Too much of the existing theology towards gay individuals like me is one of coercion and expectation. Yet, these expectations are inconsistent and different in the eyes of different people (and sometimes outright impossible). Plus, there are no equivalents to this when it comes to heterosexuals – and that, at best, is simply unfair. Never did I expect that living with my sexuality would be more complicated, not because of myself, but because of the opinions of others.

In cutting down on the noise, I have perhaps cut down too much. That is not my own assessment, but may be the assessment of others. I think my ultimate effort is to make my theology workable for people such as myself who struggle with something that, in its very essence, is neither good nor bad. However, it is worth admitting that sexuality is often tainted for both homosexual and heterosexual individuals alike, due to our sinful human nature.

While once again, others may disagree with my views, I’m striving for the balance between reality and respect for Scripture in all of this. I’ll admit, I’m not in the business of making everyone happy. I’ve already upset some for admitting the facts – that I am gay, and do reckon with the effects of it in my life. With that, I must express the reality that I truly do have little control over this aspect of my life, and that is not up for debate.

First of all, all sides have to contend with the difficulty of the Biblical passages commonly used to condemn some or all same-sex behaviors. I think it would be disingenuous for us to claim that all “intimate” behaviors between members of the same sex or gender are off limits, since this would disallow close relationships between all individuals of the same sex, regardless of sexual orientation. We have to remember that even behaviors we see as being romantic are purely platonic in other cultures and throughout antiquity (ex. greeting others with a kiss).

Amidst all this, I think we have to consider that the Bible only possibly discusses acts of a sexual nature between members of the same sex. While we might think differently in a culture that seems obsessed with isolating individuals (especially men) from having any sort of affection in their relationships with the same sex to avoid any doubt that one is anything other than purely heterosexual, most, if not all, behaviors of affection between members of the same gender are certainly fine. Anyone who claims otherwise is stuck in stereotypes that are neither ancient nor “traditional.”

Even then, none of the handful of so-called “clobber passages” appear to have anything less than a clear-as-mud declaration concerning sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. When Paul uses the Greek word “arsenokoitai” (ἀρσενοκοίται) in his letters to the Corinthians and Timothy, he coined a new word that doesn’t have any external context or common use outside of the Biblical texts. While I could go into the variety of problems with these particular passages, I think this is enough to suggest the complexity of the situation with these passages.

In addition to this, we can almost certainly discard the Old Testament references as well, since the distinction that Christians have to make regarding the Law is that we consider it through the lens of the New Testament, and specifically, our consciences are only bound to moral mandates that are reaffirmed or introduced in the New Testament (since the Gospel is only concerned with morality as any laws that were ceremonial or civil in nature were only mandated for their specific contexts). Any references to same-sex behaviors applied to the Israelites, and are not readdressed nor revisited by Christ. Christ summarized the Law best with love of God and love of neighbor. Anything beyond that is muddying a very clear declaration of the tenets upon which all moral actions rest.

Second of all, we must contend with the reality and nature of those, such as I, who have (and, based on scientific evidence, were likely born and grew into) a homosexual orientation. Our sexuality is wholly out of our control, and attempts to control it or convert it end in utter failure, inflicting more wounds than causing actual, measurable change. After ex-gay ministries have attempted to “make the gays straight” for decades, they have at best accomplished nothing, and realistically left 700,000 with more wounds than they came with, or driven them to the point of ending their time in this world (suicidality is already a huge problem amongst LGBTQ+ youth without considering conversion therapy). Combined with this, God doesn’t appear to be in the business of making gay individuals straight, as there is no evidence that sexual orientation happens under any circumstances ever.

As someone who is gay, there is absolutely nothing that I can change on my part. It is the job of Christians in the church to thus reassess how they approach individuals such as myself, since they are the only ones who have any sort of influence over the spiritual well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals. Our hands are tied with regard to our identity. There is no “changing” on our part. Which, logically, leaves the church in necessity to adapt.

Based on the very fact that gay individuals can’t control their sexuality, the church can at very least stop allowing or perpetuating the lies that humans are by nature born heterosexual, since clearly that’s not the case (or else, people like me wouldn’t exist). Along with this, there is no risk in accepting us for who we are. That means no condemnation or schooling for how we describe or talk about our sexuality, since there is nothing wrong with one calling themselves gay, queer, or claiming that they are same-sex attracted. While I have a personal preference for the terms “gay” or “queer,” none of the terms used to describe sexuality or “queer identity” are inherently better than the others (although some might be more helpful in certain situations over others). If Jesus did not shrink away from the prostitute who washed his feet, then Christians should be the least willing to shrink away from people who call themselves “gay.”

Third of all, we should have open arms, whatever situation the homosexual individual is in. Instead of driving them away with hostility or a list of demands before they become “tolerable,” we should be focused on sharing the message of promise. The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. It is the job of all Christians to encounter anyone who has come to seek refuge in the church with the radical love of Jesus and the comforting message of the Gospel (especially since there is no litmus test for the condition of the individual’s heart). If they have come to the church, they are searching for answers and healing (and if they aren’t, they still need the Gospel anyway).

The job of the church is not to manufacture perfect people, but to empower people with the message of the Gospel and encourage them in the love of each other and their neighbors. By loving those who are made in the image of the God who shed his blood for them and all of us, we show that we have hearts that have been turned toward loving God. This is the same in regard to LGBTQ+ individuals.

Our goal should not be to force the homosexual couple to divorce (which we should find fault with such a demand, especially if the couple happens to be parents). Our goal should not be to force the trans individual to detransition. Our goal should not be to force any queer person whom Christ has called to remain in celibacy. Our goal should be to show them the love of Christ and point them to the Savior, who will work change in them as he sees fit in accordance with his will. Our demand that the individual must change for us to share the message of the Gospel shows our lack of trust in the efficacy of the message. And at that point, what is it worth to believe in a message that we don’t trust to be effective?

Fourth of all, heterosexual Christians should stop seeing homosexuals as being foreign, unnatural, mentally ill, or innately broken due to their sexuality. Our similarities far outnumber our differences. In fact, the main and only practical difference we have is the gender of whom we are attracted to. Yet besides that, our desires for love, affection, romanticism, intimacy, and an exclusive relationship with another individual are all common. We have the same desires, just with different people in mind.

We are still human, and we deserve at very least to be considered with the same dignity and respect, regardless of whether our sexuality is known or not. To heterosexual Christians, we are still your neighbors, whom Christ urges you and commands you to treat with love and grace. If you are to model anyone, model your Savior, who approached sinners of all sorts with the same tenderness, grace, and love.

Fifth and finally, there is a middle way of dealing with the theological problems surrounding the topic of homosexuality. While it may be ideal for gay individuals, such as myself, to remain celibate, we have no mandate from God to do so. We, along with our straight peers, have an invitation to be celibate, but even Paul acknowledges that not everyone is given the ability to remain a lifelong celibate. There is a danger in forcing ourselves to standards that we cannot uphold. Paul considers that it is better for one to be married to one to whom they can be fully dedicated, rather than to burn with lustful passion.

In the case of same-sex couples, while it might not be the “ideal,” it is certainly better than the alternatives, which can lead to dishonest celibacy and risky sexual activities that harm both oneself and one’s neighbor or despair that can lead to depression, apathy towards God, and even suicide. If our theology places individuals like myself at increased risk of degraded physical or mental health and suicide, we must rethink our theology – and this is most certainly the case we find ourselves in here. That, and besides the notoriously misused “clobber passages”, there is nothing that should theologically prevent at least tolerance of same-sex unions.

In addition to that, I think Christians have to recognize the astonishing amount of “good fruits” that are present in same-sex households. For example, studies have consistently shown the children of same-sex couples to be just as resilient as children of heterosexual couples (in fact, in certain cases, the children of same-sex couples have a marginal advantage in this regard). Same-sex households are way more likely (7x compared to heterosexual households) to adopt children and provide stable environments to them. Same-sex couples also tend to be happier than straight couples on average. With all of these things in mind, I think it’s very hard to dismiss any sort of goodness in same-sex relationships. If such relationships were as harmful as Christians tend to speak of them, we would find that to be consistent with reality. It simply is not the case, as much many conservative Christians might hope it were.

That being said, some gay individuals will find themselves to be more content as lifelong celibates. There is nothing wrong with that. Others will find themselves unable to remain celibate and end up marrying someone of the same sex for their own well-being. Given the very clear principles of Scripture that by nature outweigh the unclear ones, we should find no fault with that either. It is not our job to suggest that we know God’s will better than he does. God works in the hearts of all types of sinners and has called all types of people to be his children. That includes me, and that includes many other Christians who also call themselves “gay.”

In my own case, I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m open to whatever God sends my way. If it is his will that I remain celibate for life, so be it. If it be his will that anything else happens, I have no reason to be opposed to that. I trust that he holds all things in his hands and is working in my best interest, both for the here and now and what lies beyond in eternity.

“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone…’”

– Genesis 2:18, NIV.

Growing up as the second oldest in what ended up becoming a family of 14, I wasn’t alone a lot, at least physically. But growing up as a gay kid, who wasn’t quite able to admit it out loud, made things lonely in another regard.

When I was a student at public school, I was mostly alone. I had one friend I spent time with. The rest of the time, I was at the mercy and under the scrutiny of classmates who bullied me for being different.

Home wasn’t perfect, school wasn’t either, and I constantly lived in both worlds, looking for escape from the other. I lived around people who didn’t understand me, and making my experiences their own problem, were opposed to who I was as a person.

College didn’t fix this, to the surprise of absolutely no one whatsoever. I spent the first few months of my freshman year knowing basically no one besides my roommate. It took time to form friendships, but eventually I did. Yet being gay would still haunt me. I would go on to unsuccessfully attempt to initiate a few relationships with girls my age before we got to where I am now.

Now I feel like I’m back to where I started and feel unknown and misunderstood as much as ever. Since I came out fully, there’s been an uneasy silence and gray area. What does this mean now? Am I just expecting people to support me, or do I figure my life will be better with this off my chest?

Being out presented new problems and more scrutiny and testing of friendships and numerous reality checks that have the hand on the compass to my life spinning wildly in circles, pointing in every direction. I’ve realized that friendships aren’t really enough and aren’t as ultimate as I tried to postulate. They certainly could be, but few people are interested in cultivating intimate friendships.

This led me to realize the lacking part in all of this - intimate love that doesn’t judge but embraces everything as it is. My relationships have either been shallow or performative, and as I find myself having less to give while longing for more, it’s just not cutting it. I’m finding myself to be more alone than ever, and surrounding myself with people doesn’t bring the same comfort anymore.

Maybe I’m just depressed because it’s winter still, and I’m dying on the inside. I think it’s more than that, though. However messy the path has been, the reality checks, the research, the data, and the doubt have all led me to be affirming of my sexuality. Hating myself because I’m gay and withholding myself from love is leading to the absolute end of me, and I’m so tired and depressed with this season of life that there has to be a lifeline. Surely, something good has to come from this. I can’t say that loving the people who are of the same gender is wrong anymore, and while it’s breaking my worldview in ways that I perceive as being positive and part of the growing pains of learning to love myself, deep down I know that it’s right - somehow. It’s not just a feeling – it’s a certainty, but one arrived at with hopeful hesitancy.

Really, though, it’s true that we can be alone even if we are surrounded by a crowd of people – even people who claim to care for us and about us. That’s how it feels a lot of the time. I have friends that I surround myself with, but still feel largely in isolation in a way that seems to be inexplicable, and that makes it all the more difficult. I just want to be fully known and fully loved, and while that’s exactly how God loves me and all of us, it’s not the same as being physically embraced and held by another human being.

God made us for relationship and for connection, both for relationship and connection with him (as the one who loves and knows us best) and with our fellow human brothers and sisters. That’s all we really are after all. People, not so different from each other, who all bleed the same color, breathe the same air, and live in the same world.

