For Bonhoeffer, Christ crucified, and the cross of the Christian life were not of peripheral importance, but foundational.
While we often talk about our growth, our progress, and what we are doing for the kingdom of God, the reality is that any goodness in a Christian does not originate in us.
Your exhaustion may not be a sign of weakness of faith. It may be the fruit of enthusiasm. It is Lent. Fast from your fever. Embrace the exhaustion. Curb your inner enthusiast and cling to Christ.

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Living by faith has never been about what we bring to the table. It has always been, and always will be, about what God does for us when we can’t do anything for ourselves.
When we despair of ourselves, we repent of these self-justifying schemes and allow ourselves to be shaped by God, covered in Christ’s righteousness, and reborn with a new heart.
When Dostoevsky died on February 9, 1881, he left behind novels that refuse to flatter the reader or simplify the human condition.
Salvation is not merely to be put in “safety” but to be put into Christ.
There’s a difference between refusing revenge and refusing responsibility.
Christmas is not only about a cradle in Bethlehem, it’s also about a cross outside Jerusalem where salvation was won for us.
Christ did not merely urge humanity to be kind. He embodied perfect kindness by giving his life for those who neither earned nor expected such a gift.
Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
Was Jesus ambitious or unambitious? We have to say that the answer is…yes.
The unity of God’s people is grounded not in lineage nor land but in the promise of the coming Christ.
This is an excerpt from this year’s 1517 Advent Devotional.