1. We are not saved by the success of our refining process. We are saved precisely because our impurities, no matter what the percentage, ruin the whole thing.
  2. Our prayer confesses that God’s abode is beyond us, yet ever so near for the prayer presupposes that we are being heard, even in our sighs and whispers.
  3. He will plead guilty on our behalf, and suffer the death sentence in our place.
  4. He is our gold. He is our pure garment. He is our healing. He is our sanity. He is our wholeness.
  5. That is the good news that ifies all hand wringing and wipes away every tear from every eye.
  6. The history of the early Reformation in the New World is both a tale of pirates and the battle of catechisms.
  7. Since Adam, we are all illegal and undocumented aliens in God’s country.
  8. As I write this, I wonder if perhaps I am stretching things a bit thinking that it would be relevant to a considerably more sophisticated audience. Perhaps we already know the Gospel, that we are all sinners.
  9. God’s grace is extended to the incorrigible alcoholic as well as to us, the more sophisticated sinners and drunks.
  10. Then, Jesus our Groom, with His nail-scarred hands takes our hands and walks out with us from that ultimate courtroom, and into eternity – His eternity – and a never-ending wedding feast.