So practically speaking, what does this mean for the one who is gay? What does this mean for the one whose sexuality and their experience of it are different than the examples that we most commonly see throughout time? Does this mean they have to be alone forever, or is there another way, and we just don’t have historical examples because it has been covered up and hidden from the public eye, because it has always been seen as shameful?

I don’t think God wants us to be alone, regardless of how we talk about sexuality, and this is a huge failing because if the church expects its gay members to lead lives of celibacy and commitment, then there should be rigorous support for these individuals. I think we can have a faulty assumption that since we claim God to be our everything, that he is sufficient in and of himself. Yet, this is foolish because even God knows that we need so much more, but everything that we have comes from him in the first place.

So the church leaves people with the assumption that in order to have this Savior, they have to live in a certain way, but that this Savior is all they have to give to their struggling members, and it ought to be sufficient. That’s why it ultimately fails, and maybe that points to the fact that there is a way to justify same-sex relationships, since celibacy is a dangerous thing if pursued in a way that’s forced. The same can be said about relationships that are forced, and by that I’m specifically referring to gay individuals who are forced into straight relationships. While said relationships fit the complementary doctrines encouraged by straight Christians, they aren’t compatible relationships, which end up falling short of God’s design and desire for our relationships (which is why they frequently turn sour, become unhappy, and fall apart).

All theological arguments aside, God still deeply cares about his children who are gay and doesn’t hold us up to impossible expectations. Yet, he knows us and how we feel and doesn’t want us to be alone. It’s not good for us to be alone, after all. So, I think there’s hope for gay Christians that they don’t have to force themselves into a box. They don’t have to choose a path of loneliness because God didn’t design us for that. God is not going to send his children to hell for something that so clearly bears better fruit than the alternative of living with depression and harmful thoughts.

There’s more than just this reason to arrive in an affirming position as a gay Christian, but this is what started to bring me back to reality. What if celibacy isn’t going to draw the queer individual closer to Christ? In fact, I think we already can see how frequently the topic of sexuality is used as an unfair wedge to drive LGBTQ+ individuals out of the church. Yet, just because the church has turned its back on us, it doesn’t mean Jesus does. In fact, he loves us, no matter where we fall. He only asks for faith in him, the faith that he creates in us, and there’s no doubt in my mind that many gay Christians in same-sex relationships have this faith that’s still clinging to and reliant on him.

So maybe the argument isn’t just about theology, which at its best is our best attempt to understand what God is telling us using what his word says and marrying it with human philosophy and interpretation. I think the argument is rather about what is best for the members of his creation who have their own unique deviations from the average person and how they can still be his child, regardless of how they struggle through these things. Especially since scripture lacks certain specificity and is largely silent on this topic. Nothing is impossible with him, and he will never abandon those whom he calls by the power of his word. At the end of the day, it’s the Gospel and not our perfection that fills us up and makes us whole. It’s not about our sin – it’s all about our faith in the one who loves us so much.

I remember growing up hearing about how terrible gay people were. I remember the misconceptions about how these people had supposedly all turned their backs on God. I remember all the ugly accusations made, the slurs, the insults. Reality is, all these things struck closer than what was comfortable. All of the malignant and homophobic things said about gay individuals kept me from understanding myself. I was gay, but the noise was confusing and stifling to self-discovery.

Since coming out, one reality has struck me. There is a theological sureness, and a dangerous one at that, with how people approach this topic in the conservative and evangelical communities, and one that doesn’t make room for queer individuals in God’s kingdom. There is so much noise, so many voices of oftentimes hateful opposition, that it’s hard to filter out reality.

That’s why I’m starting Reclaim as a sanctuary and place to clear out the noise on this subject and to reclaim the conversation for queer individuals. Straight individuals, who have no understanding, have long offered their opinion on the topic in ways that have been hateful, harmful, unproductive, and have driven away a large portion of the LGBTQ+ community (around 90% of which grew up in Christianity) from the church.

The church has long been due for a reassessment of how it approaches these discussions, and even more importantly, the people who are impacted by the theology regarding these subjects. In doing so, it has often overlooked or ignored external realities that must be grappled with. Scripture gives us a basis to work with, but it doesn’t give us a precise guide on how to work through everything.

This is where the church, especially those advocating for ex-gay (Side X) ideology, needs a huge reality checkup, and this warning goes for Side Y and Side B groups as well. If your theology towards gay and trans individuals functions in a way that increases suicidality and mental health problems, then you need to consider that something about your theology is wrong. God does expect what we cannot live up to, and neither should we impose standards that queer individuals can’t meet.

The church is not just for straight, white individuals. It’s not an echo chamber for just one line of thought. The church transcends these cultural and philosophical boundaries, enveloping and embracing even the misfits. Granted, there are the essentials that we absolutely cannot compromise on, which are succinctly taught in the three ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian). There are also areas in which Christians have a great amount of freedom and liberty. As Lutheran theologian Rupertus Meldenius explained, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Ultimately, the church must recognize that it has failed somehow if it has caused a specific minority to mass exit the flock, not because they don’t believe in God, but because they have been told they don’t belong. That’s just lazy, personally, if your theology is only useful because when applied, it causes the group that it should ideally help to leave. That’s not loving or embracing. That’s just willful ignorance of how ineffective the church has been at tackling this subject in an honorable way.

In order to talk about these things, we have to be able to be honest and open about the realities at hand. We have to approach it in a way that doesn’t force or coerce, but invites, forgives, loves, and blesses. We have to be willing to learn from and listen to voices that may clash and break down the stigmas that have been built up in the Christian community concerning the LGBTQ+ community.

Queer people are no different from any other type of people. They still have the same needs, same wants, same desires that any other person could have.

They still need Jesus.

And the same Savior who hung out with the misfits in his society still wants them.

If we expect the church to remain a harbor for people to find rest and hope in Jesus, we need to have our arms and doors fully open like he does. If we expect Christianity to continue bringing hope and life to people throughout the ages to come, we need to have no limits on who this is for, because Jesus shows us time and time again that his love is for everyone.

The uprooting of LGBTQ+ individuals through anti-queer rhetoric and religious intolerance does not just lead to the mass exit of queer individuals alone. In fact, the younger generations (both gay and straight alike) are largely exiting the church more and more because of this and other social and justice issues that the church has failed to resolve. Both the church's inaction and bad resolutions are to blame for the steady exit of younger generations from the fold, despite growth in religious interest. Evidently, it's hard to sit in a church that teaches that your friends don't belong over something they can't change, and that shouldn't surprise us.

Yet, they didn't leave because of the real Jesus. They left because of the abuse of his word. They left because they were consistently preached a message that intentionally ostracized them as a person. Queer people are consistently told they don't belong, to the point that pastors in evangelical bodies have advocated that we should be put to death or end our lives on our own. That's not the heart of Christ; in fact, that's horrific. We constantly get told that we're who the “millstone around the neck” passage is aimed at, but who, may I ask, is causing people to lose their faith? It's certainly not those of us who wish we could exist in the church like any other human being and experience the love of Christ.

Queer people aren't going to disappear or go away, and we need the love of Jesus as much as anyone else. In fact, I think seeing the way that many individuals live in contradiction to God's goodness by showing hate to queer people has only made me more aware of how needful I am of the love of Jesus and knowing that he's got me no matter what. The one thing needful, sitting at Jesus’ feet, hearing his word, and receiving his love, is what we all need. And it's time we stop gatekeeping a love we aren't given the right to gatekeep. There are no terms and conditions to God's love, and there's no despair, but actually a lot of hope for us queer individuals.

LGBTQ+ individuals belong in the church as much as any other group of people, and it's time for us to reclaim space for ourselves in a church that we haven't abandoned, but has abandoned us.

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

“ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”1

When we’re reading this, do we ever slightly feel for the older son? You know, he was upstanding, obedient, the example of what any parent would want for a child. He was never celebrated like this, yet just as soon as his younger brother comes home, a feast like no other is thrown for him.

“It’s not fair,” we say. The one who deserves the party doesn’t get one and is left working in the fields, and the one who absolutely doesn’t deserve anything gets thrown the grandest of celebrations fit for a king. So we approach our dear savior and say, “Jesus, this doesn’t make sense. Why would the undeserving son get all the praise and glory that should go to the deserving son? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Jesus knows what he’s doing here, and he has a way of surprising us and subverting our expectations. Just as soon as we think we get what he’s saying, he seems to go off script, and we’re left scratching our heads. Jesus takes the picture that we expected, and flips it in a way that’s unexpected.

This picture, this story that Christ tells, isn’t a picture of an earthly father and an earthly son – no, Jesus paints a picture that tells a story of all of us and our relationship to our heavenly Father.

When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they took the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the inheritance that they wanted now, even though God knew that they wouldn’t be able to handle it. They broke his only command to them and brought chaos upon the world.

We also get graces and blessings that God bestows upon us in life, but we waste them recklessly. We take what God has given us for granted far too often. It’s easy for us to miss his goodness because we have a habit of tainting it and transforming it into sinfulness.

We, whether we admit to it or not, are like the prodigal son. The son who takes this goodness, this inheritance from his father, and wastes it on sinful behaviors instead of good. We’ve all behaved just as recklessly as he.

Yet, God shows us that despite this wasteful living of ours not meeting what he would want, there is no better place for us to be than that of the returning prodigal. Poor, impoverished, in rags, completely broken, and beaten down.

I think the most astonishing thing is that the father of the prodigal is watching and waiting, as if he knows and expects his returning son. As soon as he sees that son, there’s no rage on his mind. There’s no wrath. There’s joy. There’s compassion. There’s mercy.

We’re told that the father noticed his son when he was still “far off,” as if the father was peering through his binoculars when he saw the broken, weary, dirt-stained face of his lost son. The father didn’t walk out to greet him or let him get all the way to the house. No, the father literally ran out to greet this son. It didn’t matter that the father was probably well advanced in his years and not as youthful as he once was. The father was moved so deeply that he didn’t hesitate and couldn’t wait a moment longer, and he immediately embraced his straying son.

The son starts to suggest that he’d do anything, that he is unworthy to be his father’s son, and would rather be considered his servant. He deeply realizes his depraved condition. He can’t live without his father’s providence. But to the father, this is nonsense. He doesn’t hold what his son has done against him. His son’s past is irrelevant, and he’s already forgotten any reason he had to be mad. He is so fixated on his state of joy and compassion that he makes it into a festival. The return of his lost son is worth celebrating more than anything else in the world.

This is the one thing that Jesus does best here in this parable and throughout all his life, for that matter. He shows us the heart of our heavenly Father. It’s been said that we dare not contemplate our God without first looking at his Son. This parable is no outlier. Jesus leads us deeper into knowing the heart of God.

I think there’s such amazing depth to this parable, and it’s so much to unpack. But that’s the beauty of Jesus’ parables – they are both rich in meaning, and they speak to everyone.

To us prodigals, God meets us where we’re at and makes no demands. He sees us, broken, beaten down, in desperate need. He knows we’ve done wrong, but he’s chosen to forget it. To not impute it to us. To not hold it against us. He’s there to forgive our sins, even before we’ve totally recognized that’s what we’ve needed or wanted.

God has such a huge heart of compassion. He ignores our demand to take anything less than what he’s willing to give. We were his children the day we left, and we’re still his children as we come stumbling back to him. Nothing could ever change that. He decides to exalt us in a way that seems unfair, but to God, nothing could be more untrue. He sees us for who we are, apart from our wrongs. We are his children, whom he loves and rejoices in because we’ve come back to him and we’ve recognized how much we need him.

He runs out to meet us. Our God is not passive; he’s very engaged and active and filled with compassion. He sees our wounds and covers them up. He embraces us and shows us that he’s loved us this entire time. Nothing could change that.

