasn't enough. Jesus was alive.
What a small thing in the big picture to give his head for the Head of the Church who would give his life for John and all sinners.
Nature ends in stinging judgment from its Creator.
As both law and gospel are proclaimed, judgment and deliverance are miraculously pronounced over the hearer.
It is Jesus himself who is the ladder by which sinners get to God, not by them climbing up but by God climbing down.
A miracle happened right before our very eyes.
It is your privilege—we may even say “right”—to call upon this Father and to call him Father.
In our catastrophes - whatever they may be, however large or small they are - we cry out for rescue, deliverance, and salvation.
Like Jacob, sinners approach the Heavenly Father wearing the clothes of their older brother, Jesus.
We can do nothing to warrant entry into the kingdom of God nor are we getting in if we think a seat at God’s table is something to which we are entitled.
What we do much less of, even in Christian circles, is recognize just how pervasive sin is, such that it has thoroughly corrupted us.