No matter how many times we hear this good news, it never stops being good news.
Our faith is precisely where Paul puts it, namely, in the blood of Christ.
Just as trick-or-treaters arrive at doorsteps as beggars, we come to the Lord’s table with nothing to offer but our sin and need for forgiveness.

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This is an edited excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).
This article comes to us from 1517 guest contributor, Karen Stenberg.
Despite what the Pharisees believed and advertised, Jesus was not intent upon deconstructing the fundamental tenets of the Old Testament law. Actually, he proceeds to do just the opposite.
Everyone is living as a naked sufferer who’s been duped into believing that the nakedness of suffering has to be covered up.
We prefer God to forgive our sin by not paying attention to it. Then our prayer is not for grace but that God would overlook and wink at us from the sidelines.
Here is someone to love; they’re not a Christian. They’re not very clean and don’t seem to care. Love them. Let your life become intertwined with theirs. Let it cost you something.
If you and I were to examine our own lives, we’d likely have to admit that we are frequent disciples of Jeroboam’s “bootleg religion.”
The irony of our idolatry is that many of our idols could and would speak the gospel to us if we would listen.
The law is good and holy but so often when we are “shoulding” on one another, we actually are just going to end up “burning” each other’s fields.
The Holy Spirit is sent, not to talk about himself, but to point us to Jesus.
The whole point of Church is to be in a place that hands over the gifts and promises of Jesus Christ to dirty rotten sinners who are in desperate need of them.
What is it, though, that makes bedtime so fraught with anxiety?