We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.

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Left to ourselves, we are like Adam and Eve; we sew together fig leaves of self-righteousness and hunker down behind trees of flimsy excuses to hide in vain from a judgment we deserve.
When we begin singing the opening hymn, our voices blend with those of angels in heaven, who have been belting out hymns long before we rolled out of bed that morning.
As Luther’s efforts at reform began to build, so did the vacancies in monasteries and convents across Europe as monks and nuns motivated by evangelical teaching left their orders for other vocations and opportunities, including marriage.
If there was a proclamation of grace, it was an afterthought, given in the sense of “just in case anyone needs this.”
Nevertheless, we believe, teach, and confess that this unlikely King advents weekly to meet with His people in the Divine Service through His Word and Sacraments.
She had obviously heard about Jesus previously, maybe even from off-handed comments or even rumors. Her daughter was sick so she sought the gossiped-about Jesus as he was leaving for Tyre and Sidon.
Premeditated or not, you and only you invited this venom into your body, this evil percolating in your soul, and now you don’t know where to turn.
Case in point: Jonah. Calling this man to be a prophet makes about as much as sense as hiring an executioner to be the CEO of a hospital.
Martin Luther has proven to be one of the most important figures in church history in light of his teaching on justification, which resulted in the sixteenth-century Reformation. However, in our own day many are seeking to rethink Luther.
We may seem destitute of hope, but the hope of Christ is stronger than our weakness.
Because I do care now, and will care even after I’m with the Lord, here are some things I hope and pray are not said at my funeral. I care about those who will be there, about what they will hear.
Ingram Robinson was 91 years old and had seen it all—well, almost seen it all. For what his eyes were about to behold, as the sun rose on his ninth decade in this world, was something entirely, and radically, new.