Also, we know that all of heaven rejoices and celebrates when we come back to our heavenly Father. In the verse before this parable, Jesus says, “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”2 As demonstrated by the parable, this repentance is less of a turning away from our failings, but a recognition of them and a posture that turns back to God and allows him to bind us up and take care of our mistakes and wounds.

This also speaks volumes about how God thinks about all people and how important it is that we are emphatic about the Gospel as those who have been blessed to be called prodigals. When the son returns, his father doesn’t crush him down or humble him – he actually does the exact opposite. God desperately loves all of his prodigal children. The people that we share this planet with. The fellow humans who are our neighbors. God loves all of them and actively wants to run out to welcome them back again.

There is joy in being a prodigal that God loves. An unimaginable amount of joy, in fact. God didn’t make us to just proceed to turn his back on us after what happened in Genesis 3, or else his book and story would have ended there. God continues to remain active and to show mercy and love to his creation. God loved us (and that includes absolutely everyone) so much that he gave his own Son up to take the place of us prodigals. He allowed his own Son to be humbled and punished in the way that we deserved, suffering a painful death and separation from our heavenly Father, so that we might be able to come back to God and let him love us freely.

As we know from the Prophet Hosea, God tells us, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”3 God does not delight in our attempts to please him of our own will. Instead, he much prefers to show us mercy and would have us acknowledge our reliance on him.

That’s what the older son got wrong.

He complains that he’s slaved away for his father. He demands that he deserves better, but the father is confused at the lack of joy in his older son and his jealousy.

It was never about being obedient to his Father; he just did so without any sort of joy. He ignored the blessings that he had in a different, much more dangerous way. He was apathetic to what he already had.

And this can be a warning to us too. A warning to not miss the point of what our salvation is supposed to be. A warning to remain joyful even when we are faithful and obedient. A warning that we can still end up despising God, even if we claim to follow him.

I can’t help but think that there are a lot of Christians who are missing out on the joy of being a redeemed prodigal because they are stuck in their ways about the law (and legalistic tendencies) to the point that sacrifice matters more to them than God’s mercy. It is never about what we could sacrifice for God, because he still loves us, no matter how faithless or faithful we are.

The older son wasn’t truly reliant on the unconditional love of his father, and so it’s no surprise when he’s upset that he didn’t earn his father’s love and that he made up conditions to his father’s love that weren’t there. The way his father loved him was just as unearned as the way his father loved his younger brother. His obedience didn’t do him any good in earning the love of his father; it just led him to ignore it.

We’ve all been both the younger son and the older son, but we do well to realize that we’re much better off as the younger son. The younger son who gets to realize time and time again how much God loves him. The younger son, who realizes that even when life has gone awry, they still have someone who will love them no matter what they’ve done.

We are prodigals, it is true. Prodigals who beg at the feet of a Father whose gaze over us doesn’t sway or falter. Prodigals, who are beloved children of God.

God’s kingdom isn’t one with rules or conditions. It isn’t earned or gained by our own vain pursuits. No, God’s kingdom is one without conditions. One where both the younger and older sons belong. One in which God is reconciling all of his children back to himself.

God is waiting for all of his prodigal children to come home. He wants them and desperately pursues them. Our God has set aside what seems to be the just thing to do and instead has chosen to be loving and gracious.

This is the story of his unconditional love, which doesn’t look upon our sinfulness but looks upon us with grace because the price has already been paid. You are worth so much more to him than you imagine.

So when you’ve made yourself weary in this world that has nothing good to offer, come home to him, and he will give you a place to stay and find peace and rest in him eternally.

It was dark outside, and I was riding in the back of a friend’s car. We had just gone on a scenic walk through a state park and were now heading back to campus after, ironically, eating at McDonald’s of all places. I had my earbuds in and happened to be talking with my younger sister on the phone. Little did I know what my friends were plotting from the front seats.

Abruptly and lurchingly, my friend pulled his car off to the side of the road. Confused, I let my sister go and asked what was going on. The car was out of fuel, they claimed. After a bit of back-and-forth conversation, they had me convinced. We were going to have to walk back to campus, and my friend would come back and get his car in the morning.

So we all got out, and I started walking ahead of the rest (it was dark outside, by the way). My friend claimed he forgot something in the car that he needed, and they both proceeded to go back to the car. I kept walking and thought nothing of it until only moments later, when instead of finding my friends walking alongside me, they drove past me in the car that was supposedly out of fuel. I had been duped.

Luckily, they didn’t actually leave me there, stranded, but I was the only one who didn’t find their little prank very funny. It was the second time that evening that they had pretended to leave me behind. Normally, I’m not so naïve, but my friends had my trust, so I fell for it, again.

There are a lot of people who earn our trust in our lives, whether it’s coworkers, friends, relatives, fellow Christians, and the list of vocations could go on. Many times, we go to these people for advice or encouragement. Often, these connections are important to us and are built on networks of commonality and trust.

Yet, like us, these people can all tend to fall short on their promises at least once during the duration of our relationships with them. Coworkers sometimes forget to return favors, friends sometimes cancel plans at the last minute, relatives sometimes aren’t there for us when we need them, and sometimes our fellow Christians forget to check in on us to make sure we’re okay. There are many ways we can fall short of our vocations, causing our networks of trust to fracture and crumble.

Relationships are more than just a one-way street. There’s only so much giving that one side can do without anything in return before it becomes too much. It takes the work of more than one individual to actually make things work out in the long run. Sometimes, we can refuse to care about others as we should, and oftentimes, it’s because selfishness comes so easily to us.

We are truly fallen creatures; there’s no doubt about that. It’s easy for us to become so absorbed in our own worlds that we forget we have obligations to other people, that is, to our neighbors. And while none of us can claim to be any better at it than anyone else can, part of me wishes we wouldn’t get so defensive, refusing to see our failures in this regard. Our failures to keep others’ trust. Our failures to stay by each other’s sides through every moment of storm and calm. Our failures to be the people that God truly wants us to be.

Ultimately, we tend to want to abandon what matters most for the things of this world. The list can go on: riches, entertainment, reputation, materialistic wants, travel, and many, many other desires. Yet not one of these things will follow us into eternity. The only things that will are our own souls and bodies, and the people around us. The people that God commands us to love. The people God places in our lives with the call that we ought love them more than ourselves. It is no easy task, and as we know, one that we constantly and consistently blunder and fail at.

That’s why it’s so crazy and radical when God chooses to befriend us instead of holding this all against us. That’s why it’s astonishing and almost unbelievable that he would decide to take our place and bestow his perfection on us. Jesus makes no demands. He just wants to love us and wants us to be his. He’s the one who demonstrates that type of greater love that he talks about in John 15:13 when he says, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.” He sacrifices his life to make up for the countless times when you and I should have been the ones demonstrating this kind of sacrificial love. The kind of love that says, “you matter so much to me that I would die for you.”

We matter to Jesus, and he won’t let us go. He won’t leave you high and dry, as so many other people do. He embraces you as his dear child whom he marked in the waters of Baptism. He sustains your faith amidst life’s turbulence. He makes sure no evil powers can harm you or take you away from him. He’s the kind of shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine for the one wandering, straying sheep. The type of sheep that you and I are. He’s watching over you every second, of every hour, of every day of your life. He’s here in all the little moments. You can’t fathom or even imagine how much he holds you dear, nor can you comprehend how much you truly matter to him.

As Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?”1

And again, in the Old Testament, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid and do not be terrified before them, because the Lord your God is going with you. He will not abandon you and he will not forsake you.”2

People in this life might walk away from you, but God will never walk away from you. He will never stop loving you and will never let you go. Paul writes even more in Romans about this deep connection and inseparable, unconditional love that God has for us.

^“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Just as it is written:

For your sake we are being put to death all day long.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”3

Jesus isn’t the type of friend that will abuse your trust. He won’t trick you out of your relationship with him. He won’t leave you stranded on the side of a road in the dark. There is nothing that can separate us from him, because he loved us that much.

He loved us so much that he hung in pain and agony on the cross and shed his precious, innocent blood for you and for me. The omniscient God, in human fashion, knowing well his future suffering and pain, still didn’t let us down. He won us a victory that is more than enough. He loved us so much that even though we ran away from him, he decided that he couldn’t live without us. So he rescued us from all the mistakes we’ve made and keeps pursuing us daily.

Yes, Jesus truly won’t leave you high and dry. He doesn’t get tired of chasing after you. He doesn’t grow weary of redirecting you. He doesn’t give up when you run away from him. Nothing could petrify his heart of love that he demonstrates toward us, time and time again. He is truly the most perfect friend of all. Even if everyone else runs away from you, Jesus won’t be like the world, caught up in all its wants and desires, which will one day fade away. Jesus will never, ever, ever abandon you.

I can remember when I was in middle school and people groups started changing. The social dynamic shifted from everyone mingling with each other to a certain degree, and specific groups of people started to coalesce. Friends somehow got the Google treatment, and it became important where they were ranked and how relevant they were to you and you to them. There came a new importance of having “best friends.”

As someone who mostly sat and watched from the sidelines as people, their attitudes, and their associations began to change, I slowly ended up with few good friends left. Evidently, I wasn’t worth many people’s time, and people weren’t my thing at that time in my life, either. However, it was oddly isolating. Out of around a hundred classmates, there was only a meager handful of people who really wanted to spend time with me.

Who was your best friend in middle school? In high school? Do you still remember them? Do you still talk to them? Things in this world are in constant flux, and people are no exception. If you do still interact with them, do you still consider them your best friend? Priorities change throughout life. People move on. Sometimes, the whole world moves around us, and we can become paradoxically alone while in a crowd.

Loneliness and isolation are real. The reality of this really hit hard during the pandemic, but we don’t always recognize it every day. Sometimes being alone is good since we all need a break from everything that fills up our world on occasion. But many times loneliness is painful. Sometimes, it hurts when we desperately want someone to watch over us, to talk with us, to spend time with us, and there is no one who is available to do that.

As Christians, we can get this notion worked up in our heads that we’re here and God is distant. After all, when we talk to him, there is no verbal answer. God feels so far off, and we can feel doubtful that he’s actually watching over us and caring for us from that distance. It’s hard to trust that he’ll be there when we stumble and that he’s actually with us through the highs and lows of our lives.

Yet, the reality is that this is not true. Remember how the disciples were distraught after the events of Good Friday. They were scared. They were afraid, and they locked themselves behind closed doors. Jesus, the one who had walked with them, who called them to something greater, had now died. What seemed impossible had happened. How could the one who changed them, who raised the dead and gave spiritual life, have died so painfully?

Yet, the disciples were soon to be changed in the following days with Jesus coming back to walk among them again in his glorified, resurrected form. It was at this time that Jesus told them before his ascension, “Surely I am with you always until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, EHV).

Jesus’ words still apply to us. He is right here with us. Every moment of every hour of every day of our lives. He walks alongside us and is constantly guiding our footsteps closer to him.

Truth be told that we don’t often think of Jesus as our friend. We often use titles that make him feel far off and distant. We call him King. We call him Prince of Peace. We call him Lord of Lords. But Jesus isn’t that type of King. He isn’t some far-off monarch that barely thinks about his people. While certainly all of those titles are true of Christ, he is also our loving Savior who cares for each little moment. If he provided for our greatest need, he definitely cares about all of the small things, too, as he said, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33, EHV).

Christ also said, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:3, EHV). Jesus, God in human form, died for us and calls us his friends, and he’s also our friend.

In fact, Jesus is the greatest of friends. He gave up his life so that we could be with him forever. He bridges the gap between us and heaven. He’s the friend who is there to steady us when we’re about to fall. He’s the friend who is holding on and will never let go.

So what of it if nobody else wants to be our friend? The truth is that what the world thinks about us doesn’t matter in light of what Jesus says about us. Jesus is the friend who loves and cares for us. Jesus is the one who is guiding us with his light and leading us forward. Jesus is truly the greatest friend of all. All of our earthly friends pale in comparison to this heavenly friend.

