Below is an excerpt from the personal devotional included in this year’s 1517 Advent Resources.
The Lord’s provision doesn’t rest on the strength of our gratitude.
A Bit of Earth is about the garden, but it’s also about us—as we are made from dirt.

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We need pastors who carry that same concealed weapon in their mouths, who are outfitted with the same word the angels have: the word steeped in divine blood, shed for you. That is all we need, for the word does it all.
I'm afraid of dying. I am a Christian and I am horribly afraid of falling bridges, crashing planes, turned over cars and anything else that you can think of that would include my body being mangled into a mess of bones and flesh.
You became, for a time, ritually unclean. Not sinful. Not immoral. To be unclean meant you bore in your own body the effects of a creation in bondage to decay.
All our little laws reveal that we are, by nature, trying to justify ourselves before others, and before God, based on what we do and who we are.
Imagine if Zacchaeus posted on Jerusalem's Facebook a selfie with Jesus. The top dog among the tax-gougers with Christ at his dinner table. Oh, the outrage! The puritanical zealots would have been tweeting and blogging about it for months.
Not long ago I was having a conversation with a friend. She was facing a big decision about her career with a deadline looming for a decision.
We see someone driving a fancy car, owning a big home, having healthy children and an attractive spouse. Instantly, almost without a second's thought, we assume they are successful. Life is good for them.
This old preacher, Zechariah, didn't abolish holiness. He spread it out. He pushed it beyond the boundaries of the temple.
No, that is not a typo. I am telling you to put your trust in this Old Testament prophet. I want you to look at him and be assured of God’s love for you.
We fly away to the judgment seat of God. There we shall appear before the One who knows all, before whom nothing is hidden. Do you really think you can conceal anything from Him?
For those of you unfamiliar with the Richter scale, our friends over at Wikipedia define it as a 1930s invention that "is a base-10 logarithmic scale, which defines magnitude as the logarithm of the ratio of the amplitude of the seismic waves to an arbitrary, minor amplitude."
Real theologians can’t shut up about who Jesus is and what he’s done on your behalf. So-called theologians with little interest in Jesus may be book smart but they're Gospel stupid.