He doesn’t consume us, even though that is what we deserve. Instead, Jesus comes down to us and consumes all our sin by taking it on himself.
This article is the first part of a two-part series. The second part will take a look at when pastors abuse their congregations.
The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s new book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 311 and 335

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If you want to find God, he’s hiding in plain sight. Christ is in the very things that we would never select as a vessel befitting divinity.
Your sins do not exist because He who called heaven and earth into existence, has called your sins out of existence. He who made everything from nothing unmakes your sins into nothing.
“Why now,” I said to no one, or to myself, or to God. Whoever. I was drunk, strung out, mostly dead, hopeless in the darkness. I knew I’d done it all to myself. I didn’t need God to drive the point home.
We spend the first nine months of our lives in utter darkness. There are no tiny fluorescent bulbs beaming from the ceiling of the womb, no fetal flashlights, not even a pinprick of illumination.
For many, there are days when they’re as excited about going to work on Sunday morning as you are about going to work on Monday morning.
We hang on to our sins not despite the fact that they hurt, but precisely because they do hurt. We need to hurt, to fret over them, to cry over them, to make amends over them, because by doing so, we will grease the wheels of God’s forgiveness.
Grace is easier to tweet about than extend. When we are talking about my sin and the impact it has on others, I want grace.
If April 1 is April Fools’ Day, then March 25 is Divine Fool’s Day. Falling nine months before Christmas, it’s the day when God set in motion what appeared to be a foolish plan.
As it turned out, the novels in which I had sought escape, became part of the means whereby the Lord rescued me from my own death.
When you see a cross, you see the smile of your Father. He’s not mad at you. He’s overjoyed that you’re his daughter.
There are so many reasons why the Good News is such good news; but, for me, one near the top of the list is the relief of being able to tell the truth. It is so refreshing to be given permission to ‘call a spade a spade.
All other subjects—even Biblical subjects—were subservient to an accurate view of the Person and work of Jesus Christ for sinners.