One of the most beautiful hymns that speaks of this message is well-known and a treasured favorite:

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit;
O what needless pain we bear–
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!

—What a Friend We Have in Jesus (ELH 385)

And, what a friend we truly do have in Jesus. We have a friend who will bear us up in all of our suffering. We have a friend who watches over us always. We have a friend who is there to hear us whenever we are struggling or anxious.

Jesus, the divine Savior, is the best friend of sinners like you and me, and let us always remember to think of him that way.

“I said, ‘I am doomed! ...I am a man with unclean lips...’ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, carrying a glowing coal in his hand... He touched my mouth with the coal and said, ‘Look, this has touched your lips, so your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.’ Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ Then I said, ‘Here I am. Send me!’” —Isaiah 6:5–8 (EHV, abbr.)

If we take a trip back in time, the writer of the passage above would have lived in Israel during times of increasing evil. Isaiah was a prophet, sent to warn God’s chosen people of the judgment that He would soon bring down because of their wickedness. However, Isaiah did not just prophesy about the coming Babylonian captivity; he more importantly prophesied about the coming Savior, who would reconcile humankind with God.

Sometimes we might feel the same way as Isaiah would have felt. Perhaps we feel like we are the only ones who still care about what God tells us in a society that is drifting farther and farther away from Him. We can get so frustrated with our world that is enveloped in sin and decay.

Yet, God’s call to Isaiah is the same call that goes out to us. Truth is, we are just as impure and wicked as any other human, but God is gracious. Just as the seraphim touched Isaiah’s lips with a glowing coal, God still touches us through the waters of baptism, through bread and wine (the body and blood of His Son), and through His Word and promise of forgiveness. We are forgiven not because of what we have done, but because of the saving work of Christ, who hung on the cross for our sins.

Just as the Israelites needed to hear that there was a coming Savior who would save them from their greatest need (sin), the people in our world need that very Savior, who also lovingly died for them. To us who have been made clean, God calls out, “Whom shall I send?” Regardless of our vocation, we can be witnesses of the good that God has worked in us. May our answer also be, “Here I am. Send me!” Amen.

Quiet Moments is a devotional series found in the Bethany Lutheran College student newspaper (The Scroll). This devotion is found in the first issue of The Scroll for the 2025-2026 school year. This year’s devotions follow a theme of “Lessons in Waiting: Living and Growing in our Faith” rather than following the lectionary like last year’s devotions.

In fact, you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Indeed, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. There is not Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one and the same in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26–29, EHV)

Our culture has made how we identify ourselves of paramount importance - what political party we identify with, what type of person we identify as, what train of thought we align with. We feel forced to pick sides in a black and white paradigm that knows no right or wrong. These identities are not rooted in absolute truth, but are rather the world’s opinion of us and our opinion of ourselves.

Yet, we are flawed, and our reason and senses are imperfect. Ever since our first parents fell into sin, our sense of reality has been tainted, including our ability to define ourselves. None of us wants to wear the badge of a sinner, but that’s exactly what we are - sinful. Maybe we’re like the Pharisees, and are tempted to cover up our sins by appearing perfect and righteous on the outside, and are prideful that the world calls us “good people.” Or, perhaps, we rebrand our sin as really being something good, even though we know that it’s wrong.

Truth is, we’re all struggling with something, and the reality is that it’s crushing either way. It’s crushing when the person we display on the outside doesn’t match the person we know on the inside. It’s crushing when we realize that the way we’re living is truly wrong, with our conscience vexing us. We are all terrified of the fact that we are sinners and that there is a righteous God whose justice will prevail. We’re terrified of being separated from him, yet we can’t seem to be good enough to reconcile ourselves with him. As the Psalmist wrote, “If you, Lord, kept a record of guilt, O Lord, who could stand?”1

We can try to run away from our sin, we can try to bottle it up and hold it in, we can try to pretend it isn’t there, but nothing changes. We are still sinners who deserve eternal separation from the God who created us. We can’t escape the mountain that looms ahead of us. There is nothing that we could do that would move it out of our way. This hard-hitting reality about our human nature causes us to all be despairing at the end of the day. To know that, regardless of what spin we put on our identity, we still face the same outcome with no means of escape. We are lost, broken, and without hope in our state of depravity.

Yet, God didn’t leave us here without an answer. God couldn’t walk away from the creation that walked away from him. For God is not merely just, but rather, he is foremostly merciful. Through the Prophet Hosea, God reveals His merciful nature. “For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.”2 You see, there is nothing that you or I could ever do to earn God’s favor, just as the sacrifices and offerings that the Israelites made did not, in and of themselves, satisfy God. In our state of weakness, we would fail all the more if we even tried to earn our way back to him.

God, instead, didn’t just help us part of the way; he helped us all the way and more. Through the innocent, righteous, holy, perfect, and vicarious (or substitutionary) life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, he paid the ransom price for our sinfulness. He washed away all the sins of the world with the blood of his dear Son. He took away all of the guilt and shame that came from the weight of our sin pressing down on us. He moved the mountain of sin that lay in front of our path, so that we could be reunited with him. He crossed out the name “sinner” on our name tag and instead wrote “saint.” He turned our reality on its head and restored us to who we were always meant to be.

All of this he offers as a gift, freely due to his divine mercy. If we look at what Paul wrote above in his epistle (letter) to the Galatians, he says, “In fact, you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” Before, we were just slaves to sin. Before, our identity was equal to our condition. However, God surprises us here in this very sentence. Read that statement again, “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” With what Jesus has done, God has decided to call you his dear child. You are his son or daughter, who has been made new by faith. God has decided to look on you with the same favor as he looks at his Son, Jesus.

In this passage, Paul also offers us further comfort. He goes on to say, “Indeed, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.” Many of us who have grown up in the faith were probably baptized at some point in our lives, whether we were just small infants or whether we were old enough to remember. Through this washing, God gives us a lasting comfort - a physical, tangible sign by which he has chosen to mark us as his children. Furthermore, this baptism - this washing of regeneration and renewal3 makes us new, clothed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness. When we were baptized, it wasn’t just a mere symbol; it was a literal, actual, real washing of all of our sins away and drowning of our old, sinful being in the font.

Our identity is no longer found in our sinfulness; it’s rather found in Christ. How wondrous it is that our Savior’s sacrifice is able to make us completely new people. God assures us, “As distant as the east is from the west, I have removed your rebellious acts from you.”4 Our sin is completely gone, and we are made new because of his abundant mercy and love for us.

We may continue to struggle with temptations in our lives, but that’s exactly why Christ has given us his means of grace and urges us to make continual and regular use of them. We already mentioned baptism, but the very root of our faith is found in the word that makes the Sacraments powerful - God’s Word. It is here, and here alone, that God reveals himself to us.

It is here, in his word, that God made his promise to Abraham that from his descendants would come the Messiah, the savior of the world. You and I, as Paul writes, become a part of this powerful promise, for “if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants and heirs according to the promise.” We, who belong to Christ by faith in his word, have been wrapped up in this plan of rescue. We have become heirs of the promise by which God intends to sustain us eternally. We possess the gift of heaven, of eternal life in the light of our Savior.

While the world overwhelms us with its gullible idea and definition of who we are, God points to who we truly are. In God’s eyes, what matters most is not your ethnicity, your gender, or your status in the eyes of the world. You are all one and the same in Christ Jesus. You are a child of God, and you share this status with every other Christian in the world.

So if Christ loved you so much that he gave up his life for you, how will he not also sustain you through this world, if you are his child? Not only will he provide for all the little moments and keep you through life’s turbulent storms, but you have the hope of heaven in him. So do not be afraid.5 Look up, and remember. You are his beloved, and nothing can ever change that.

Abracadabra!

"Abracadabra!" shouts an amateur magician as he seemingly produces a live rabbit from the depths of his mysterious hat, which he proceeds to place back on his head. People of all ages clap and cheer, even though the adults in the room know that this trick is a mere illusion, a mirage, a distraction from the rather normal circumstances that the magician went through to cause this to happen. However, the children are captivated. He just said one word, "abracadabra," after all.

Later that evening, one of the children in the audience goes home with their parents and immediately rushes to their closet to get their top hat from their collection of previous Halloween costumes. Gathering all of his family around him in the living room, and presents the hat and then shouts "Abracadabra!" in his tiny voice before peering into the hat. Reaching in, he feels around... Nothing. His older siblings start giggling at the confounded look on his face. After the child shakes the hat up and down a few times, he throws it across the room in frustration. When he calms down, his dad explains to him that the magician really didn't do any magic at all. In fact, he really just tricked people into thinking that he did actually make the rabbit appear from nothing. The child, a little bit disappointed, nods approvingly and proceeds to put on the top hat and, standing up straight, pretends to be the President of the United States giving a speech. The whole family applauds and giggles at the little boy's performance.

The story above demonstrates, imperfectly, how a large number of Christians reverently insist that there is power in saying the words, "In Jesus' Name." We've seen the performances of churches that claim to have regular exorcisms as part of their worship services (regardless of how true or untrue the condition of such individuals is). We've all seen large churches come together to pray over an individual with cancer. In both cases, we've seen how they frequently shout in a manner of rebuking (whether directed at demons or illness) three words: "In Jesus’ Name."

We've also witnessed the extreme disappointment when the cancer returns and the pastor blames the congregation for "not praying hard enough/loud enough/enough," and when the individual has a relapse of their demonically possessive episode, and the charades ensue again.

I'm not trying to distract from God's ability to heal those who suffer, and I'm also not trying to say that demon possession doesn't happen. But what about when God doesn't decide to heal someone? What if it's not part of His good and gracious plan? Are we to blame? Do we pretend that the prognosis of the physician is wrong? Do we continue the deception to preserve our image?

Like the short story above, "In Jesus' Name" can be our sort of "Abracadabra!" as Christians who believe our God can do such things. But just like the child, we can get distracted and disappointed when words seem to fall short and when it feels like God isn't answering or that the answer we've received isn't the one we want to hear. We have ourselves convinced that God surely wouldn't let us suffer or die. We have ourselves convinced that because Jesus took up the cross and paid for our redemption that we won't have to take up our own crosses.

So this is my response to what "In Jesus’ Name" really means, and like the father in the story, my gentle reminder of reality to those who feel deceived by mirrors and smoke.

An approach in humility

"For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus" - 1 Timothy 2:5, EHV

Whenever we pray, we will frequently acknowledge that we are praying through Christ. Sometimes we'll say it vocally, and that's when we'll use those words, "...In Jesus’ Name. Amen." But sometimes it's implied; in fact, whenever we pray, it's always implied. As the verse above demonstrates, there is one mediator between God above and us below, and that's our savior, Jesus. Whenever we pray, we are recognizing that we can only approach God through the blood of Christ in the first place, whether we say it out loud or not.

When we look at it that way, it's really an acknowledgement of deepest humility, that we are so imperfect that we dare not make demands of God if it were not for the work of Christ. Our posture should be anything but demanding when we petition God with Christ as our mediator. Rather, as Christ models in his example prayer, "Your will be done..." which he even echoes in the deepest part of his suffering, "Your will, not mine, be done..."

We must recognize and trust that what God is doing is truly good for us, and what we think we need may not always be the best for us. For example, say you ended up surviving a car crash... paralyzed from the neck down. You pray fervently for a year that God give you the ability to walk again, but the prognosis remains the same: your intellect and health remain the same as before, and your injuries have healed over, but you will be a paralytic for life.

The devil loves to convince us in the midst of trials and tribulations that, with what we are going through, there is no hope. Yet that's not true. Severe car crashes can often be fatal, yet you survived, even with your severe case of paralysis. God could have willed that you be taken home to him that day, and while you might say you wish that he did with your disability, you'd be missing the bigger picture. God's act of willing that you live despite all odds is his mark of saying that the story isn't over yet. He still has a purpose for you.

