Is there a significant difference between changing your mind and doing penance? Absolutely.
This is the first installment in our Lenten series, Through the Tombs of the Kings, where Steve Kruschel explores God’s faithfulness to Judah’s kings—and to us—through life, death, and the burial of his Son.
The cross traced in ashes isn’t a badge of honor or a mark of our works. It’s a reminder of Christ’s work.

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This day was a day of choosing. On this day, Jewish households would select their Passover lambs (Ex. 12:3-6). The lambs had to be without blemish, the best of the best.
To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
The Gospel restores us to our true humanity, embeds us in the body of Christ, feeds us with Christ’s own body, and offers us a community.
“That can’t be right”, I thought to myself as I flipped back and forth between two verses in my Bible.
Where contrition is evident, the conscience has already been prodded, piqued, finally terrified. More Law only serves to confirm the lie this person is already at risk of believing: that the last work of the conscience is also God’s last word. But God’s last word is the word of absolution, not the confirmation of the conscience’s testimony, but now its contradiction.
In our own lives, we might find that the Law is not an alien word, whether we call it our conscience or our values, our Holy Writ, or our municipality’s laws and regulations
Martin Luther knew something about economics. Well, God’s economics anyway.
No matter what happens, whether failure, pain, or discouragement, Jesus says, “Come to me... and I will give you rest"
The other day a prominent Evangelical pastor tweeted, “My life’s commitment is to talk about the Bible in such a way that fake Christians feel fake — so that they can be saved.”
God’s children spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness. Imagine the hopelessness. Imagine the frustration.
I finally climbed all 109 mountains. My journey began out of desperation, fueled by anger, fear, resentment.
This quest to justify my existence can end because I have been justified by God who gave up heaven to be with me!