1. Like the serpent on the pole, God still puts real-life things up for us to look to for salvation.
  2. Jonah’s biggest blunder was a failure to understand that God’s grace is always undeserved and always falls on those who are unworthy of it.
  3. Don’t get in the habit (or, if you already do it, get out of the habit) of saying, “I could never talk about these things the way my pastor does.”
  4. Regardless of background or beliefs, every American I talk to seems on edge, as if the sky were about to fall. But the sky is not falling.
  5. This is the sound of freedom. The Eternal One died so that we who are dying might live eternally with him.
  6. We are the fruit that grows from the branch, which extends from the trunk of the tree, which is rooted in the soil that it grows out of, which is all Christ.
  7. Regularly reading and hearing God’s Word helps us to keep a song in our hearts.
  8. What if the dissonance in this calendrical coincidence can be harmonized into a deeper melody?
  9. He was rooted in his own tradition but gracious with others when they wanted to learn about his faith or their own.
  10. In a world—and even a church—full of distractions, thank God for Rod Rosenbladt. He pointed us to Jesus and Jesus alone.
  11. My goal here isn’t to selfishly reflect on all the reasons I will miss Rod because I know that if you are reading this, you may miss this man, too.
  12. God never delights in seeing his children struggle or suffer. But God does desire that we trust him no matter what the circumstances might look like.