As time goes by, you share your faith, and it turns out that people are really inspired that despite all that you've endured, you still believe he's doing something good in your life. Even though it's been rocky for you, when people hear your story, they become more sure and comfortable in their faith, because they realize that if God could help you persevere through your mountains, he surely can help them with their small mole hills.

Turns out, your paralysis made you more abled in the work of God's kingdom, even if it made other things in life hard for you. And God has shown how he can advance his kingdom, even through the dysfunctional hands and feet of a paralytic.

While paralysis is pretty extreme in comparison to many of the crosses that we probably bear on a regular basis, the point still remains: God means to do good things with what seems bad to us. Take a look back at the beatitudes again, for example. In each statement, Christ blesses those whom the world would scoff at and say are compromised, weak, and unworthy. Yet, what the world calls unworthy, God counters with a blessing, saying, "You are worthy, because I AM says so."

Just read through them again:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, because they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, because they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. In fact, that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” - Matthew 5:3–12, EHV

What God gives us is a gift that lasts forever, regardless of whether he wills to heal us of our present ills. "Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven." You have a greater treasure that lasts longer than your limbs, body, temporal life, pains, suffering, crosses, and trials. Why should we even be sad that we suffer? In fact, God says we're blessed. The fact that we suffer, yet rejoice, is a sign of God's goodness in us, shining in a dark place as the only source of warmth and light in this cold and foreign world. Rejoice when things are good, but still rejoice and more when it's not, because there is proof that God has greater in store for you. You are not bound to this world. You are a citizen of heaven.

God at work in the mundane

A man is suffering from a condition that can be fixed with surgery. At night, he prayed that God would heal his broken/sick body part. The next day, he visits the hospital and a surgeon tells him that his condition can be fixed with a simple surgery - that no one has ever died on the table from - and that he shouldn't suffer any other complications. The man replies, "God will save me," and walks out of the hospital. That night, he prayed again to God, even more fervently, that he would be healed. The next day, a friend of his who is his personal physician at the medical center calls the man after finding out that he refused treatment and tries persuading him to let the surgeon treat his ailment. "I'll even supervise him from the observation deck of the operating room," his friend tells him. The man replies again, firmly and convinced, "God will heal me." That night, he prays again, even more fervently than the last time. The next day, when he wakes up, he's dizzy and his condition has worsened. He's frustrated with God and is confused as to why his condition is worse than before. Getting out of bed, he falls down and hits his head so hard that he loses consciousness. When he wakes up, he's in the ER with the surgeon standing in front of him with the consent papers for the surgery. He urges the man to sign them, telling him that he needs to be operated on urgently. The man assures the surgeon that God will save him. That night, the man passed away from the worsened condition. In heaven, he asks God why he didn't heal him, to which God replies, "I reminded you three times to get the surgery."

Maybe you've heard a different version of the story above with a man in the midst of a flood, and while I could have told it that way and made the same point, I decided to make it a bit more realistic for the Christian audience of today. Sure, we acknowledge the man's folly when he doesn't get in the boat to get out of the flood, which results in his drowning and ultimate detriment, and we claim that we would not be so adamant about God miraculously saving us if it came to our situation. However, when we look at the landscape of much of Christendom today, we tend to be the largest group of grudge-holders against medical care. We skip visiting the doctor, even when we are deathly sick, because "surely, we will get over it." We cover up our pain and discomfort because "we can manage" or "we all have crosses to carry."

However, what if we applied that to the church, which is God's spiritual hospital for curing sinners from their disease of sin and the pains that come along with it? What if we didn't go, because "surely, I can become a perfect person," or when we're feeling isolated and the pangs of sin are cutting deep, "I can manage by myself," or "it's just a cross that God is sending me." While yes, maybe God is allowing you to take up your cross and follow him, when we feel the hurt of sin, it should drive us to God, not away from him. God sends us trials to remind us that we do need him, so that we continually crave the Gospel and come back to him for comfort in the time of greatest need.

Your body, which is fearfully and wondrously designed by an omniscient and benevolent Creator, does have the power to heal itself from small things - minor injuries, moderate illnesses. However, when the symptoms are great and the pain is heavy, it's our body telling us that we need attention. If symptoms are chronic, severe, and long-lasting, we need someone who can help us. And that's when God works through skilled and trained medical professionals who know how to make things right, or how to alleviate the symptoms to give your body a chance to recover. God is constantly at work, reaching into the world through mundane means, whether through a baby in a manger long ago or the steady hand of a surgeon today.

Just as we shouldn't run away from God or stop talking to him when we are going through trials or are feeling the weight of our sin dragging us down, we also shouldn't run away from doctors who are God's servants (even regardless of whether they believe in him or not) to heal society from the aftershock of sin. Just as we wouldn't trust an untrained person to work on our vehicle, we shouldn't let ourselves (who have no medical experience) be our own doctor.

God empowers all people who are skilled laborers to help keep up with the constant decay and need in this world. God works through the hands of the cashier, the stocking assistant, the truck driver, the field worker, and the farmer to help feed the world, which would otherwise starve. He also empowers the doctor, the nurse, the surgeon, and the pharmacist to help heal a world that would otherwise die and decay to nothing. We are not only called to be stewards of our time, talents, and money, but also stewards of each other, who lift one another up and offer our talents and energy to each other. It's this network of God-mandated altruism that saves lives, and when we isolate ourselves from it, both ourselves and those around us inevitably suffer.

So, instead of demanding God to heal us through miraculous and unprecedented means, we should be grateful and thankful. Our prayer should not be, "Let my {insert body part name} be miraculously healed and fully recovered, in Jesus' name. Amen." Our prayer should rather be, "Bless the hands and mind of the skilled physician that the operation may be successful, carried out by you through mundane means, in Jesus' name I pray. Amen."

An eternal promise

There is a much greater force at play in each and every one of our lives, and thankfully, both the deists and those who insist God only does miracles are wrong about the same thing: God does work in the tiny moments. God is at work in the first steps of a child as they learn how to walk. God is with the terrified college freshman as they attend their first class. God is watching over the stressed couple as they grapple with trying to raise their children and provide for them. God is with everyone, whether they acknowledge his divine providence or not.

There is a very good Lutheran hymn that revolves around the subject of the stewardship of the blessings that God gives us, called "Lord of Glory, Who Hast Bought Us," and the first verse is as follows:

Lord of Glory, who hast bought us
With Thy life-blood as the price,
Never grudging for the lost ones
That tremendous sacrifice;
And with that hast freely given
Blessings countless as the sand
To the unthankful and the evil
With Thine own unsparing hand.

God continues to provide for all people and will continue to do so until the end of time. Our status as citizens of heaven is not a hindrance, but a blessing. God not only desires to provide us with all that we need for this life, but he also desires to hear our concerns through heartfelt prayers and petitions. Prayer isn't commanded, and it isn't a chore. It's God promising to hear us and to guide us through each rocky mountain down to each lonely valley in our lives to ultimately arrive at our eternal destination with him.

However, most importantly, God cares about your eternity, and he loves you so much that he wants you to be there with him forever. On the cross of Calvary with arms extended, your Savior gave up his life so that you could continue living on and endure joy that never ends.

So, we need not fear the small things in life. God is at work in both the unexpected moments and in all the mundane moments in between. And when we are feeling weary and stressed, God is there to hear everything and to help us through it all. As Paul wrote in Romans:

"If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?" - Romans 8:31-32, EHV

May God graciously preserve us until we arrive at the heavenly gates to spend our eternity abiding with him in his kingdom. Amen.

Over three centuries ago, a German-Lutheran pastor, poet, and hymnist by the name of Paul Gerhardt wrote the familiar passion hymn, “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” First of all, who knew what this Lutheran pastor wrote would become in such common use by denominations not of his tradition? Even Michael W. Smith, an influential figure in the development of modern worship music, performed the hymn in 2019 for his album, which was entitled “The Hymns.” The hymn, since it was written, has appeared in over 700 hymnals, including those of almost every denomination imaginable, from hymnals in Gerhardt’s own tradition to Methodist hymnals to Anglican hymnals, most commonly set to the tune that Gerhardt himself paired with it. The tune, by the name of “Herzlich tut mich verlangen,” was adapted from the melody of a secular German love song, “Mein Gmüth ist mir verwirret,” written by Hans Leo Hassler about being in love with a maid.

Okay, James… where are you going with this? What does this have to do with quite literally anything? Well, I’m glad you asked, because the astounding thing is this - Gerhardt, only doing what others had done and been doing for a long time before him, took something from secular roots, and flipped it on its head, transforming it for use to glorify God in contemplation of His suffering on the cross. “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” while being familiar to me as a Lutheran, is not an isolated incident. In fact, the very music style and instruments used in worship were not exclusive to the church. Rather, the organ was originally used quite casually in culture, prior to its adoption by the church. The organ, originally used during performances in Roman amphitheaters and for other entertainment purposes, was something that Christians took from culture and sanctified for use in the worship of their Creator.

My point in all of this is that worship is about bringing what we have in this world and laying it down at God’s feet. It should not surprise us that Christians of all time have been borrowing elements of music, imagery, and practices, that are more commonly found in secular settings, for the use of worshipping the God and Lord of all. No instrument that has ever been used for the purpose of worship has ever been exclusive to the church, but their association with the secular environment does not make them unworthy for worship, or else God would mark even us as unworthy to join in worship of Him. Rather, the church has, out of habit, sanctified these things, which once were used for worldly purposes, and has laid them down at His feet in a gesture of asking God to take these broken things and make them new and repurposed for use in His Church.

Worship is an interesting word that comes from the English words “worth” + “ship,” making its root meaning “the acknowledgement of worth.” When we worship God, we are acknowledging his worth with adoration. While worship is a two-way street, where we also receive the gifts of His Word and Sacraments with joy and thanksgiving, our primary focus on our part is our response back to God and giving back to Him. This isn’t us trying to earn God’s favor, but it’s the fruit that we bear because of the salvation that God has decided to give us. In this way, even our service toward our neighbor, which has been ignited by the new heart God has given us, can be considered an act of worship. However, when we are speaking about the environment of the church, we are particularly concerned with our response to God through prayer and praise.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to make sacrifices of both grain (the fruit of the harvest) and animals (whose blood pointed to the Messiah). They were also commanded to tithe - that is, they were required by the ceremonial law to give a tenth of all that they had for use in God’s House (first the tabernacle, then the temple). In this way, the best that the Israelites had and owned was dedicated and given back to God. While we aren’t required to worship in the same way that the Old Testament believers did, our worship still models this act of giving back, or thanksgiving. When we use music for edification in worship, we are speaking to each other about the great things that God has done for us, and in this way, we are giving back to Him by serving each other. When we gather for worship in itself, to hear the Word and receive the Body and Blood of our Savior, we are giving back by revering the promise.

Yet, when we look at our worship today, the story seems to have approached a standstill. There is a desire for movement, but unnecessary stalling has prevented Christians with the will to contribute to the repository of praise from doing so. I can’t be the only one who, on one hand, looks lovingly at the ancient and aging hymns, but yet on the other, wonders where all of the new hymns are. While the hymnal in use in my denomination was published in the late 20th century, even hymns from its own century and the one prior are few and far between. I’m all for the continued use of these wonderful hymns and love many of them, but I’m particularly confused about where the equally truthful and worthy hymns of more recent years are.

Many arguments have been made for the exclusion of newer worship music, but every one of them falls flat. Amidst the friction against contemporary worship, the argument has been made for a mere, faulty, yet pithy phrase turned liturgical law referred to in Latin as “lex orandi, lex credendi” - that is, the way of prayer (worship) influences the way we believe. Yet, if we are being historically accurate, it is clear to see that this is quite the opposite. What we believe influences how we worship, and not the other way around.

