Baptism does not promise us chocolates or flowers, but something far greater: life in Christ.
The Promised Land invites us to laugh at how relatable it is to be exhausted and exasperated by all the people, and the egos and opinions they bring with them, that come with living.
Christians can pursue projects of justice free of the burden of being the justifier of the world; that office belongs to Christ and Christ alone.

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This is the fourth installment in our series, From Eden to Easter: Life and Death in the Garden. Each day throughout Holy Week, we will take a special look at the gardens and wildernesses of Scripture, and in particular, these scenes' connections to Christ's redemption won for us on the cross.
The Psalm now is this: as Christ suffered and then was exalted, so we are also in him.
How intentional will we be about utilizing gospel spaces that already inescapably communicate?
Sometimes the old story is the one we need to hear again and again.
Lent isn't simply a season. It's the Christian life in microcosm.
Apart from the confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God who suffered and died for the forgiveness of sins and rose again to justify the ungodly, there is no Christian faith.
We are called to believe in the church even when we don’t believe in the church.
The great lie of addiction is that suffering must be fled, must be numbed, must be drowned out by any means necessary.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
Despite the mathematical incongruity, the church confesses that Christ is one hundred percent human and one hundred percent divine.
In grace, God chooses to love his people.
This is an excerpt from Ditching the Checklist: Assurance of Salvation for Evangelicals (and Other Sinners) by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 5-7.