We live in the “already” but “not yet”. Peace is already ours but not yet. The resurrection is already ours but not yet. Justice is already ours but not yet. Until then be comforted by the fact that you are reconciled in Christ on account of his life, death, and resurrection.
Luther neither removed the Apocrypha from the Bible nor discouraged its use. Rather, he received and preserved the ancient distinction inherited from the fathers: the Apocrypha is valuable, edifying, and worthy of reading, but it is not Holy Scripture and therefore cannot serve as the foundation of Christian doctrine.
The confessors at Augsburg remind us that every generation of Christians is called to bear witness to the gospel amid the challenges and pressures of its own age. As they confessed Christ before emperors and kingdoms, so the Church continues to confess Him before the world today.

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Suddenly Psalm 1 is opened to you and to me and to all people as Jesus walks with us, stands with us, sits with us, and gives us His words and gifts of life!
How are things at your church? Are people getting saved in droves, are there mass baptisms every Sunday, is giving at an all-time high, and are your members model citizens and pillars of the community?
Where contrition is evident, the conscience has already been prodded, piqued, finally terrified. More Law only serves to confirm the lie this person is already at risk of believing: that the last work of the conscience is also God’s last word. But God’s last word is the word of absolution, not the confirmation of the conscience’s testimony, but now its contradiction.
Pastors are built from the same stuff as everyone else. That’s good, and that’s bad.
Asking, “Do you have to be baptized to be saved?” is really like asking, “Does Jesus have to save you in order for you to be saved?”
When we say “forgiveness,” we mean, “Jesus.” When we say, “righteousness,” we mean, “Jesus.”
Christ and the Evangelists, along with saints Peter and Paul, show a deep attachment to the Book of Psalms...it was because the Psalms were about the Messiah, the Christ of God.
And so, when you preach the Law, you are also instructing the conscience and thereby forming it. For some of your hearers, this will result in activating their consciences, making them more sensitive, so they become more aware of their sin and more urgently seek the Gospel. For others, it is a re-instruction.
The Scriptural pictures of atonement offer every Christian comfort and hope against sin through the power of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
The preached word ensured the work of the Holy Spirit, so long as it was the written word of the Gospel. Gospel preaching was the one domain in which we could be assured of the convicting, saving, and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
We don’t need another human to love us, so we become our own divinity full of self-directed, unconditional acceptance.
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News. But it is always Good News that comes to us best on the lips of another.