For example, the belief systems at work in Calvinism are what led to the Genevans’ complete and utter rejection of anything musical other than the Psalms. Calvin’s rejection of any of the bells and whistles of worship used by other churches didn’t make him a popular fellow long-term, but this rejection did not lead to the inception of his notorious beliefs. Rather, his notorious beliefs are what led him to his irrational objection to anything that resembled the hymnody employed by other groups. Even then, his fold went home to enjoy the very music he objected to. In the very same way, the belief that the music commonly employed in worship today is inherently problematic is what has led to its absence in our worship. Even today, congregants like me will still privately listen to the music that their pastor said wasn’t useful for worship because, at very least, it’s better than the other music on the market, and even they can’t deny that.

Another argument is merely nostalgia. Granted, the church and its influence on society and on culture have been significant throughout time, and music can bring us back to when the church was more important in culture. Yet, this appearance has grayed in a culture that appears to be increasingly secular. The church has, by these means, become an increasingly pessimistic organization that continues to reel in confusion as members continue to leave in droves. In this shift of the church’s point of view, she is too prone to look back longingly at the past, rather than looking forward to the hope of the resurrection that she is supposed to be steering toward. In her weeping over the fact that she is no longer the center of culture and society, she vainly craves the state of being great over what made her great in the first place—the message of the Gospel and the hope of the salvation won by Christ and sealed by his resurrection. Why would we ever let such a cloudy feeling stifle us from continuing to write lyrics that still talk about the unchanging hope found in Christ?

Yet another suggestion is the faulty notion that contemporary worship is anti-liturgical. This couldn’t be more laughable since the very use of any sort of music is at its very basis liturgical. The use of newer hymns and music doesn’t mean we’ve just totally nuked the liturgy entirely; in fact, at most we’ve just made renditions of the same liturgical songs with modern instruments. How terrible could that be? This excuse is perhaps the most unthoughtful of them all, simply because it couldn’t be more untrue.

In Lutheran circles, we’ve also seemingly initiated a ban on all feelings in worship. The unfortunate thing is that humans are emotional creatures who are touched by any sort of music, even the old hymns that we use. Our hope isn’t just a feeling, and most of the denominations we point fingers at and accuse of failing in this regard wouldn’t even say they think they’re saved just because of a feeling. Yet, we are still going to experience feelings no matter what we do - and we shouldn’t feel sinful in feeling happiness, joy, or any other emotion in our worship. It’s okay for us to experience emotions in worship, as we should, and we shouldn’t be made to feel wrong about this, especially since they are mostly not within our control anyway.

Finally, there is the complaint about “substance.” Yet even when we look at the hymns already in our hymnary, some of them could be argued to be lacking this sort of “substance.” The matter of fact is that the music we use in worship doesn’t all have to be heavy. Some of them can be simple messages like “Jesus loves me” and still be just as good as the 6+ stanza hymns that are heavy. One of my favorite Christian artists, received a comment from a poster on social media that read, “I miss the Christian artists who had real substance to their music and not just feel good lyrics” to which Forrest Frank responded, “Don’t confuse joy with lack of substance” in a post that he included with one of his most hymn-like songs called IN THE ROOM. This is a really good point, however. God doesn’t demand that our praise be heavy with theology - rather, He’s more glad to hear any of our prayers and praises, no matter how substantial or simple.

Previously, I’ve written extensively about the theological validity of contemporary forms of worship. In my last piece, I did add the disclaimer about theology and how we should take care in this regard, but we wouldn’t really have this problem if we encouraged our own to “sing unto the Lord a new song.” However, I’m realizing more and more about the importance of “redeeming the times, because the days are evil.” I recently wrote down in my notes, as I was thinking about this a few days ago, “If worship is about giving God our best, why don't we give God our best music as praise for what He has done?”

Yet, truly, if we have music that is continuing to be written for the glory of God and sanctifying the music styles used in our secular culture at the same time, why aren’t we using it? Why aren’t we encouraging my generation to listen to this music instead of the mainstream music that has to be profane to be relevant?

This is the tragedy: that my generation, whose knowledge of Christ as their Savior is diminishing, is leaving the church for satisfaction in worldly things because they were encouraged that freedom can be found in rebellion, partially because of the values instilled in the messages of the sin-ridden music that is so prominent. Yet, imagine how different this would be if we were encouraged to make use of the Christian music that has sanctified the styles of the secular music of our day. I personally can’t imagine how different our culture would look if the pop stars that became the role models for my generation were instead average people who wrote music for God.

Even as one who has consumed almost exclusively contemporary Christian music, I’m certainly not perfect. However, instead of listening to profane diss tracks as a means of release, I’m listening to none other than new hymns that praise God and bring my focus back to the message of the Gospel.

So I’ll leave you with this quote from Jordan Frye, the lead singer-songwriter of the Christian group, Urban Rescue:

"We have this idea in our heads and in the Church that worship music has to sound like worship music… I believe the love of God can be discovered through multiple styles and sounds, ranging from pop to classical, from rap to rock. Our music just overflows from who we are living in the place and time that we live."

If worship music like this is directly at our disposal, why wait to praise Him?

“Faith is being sure about what we hope for, being convinced about things we do not see.” -Hebrews 11:1 (EHV)

Lately, YouTube has been feeding me content that it presumes is doing a quite good job at keeping me engaged. It is true to say that I have momentarily paused on such livestreams, but not out of any interest in engaging in the discussion myself.

These livestreamers1 have found a glorious type of content that is bound to engage the majority of the more than 80% of people in the world who are theists and believe in some sort of god or creator. This is, as I’ve called it, the most fallacious debate, where these individuals sit on YouTube or TikTok livestreams for hours, challenging anyone who does not agree with their claims that “God doesn’t exist” or “God is imaginary” to debate with them and prove them wrong.

From a worldly perspective, I can somewhat commend them for their ingenuity regarding engineering such an engaging argument - what better way to get people talking than by challenging the very worldview that they hold dear to their heart and are ill-equipped to defend regarding the premise that they have set. Yet, also, I find this problematic, all the same with regard to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who may be left feeling insufficient and doubtful regarding a debate whose premise is so blatantly fallacious that it is particularly ridiculous for us to engage with it in the first place. So, it also, in the meantime, preys upon the weak in faith who ride in with valiant effort and walk away with feelings of remorse or anger when they recognize their deficiency or are cut off in the midst of the discussion.

The very problem of this debate lies within proof, and why we cannot prove in absolute terms that God most certainly does or doesn’t exist. It’s the very reason I started this post with a verse from Hebrews that talks about the reality regarding our beliefs as Christians. Now, this may seem particularly frustrating for the rookie apologists roaming around, but apologetics are not meant to prove things as being absolutely true. Rather, apologetics are a counter defense to offer validity to our worldview in an environment that seeks to discredit the views of Christianity with an alternate worldview. This worldview, in particular, has garnered support from the majority of the scientific community, which I would like to coin as “Chucky D. & Co.”

Yes, our good ol’ philosopher Darwin, whose theory is based less in fact and more in what we can’t observe, but could reckon with via thought experiments (aka, “science” fiction). However, this is a great starting point because it brings us to the definition of theory vs. law and the fact that science is less about absolutes than you thought it was.

You see, humans are exceptionally good at making generalizations and using inductive/deductive reasoning as the easy rule behind explaining everything.2 The problem is… things don’t quite work that way in reality. Just because in one instance an egg comes from a chicken, that doesn’t mean that all eggs come from chickens or that all eggs come from birds, even. Such reasoning is good for entry-level observations, but we can’t hold absolutes in this environment.

Science cannot prove that something is true; it can only prove that certain explanations for a phenomenon are false and demonstrate that others are consistent with what we observe. However, for those explanations that demonstrate what we have realized through observation are not to be reckoned as absolutely true.3 Rather, they are the best explanations that we currently have for the phenomena that could be discarded if our evidence started supporting another explanation better. That means the laws of gravity and thermodynamics could even be disproven at any time, despite the fact that we call them “laws.” The reason, however, that we call them scientific laws in the first place is because they have maintained such consistency without any challenging explanations for such a long period of time that it is rather unlikely that any evidence will come along to dethrone them.

We should also consider scientific theories. For example, both the Big Bang and Creationism are theories that attempt to explain the origin of life, and each has certain amounts of evidence that help to support the likelihood of their occurrence. The problem is, we will never be able to prove/disprove these theories because they both deal with phenomena that we are unable to observe. Humans are unable to go back in time and observe the birth of our universe - it’s just impossible. Even in the biblical creation timeline, humans were created after everything else, so even Adam and Eve couldn’t have witnessed via observation that God created everything around them.

This brings us back to the premise of the argument regarding God’s existence, and the simple thing is that we can’t scientifically show that God does exist.4 We also shouldn’t expect to be capable of doing this since we’re trying to finitely measure the infinite. We cannot comprehend or understand the supernatural in natural terms. However, on the flip side, we also can’t prove that God doesn’t exist since we would have to disprove every scenario in which he does exist. We would have to be omniscient to be definite in saying that God doesn’t exist, which is impossible for us because we are limited beings. Even if such individuals who hold this stance argue about the absence of evidence for God, they cannot say that this is evidence of God’s absence.

So, truthfully, we can only behold God by faith, and we can only reject his presence by the lack thereof. At the end of the day, that’s really what we’re dealing with here, so it’s fallacious to attempt to have an argument in which we can define absolutes regarding God’s existence. The definite declarations that “God doesn’t exist” or that “God does exist” are wrong. We must say, “I believe that God doesn’t exist” or “I lack faith in God’s existence” if we are not convinced that he exists, or we must say “I believe that God exists” or “I have faith in God’s existence.”

This is also why I have a problem with the misuse of apologetics in the aim to prove that the Bible is true or inerrant, for we are incapable of doing so. As the author here, I will admit that I personally believe that the Bible is true and inerrant and I believe that God is real and exists, but I cannot prove those things by reason - I can only prove those things by faith, which is personal and intimate, making it something that I cannot gift or pass on to somebody else.

So, at the end of the day, you are not going to convince someone of God’s existence - only God can do that through faith. You are not going to convert someone through apologetics, well executed or not, because it’s God’s work through his Word that is capable of doing that, and not your feeble discourse.

However entertaining it is to watch these arguments and however confident you might feel in defending your worldview, remember, with the established premise in these circumstances, you cannot do what you intend to do. Your faith is being sure about what you hope for, and is the evidence for you, and only you, about the things you cannot see with your physical human eyes. Your faith is for you, and you need not feel upset if you cannot change a heart that has been hardened.5

Recently, I wrote an article about contemporary worship and how I find no biblical means to condemn the practice. However, I realize that I was running up against the constraint of words, as this article was published in The Scroll and restricted in length. This piece that I am writing here is not meant to walk back, recant, or revert what I have written. I still heartily retain the opinion that contemporary worship has its place among Christendom and even Lutheranism. That being said, there are some nuances to be reckoned with that I have realized I was unable to express in the original piece, and have gathered my thoughts after reflecting on the topic of discussion with fellow Lutherans. So, this is my clarification and expanded discourse on the subject of worship practices and the importance of handling any type of worship with care.

When I say this, I do not mean it lightly, but I am very much a person who prefers the use of the liturgy in worship, along with all of the wonderful hymns that we sing. In fact, one of my most treasured possessions is my copy of the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, a book bound with a black cover and gold lettering boasting a variety of hymns and service orders (although these offerings are unfortunately somewhat meager when compared with the hymnals of other denominations). Even before I had my own personal copy (which was given to me as a belated confirmation gift), I would often steal away one of the copies floating around our house to memorize the words of favorite hymns that I had heard and sung in church and to make a miserable attempt to fumble out the melody on the old piano setting in the midst of our living space. I am no pianist, so you can imagine how many notes of “Now Thank We All Our God” came out wrong before I kind of got it right - and I was only playing the soprano part using my right hand.

