We don’t flinch at sin. We speak Christ into it.
One might say that the first statement of the Reformation was that a saint never stops repenting.
Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.

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For since it was not enough that the Lord of heaven and earth hung on your every word, his Word was made flesh and prayed among us, a priest in the order of Melchizedek, “offering up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save Him from death,” (Heb 5:7).
The second truth, however, is that just because God has become a man does not mean he thinks, desires, or speaks as man generally does.
We need not look the part to elicit divine compassion. We need not be on our knees, face downcast, eyes watery, voice quivering, to make sure we get heaven’s attention. We need not play the beggar before God.
Let him feel the heft of stone cradled in his palm, and consider the gravity of guilt cast upon the hypocrite.
If I am so bound up in the history of the first man, all the way back at the dawn of creation, how can I not also be bound up in the more recent history of my family?
Perhaps part of the mistake we’ve made is in forgetting that the first Christmas, the actual birthday of Jesus, started out as the worst of times.
I didn’t pray for forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, or world peace. All this ten-year-old wanted was a badger. So that’s what I asked for.
Recently I took eleven kids to the movie theater, only three of them were my own. Crazy, I know. When we found our seats, I told the kids that I was going to get popcorn. One child asked me in a panicked voice, “What about me? Will I get popcorn?”
Our hearts are half Amish at times, hankering to live in the past, for we dislike the present or fear the future. But therein lies a grave danger, for nostalgia can easily become the gateway drug to despair.
Yes, this is a time of cascading trial. The Lord has been very kind to comfort and assure us of His nearness and to open my eyes to new truth from a passage that I thought I understood.
The crowds, bored into silence, had left a vacuum in the tent that my little boy’s voice began to fill. He laughed unaware and uncaring that he alone laughed, deaf to everyone’s else silence.