I find myself returning to the Nicene Creed this Advent season
This is an excerpt from this year’s 1517 Advent Devotional.
Thanksgiving, then, is not just about plenty. It is about redemption.

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In Christ we are freed to be for our neighbor without fear of sin and damnation falling upon us.
God created Israel to be the vessel into which he would place both his Law and his Son.
These teachings are the heart of the Reformation…If it is about you, it isn’t about Jesus.
The power and the purpose of the Reformation was to bring the full force of the Law and the Gospel to the ears of sinners.
The Law though it does many things—restrains, exhorts the Christian unto righteousness, punishes—always rightly accuses and condemns sinners of their sin before a righteous, holy, and just God.
I spend a lot of time talking to people in coffee shops. Some share my Christian faith, some are exploring and questioning faith and others have left the church, having had a crisis of faith.
If this opening verse offers to us both door and doorkeeper, then the doorkeeper stands with the door held securely shut.
God's doing for us that gets done is Word and Sacrament stuff. Everything else flows from His speaking to us, baptizing us, bodying and bloodying us. Jesus sees our need.
We sinners share a common problem when it comes to Jesus’ parables. We read them with an eye to our own righteousness.
Not afraid, Jesus decided to take a different mode of transportation across the rough waters—his feet.
What do we do when Christians are more focused on their doing for God than God's doing for them?
The real Jesus isn’t trapped inside a church’s ATM. He’s smack dab in front of you, grinning from ear to ear, laughing and loving you with a crazy grace that already filled your bank account with millions.