That being said, as I wrote in a previous article a few weeks back, I believe that Christians have freedom in the way they worship, and this is even represented in how we don’t always have weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper, and we don’t always use the same order of service each and every Sunday because, sometimes, it’s cool to pull out the Matins for fun or switch it up. And this can be so that we don’t become so mechanical in our recitation of the liturgy and are forced to think about it when we are confronted with the change. That being said, some of these worship rites are more fitting, depending on the circumstances or the service. Regardless, when we boil it all down, it’s the use of Word and Sacrament that is central to all of this and ought to be present (or, in the case of the Sacrament, regularly present).

This even includes when certain congregations have a worship style that is more reflective of the musical styles of today. Personally, the terms “contemporary” and “traditional/liturgical” are very undescriptive, as many congregations fall between these two extremes and don’t fully embody all of the principles associated with either of these practices. However, this should lead us to a discussion regarding the history and application of these different means of worship.

Even though, from a practical standpoint, I do not condemn the use of worship that tends to blend in elements of modern musical styles, I also cannot blankly endorse it the same way that I can endorse the purely Lutheran forms of worship found in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, along with other hymnals in confessional Lutheran bodies. Now, no hymnal is going to be perfect, but the aforementioned hymnal adheres to the Lutheran service orders, which go back to Luther and his Formula Missae and Deutsche Messe and Johannes Bugenhagen, who assembled many a worship blueprint for the Lutheran churches of his day.

This brings the main issue with so-called “contemporary worship” to the forefront, in which traditional worship tends not to falter, and this is because when such practices are instituted in Lutheran congregations, they tend to be executed sloppily and without much care. Music from other denominations and traditions is borrowed in bulk without consideration for what the music is teaching or the theological nuances that come along with it. As discussed prior, we have freedom in matters of worship, but the Word has to be at the center of all of this. If it is not, and our theology becomes misconstrued, not only do we lose our Lutheran identity, but we also lose the meaning behind worship and the primary benefit of it.

In Lutheranism, the primary reason for worship is emphasized in God coming to us, rather than in other denominations and their traditions, where the emphasis is on what we bring before God and our “ascent” to Him. That’s not to say we don’t do anything in response to what God has already done for us, for this most certainly merits our fervent praise, thanksgiving, and devotion. However, the primary reason for our worship is God’s sure presence in Word and Sacrament, for it is by these means that God promises to come to us and reveal Himself to us. The extant Lutheran liturgies emphasize this, as the writers of the Augsburg Confession admit in Article XXIV, the hymns we sing have been added to teach the people. What we sing, confess, and do in the worship service is so that we can talk about God and His promises and what He has done for us.

This is the problem at the heart of this discussion - Lutherans aren’t writing their own contemporary music when using it in their worship services. Rather, these churches tend to borrow music from other denominations that are in disagreement with what we teach regarding our salvation, which can lead to this misleading theology to become silently adopted by those worshipping in these congregations. The congregation thus experiences a loss of Lutheran identity and flows into the hands of a generic, lukewarm version of Christianity.

Now, this seems a bit harsh for someone who was profusely defending such worship styles a mere article ago, but really, it’s not. These are genuine considerations that must be dealt with through care and consideration. It would be a shame to lose the central message of the Gospel in exchange for more comfortable and pleasing worship. This is why worship must be orthodox, regardless of whether the music is ancient or modern or somewhere in between, and regardless of whether the liturgy retains the same format from church to church.

Now, what do you mean by “orthodox,” James? Well, quite literally, our worship must retain our traditions and our identity. We should continue to mimic the means by which our forefathers worshipped, even if we opt to use instruments other than the organ and write poetry that lacks the “thee’s” and “thou’s” of a previous age. Our identity is rooted in our teachings, and our teachings reflect what we understand about God and His plan of salvation. If we lose that, well, we lose everything that we are and stand for. We do not have to sing hymns that are decades, centuries, or even millennia old in order to accomplish worshipping in “spirit and in truth.” However, we do need the right theological understanding in order to produce music for services that are worthy of use in our congregations.

So, my defense of contemporary worship, although somewhat unclear in the prior article, is further conditional. Just as liturgical worship must be done correctly (and also can just as easily be botched), so too must contemporary worship meet the standards of our theology. If not, it can not be considered for our use or contemplation in our worship of God. Our worship songs should focus on what was accomplished on the cross and teaching each other about the promises of the Gospel.

This issue is also much less about being concerned over the cultural associations with musical styles. Even the early Lutherans borrowed catchy secular tunes and modeled music off the styles of their day, and, honestly, what better way to take what the world meant for sin and mean it for good. It is the substance of our worship that matters most, not necessarily the execution (although the execution of it does make it more effective and worthy, depending on the circumstances).

We also ought not prescribe or force worship styles onto congregations, as it would be wrong to make such legalistic demands as previously noted in the prior article. However, we should encourage the growth of praise amongst ourselves. We should have Lutheran worship music in existence that takes on a more contemporary style, for then, we are borrowing the idea without the detrimental and often poisonous/toxic theology that can come along with such music when we just borrow it and implement it without thinking. Honestly, it’s quite a shame that we don’t have such music that also contains our Lutheran identity. Therefore, we should encourage individuals today to continue to write hymns and songs for our edification in worship, especially those that are contemporary. Then, without hesitancy, I would most certainly be able to fully endorse such a form of worship because it is still rooted in Lutheran orthodoxy.

So, this is my challenge - why not both? What holds us back from continuing the tradition of composing chorales for the elect that are living right here, right now? The answer, if we are being honest, is that we can have both the traditional/liturgical elements and the modern/contemporary elements in our worship of our good and gracious God, and there should be nothing holding us back from expanding our repository of Christ-centered worship music that is truly rooted in orthodoxy, specifically, Lutheran orthodoxy.

The way that Christians have worshiped has changed throughout time, from using the book of Psalms as a hymnbook to writing vast quantities of worship music, many of which make up the hymnody that we continue to use and add to today. Even different Christian cities in the early church worshipped differently, with those in Jerusalem assimilating the Temple and those in the Gentile world transforming their traditions.

However, it seems as though, in recent times, it is typical for some Lutherans to be critical when churches in our synods appear to “deviate” from the typical hymnody and liturgy that we may be familiar with in our own churches. It has led to the use and overuse of judgy terms such as “high church” and “low church” in order to suggest that there is some sort of inherent superiority to the use of certain practices. Such practices are not rooted in the command of our Lord, but rather in adiaphora (or “indifferent matters”).

Unlike with the Old Testament believers (i.e., the people of Israel), Jesus did not leave us with a massive list of laws and practices to be observed when we worship with each other. Rather, Jesus makes one main promise about worship, and that is, “In fact where two or three have gathered together in my name, there I am among them” (Matthew 18:20). Christ does not heave a massive worship blueprint onto His church. Rather, he has a handful of main commands for us dealing with the proper observance of the Sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) and the sharing of His Word.

What makes me particularly picky about this issue is when certain bodies (with their own myriad of problems) attack and provoke other Lutherans (who do not lack orthodox teaching rooted in the Holy Scriptures and the Book of Concord) on matters of worship order. It seems particularly ridiculous that we should play the part of Pharisees so well, in that we often strain out a gnat to swallow a camel.

Now, by no means am I going as far as to say that there is anything wrong with having worship that follows that of what has been used since the time circa the Reformation. That would be equally as foolish. My point here is, rather, that there is nothing wrong with certain churches in the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) and the Wisconsin Synod (WELS), for example, who adhere to a more “contemporary” form or style of worship by using instruments other than the organ and songs that were not written in the 16th century. We ought not be critical in this regard, for we should be mindful of the weak in faith who are not so strong when approached with legalistic demands.

Let it also be debunked that such worship leads to “the compromise of the Gospel,” for where the Word of God is still taught in purity, there is life and salvation regardless of the organization of the service.

This is most undoubtedly the case in any of the congregations in our fellowship, whether they be “contemporary” or “liturgical” in their worship style and practice. Neither worship method can be considered more or less Biblical, for the Bible itself is silent in these matters, by which we have Christian freedom. For if the service is carried out with the intent to hear God’s Word and to receive His gracious forgiveness with thanksgiving, no restriction can condemn this.

What sickens me is the corruption of comments from individuals that run along the lines of, “I would walk out of a church with a drum set.” For where then is your heart? Truthfully, it lies more in technicalities than in love for the Gospel.

It is the Word of God that saves, and while it is this same Word that has influenced how Christians throughout all time have worshipped, it is also by this standard that I can find no fault when churches in our synods tastefully adopt “contemporary” practices. We are the church of all time, not just the church of the Reformation. Thus, we ought to encourage the expansion of praise among us rather than hinder it.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he gave us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that is undying, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” —1 Peter 1:3–4 (EHV)

Perhaps the most memorable thing about Easter Sunday is the responsory verse that we use at the start of the service. This is when the pastor begins by saying, “He is risen!” and the jubilant congregation responds, “He is risen, indeed!”

This impression is memorable and priceless because it shows the bold confidence we can have. After all, the empty tomb is a picture of heaven’s gates open wide for you and me. Peter, in this passage, begins as joyously as our response on Easter morning, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

How can he be this joyous? Well, Peter demonstrates that his hope is because of Christ’s resurrection, which gives us all hope for our own resurrection “into an inheritance that is undying, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”

Christ paid for all of your sins on the cross, and when He rose from the dead, it was God’s visible sign of approval that our Lord’s work was the all-sufficient sacrifice. Now, not even the gates of hell can prevail against you because God has called you righteous in His sight, all because of the gracious work He performed through the perfect life, death and resurrection of His dear Son.

Our faithful shepherd, the King of Love and Prince of Peace, has gone to prepare a place for you in His kingdom that you might enjoy for all eternity. So look up, dear child of God. He is risen. He is risen indeed, amen!

Truth be told, I, too, have been at these crossroads. I, too, see my neglect of God’s grace. I, too, feel so weak and powerless to sin. I, too, feel stagnant in my ability to control my desires and climb out of the pit of my unholiness. I, too, confess alongside Paul that I am the chief of sinners. I will not hesitate to admit that my own sins, not the stakes pounded into the Savior’s hands and feet, are what held my Savior to the cross, where He suffered in agony because He loved me when I was incapacitated and unable to show love toward Him.

I cannot deny that I feel troubled by my own sins. Will the sin in my life that feels perpetual, consistent, and repetitive keep me from God? And even if it doesn’t, how can I flee this shame, this pain, and this sorrow that I can’t seem to escape for even a second? Dear God, what a wretched man am I, and what a depraved and unruly soul have I?

Yet, I cannot deny God’s presence in me. I cannot deny the way His word speaks in such unconditional terms that don't require my piety or attempts to become completely perfect or holy. For such is unattainable, and such vain attempts are perhaps far more dangerous because of the hypocrisy and contempt for the cross that grows out of the Pharisaical pride from self-righteousness. For in my sin, I may feel shame, but in my pride, I become numb to His forgiveness and live in sinful depravity without recognizing my condition.

Yet, even when I run away again and again and again. Even when I’m in pain, mourning the fact that I cannot be who I want to be. Even in my constant desolation, it is my dear Lord Jesus who paid the price in full for my debts. There is no unforgivable sin because when Christ paid for the sins of the world on the cross, He paid for the sins of the whole wide world: past, present, AND future. Even the sins of those who refuse the Gospel have been paid for in Christ. Only unbelief and refusal of God’s forgiveness can keep us from Him.

The way Paul writes about his sins in the following portion of his epistle to the Romans tells us a lot about how he was even grappling with this problem in his own life.

“Certainly we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.”1

What Paul undeniably refers to here is the very doctrine we continue to refer to today by the Latin phrase simul justus et peccator, that is, as Christians, we are simultaneously sinners and saints, righteous and unrighteous. Paul ends the chapter with the following quotation, explaining this in more depth.

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members. What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my sinful flesh I serve the law of sin.”2

We are powerless to fully escape the grasp of sin on this side of eternity. Despite our desire to turn toward Christ and follow in His goodness and righteousness, we will still find ourselves short of perfection. However, why ought we not feel this way? For if perfection was truly attainable, what need would we have for the Gospel any longer? What need would we have for the forgiveness of sins if no sins were in need of forgiveness?

This is what the devil constantly seeks to devour Christians by: either through despair over one’s inferiority and sinfulness when they recognize their inability to meet the law’s demands or through pride that one indeed has attained perfection in their own sight, by their own will and thus has become numb to their sinfulness. The devil’s aim is not to get you to sin, for your sinful nature is already too abled in doing so, but to steal your faith in God’s goodness by causing you to despair unnecessarily over your sinfulness or to ignore that sinfulness exists within you.

It is not what these hands have done or ever could do that can save one’s miserable, wretched soul. It is only what God does, working through the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation3, that can make your heart pure in His eyes. When God beholds the justified sinner, He no longer sees their sinful condition, for the Creator has forgiven and forgotten all of the times that you have sinned. Rather, He sees the perfect righteousness of Christ. Those who have been baptized into Christ and believe in Him have clothed themselves with Christ and His righteousness.4

What can lead many Christians to fall into despair or self-righteousness is the false teachings that come along with the assumptions that we must contribute or act of our own will according to God’s grace. This often happens because many churches falsely teach that either one must do “good works for salvation” (which is the view of the Roman Catholic church) or that one must “respond to the Gospel” (i.e., make a conscious decision to follow Christ of one’s own will, which is popular teaching in much of Protestant Christendom).

The truth is that neither of these things is correct, for Scripture is very clear that it is not by works and that God also chose us of His will and not our own, as we are dead in our sins and unable to respond to Him.5 It is through the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit that we are brought to faith and made righteous in His sight.

The second problem (that can often be present even among those who recognize that our salvation lies not in what we can do) is that many Christians define repentance wrongly and add sanctification to the list of what repentance is. The notion seems harmless, but the reality is that this often innocent misunderstanding is harmful and detrimental as it misconstrues and warps the meaning of penitence. I wrote about this earlier during Lent to counter the general public practices during the season of penitence which are so often performed for the wrong motive.6

You see, the big problem with this is that contrition (i.e., repentance) is a prerequisite for faith, whereas sanctification is something that follows faith and is a constant process that occurs throughout the lifetime of a Christian. The problematic phrase Christians tend to associate with repentance is “turning away from sin.” The basic dictionary definition of repentance, however, is “to admit one’s sin and truly be sorry for it”7 and Luther commonly considered repentance to consist of two parts: 1) that we confess our sin and acknowledge our sorrow over it and 2) that we receive forgiveness for it.8 Sanctification is the “turning away from sins” or rather the “desire to live a holy life” part of the equation, which Christ himself included after forgiving the sins of the adultress.9

Granted, we will undoubtedly continue to sin, even with the Holy Spirit on our side, but God’s forgiveness is great enough to cover it every time we fall and come back to Him in faith. Even the woman whom Jesus forgave for her sin of adultery undoubtedly continued to stumble into sin as even we do and as all sinners have. Our sanctification is not what saves us or what has made us right with God, but rather is how God works in us to encourage our desires to be focused on Him and His kingdom and to serve our neighbor so that they too might be able to see the light of our faith.

So fear not and despair not over your sins because Christ has made atonement for them all. There is no sin too great for our Savior to forgive, and there is no sinner too far gone and lost to be shown grace. God has taken care of it all, not because of any worth or merit in you, but because He loved you and all people so much that He willingly suffered the punishment in your place. So when you sin, do not turn inward and despair about the weakness of your sinful flesh, but lift your head and look up to the one who can forgive the iniquity of your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Now, finally, to close with the words of a dear hymn:

Chief of sinners though I be,
Jesus shed His blood for me;
Died that I might live on high,
Lived that I might never die.
As the branch is to the vine,
I am His and He is mine.10

And to that, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we ought to say “Amen.”

Today, was a long day.

Like, can you believe it? Another long day.

But yet again, every day is a long day, and it doesn’t mean it’s a bad day either.

“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Yet, this morning, I was tired because last night I was up too late.

But I had to be because otherwise there was going to be no time for me to complete my work.

So I stayed up late, past midnight, and ended up in bed at around 12:30 AM.

I had a biology lab to finish up, a pre-lab to complete, and a hymnody worksheet to do.

So I stayed up - but too late.

Now, when I write this, I’m tired and sore.

My head hurts from looking at protists beneath a microscope.

My legs are sore from walking and sitting.

My throat is dry from singing and talking.

My brain is fuzzy with facts impertinent to what I’m currently writing.

I regret the choice I made out of necessity.

And now I’m musing about it with slight misery.

Just to realize that my brother asked me to help him with taxes.

I mean, of all things to help him with - TAXES.

And I just want to go to bed and give my head a rest as I’m writing this from the YFAC as humans drone on in noisy conversation at 20 minutes past 9 PM.

Luckily, I don’t have physics tomorrow, so I could sleep in until 9 AM.

Maybe, just, maybe I’ll get 8 hours of sleep tonight for once.

Or maybe I won’t, but here’s to hope that it happens.

Yesterday, I had so much more to ramble about.

But all that seems to come to mind right now is my exhausted condition.

My brain is too fuzzy, yet I’m forcing it to think.

Today, however, was a rather boring and normal day.

All the students I tutor canceled their sessions, as usual.

I had the classes I normally do on Thursdays.

Yet, I even got hope that I might get a job at Walmart for the summer (fingers crossed).

Yet, I feel underwhelmed.

As if every sentence of this could be anticipated.

Maybe I’m just a boring person in a boring world.

Yet that’s way too underwhelming and life is more beautiful than our moments of misery.

Yes, this is the day the LORD has made, and I ought rejoice and be glad in it.

Today was another chance to breathe.

Another chance to live.

Another chance to experience God’s grace and love.

Another chance to praise and worship Him who holds all things in His hands.

This world may be messy and crazy, but God is my rock.

He is my source of hope and consolation.

My oasis in a dry and weary desert.

He restores my soul for His name’s sake.

Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

My God is with me through it all.

He’s there to catch me when I fall.

And to pick me up when I stumble.

I’m not being grammatical with this - but that’s okay.

Life does not have to be perfect and writing can reflect this.

It’s okay if my commas are misplaced or my hyphens should be turned to en dashes or em dashes.

Since, at the end of the day, it’s the message that matters.

Some days, that’s all I can ask for.

Hopefully, tomorrow, I can elaborate on my joys instead of sorrows.

But until then, I’m tired, and everything seems quiet now, and my mind is following the pattern.

Ramble! is a new section dedicated to ramblings, which as you can see are a collection of both connected and disconnected thoughts that offer insight into my daily life.

Lent is the part of the church year when we follow along on Jesus’ journey to the cross. It is the time of year when we focus on Christ's passion and ultimate death. It is a time of year that we become more sensitive to our sinful condition and the Gospel remedy for our dire predicament.

However, Lent, more often than not, becomes heavily misunderstood due to traditions (and the abuse thereof) as well as the total and utter confusion about what “penitence” truly is in the life of a Christian. It can be easy for us even to fall into the temptation of using Lent as a way to justify ourselves in the eyes of the world and God through our most pious devotion to traditions such as fasting, praying and abstaining from sin and worldly pleasures. So, we, too, should be conscious of how we fall into abusing practices meant to direct our desires more towards Christ.

Lent should be humbling. We should be in the deepest shame and humility as we watch the sinless Son of God suffer the scourge of condemnation that should have been on us. Yet, humanity finds ways to turn even the clearest of water into a murky mess. Through adiaphoric practices (which on the very face are abused when treated as though they really were mandated), fasting is heaved onto the masses, especially in certain denominations which regard the practice with far too much reverence.

Yet, humanity also decides to indulge to the greatest extent before fasting. Since this is so often the case, especially preceding Lent, it would be best that the practice not be observed altogether because of such abuse. When we plan on fasting, we should not be set on indulging the day before. The practice is to make us desire God above all things by placing our other desires aside. What good is doing this if we live as if we do not have the Spirit of God within us the very day prior to beginning our fast? We might as well be impudent beasts who do not have the blessed forgiveness of sins at all.

Then, as if to make it all the worse, we pray like the Pharisee rather than the humble tax collector. We decide to show God that we have set aside a certain list of things in our life. We act as if this warrants that he ought to justify us for being such saints. Yet, we lose the great gift of prayer in this, while instead of asking for forgiveness, we push the cross out of sight and demand that God prop us up. We blind ourselves to the filthy rags which we wear and shake them in front of God as if they were the finest of cloths that the world could offer.

Yet, the true spirit of penitence cries out to God: “Out of the depths I cry to Thee; Lord hear me I implore Thee! Thy gracious ear incline to me; my prayer let come before Thee. On my misdeeds in mercy look, o deign to blot them from Thy book, or who can stand before Thee?” (ELH 452 st. 1). Our condition is what disposed us from God’s presence, yet our Savior beckons us to feel His hands and side, which were pierced so that we no longer need to bear eternal condemnation to reckon with our sins. It is not what these hands have done or will ever do that could carry this burden or restore our relationship with the Holy One. Only what Jesus did can save our weak and wandering souls.

Our penitence should not, in nature, be a “turning away from sin,” for we are too weak on our own to combat the wiles of our sinful flesh and the evil foe. Yet, our penitence is the sorrow over sins, combined with the hand of faith that accepts God’s most sure forgiveness. Lent should not be about us, but about what God does for us, which we could not do on our own. Thanks be to God for his enduring mercy.

“Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” -Ephesians 2:8–9 (EHV).

“So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ.” -Romans 10:17 (EHV).

Before we walk alongside Christ's suffering in the season of Lent, the Christian church observes a sort of “buffer season” that prefaces the trials of our Savior and brings our focus back to the most important pillars of the Christian faith. We refer to this season as “Pre-Lent” which consists of three Sundays commonly referred to by their Latin names, Septuagesima,” “Sexagesima” and “Quinquagesima” (which mean seventy, sixty and fifty days before Easter respectively).

During these Sundays, we especially focus on the “solas” which are “sola gratia” (grace alone), “sola fide” (faith alone) and ”sola scriptura” (scripture alone). These are three of the pillars that the foundation of the Church stands upon and firmly clings to.

The passages from Ephesians and Romans show how important and integral grace, faith and Scripture are for us as Christians. Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, and this saving faith comes through Scripture - the Word of God.

What Christ did on the cross for humankind paid for the sins of the world (objective justification), but in order for each of us to personally be saved (subjective justification), these three things are so important and show us how God has reconciled Himself to us through our Savior. Nothing that you or I could ever do would be enough. Yet, God was gracious to give us the gift of faith to rescue us from the depths of sin. Thanks be to God. Amen.

I hate to say it, but Christianity in the United States has become merely just a “vibe.” When you boil down the new, flashy, watered-down Gospel of “pop-culture Jesus,” it’s all just a fleeting, breathless feeling. It’s no longer about the divine coming to save us. It’s just a new morning routine and lifestyle discipline that people share on social media. It’s just another one of those endless, worldly pressures that seem to suck all of the life out of us. It’s like a dopamine addiction, only to a reconstructed and disfigured Jesus who no longer calls gently to the sheep of His pasture but is rather taken up as a mere martyr whose manifesto is used to inspire one bit of political propaganda after the next.

Yet I’m here to stand and say that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to be used as a way to get riches and prosperity. He didn’t die just to inspire us to try to climb out of the insurmountable void that our sin cast us into. It always goes that way in our world - it always comes back to a sort of theology that “God helps those who help themselves” or “Jesus will give you that beach house and yacht that you always dreamed of if only you worship Him hard enough.”

But that’s what they all miss - we aren’t worthy of Jesus. We aren’t worthy of a God who would be so good as to give us our daily bread. Yet, that doesn’t stop Him from providing for our every need, even our utmost need that was remedied on Calvary. God’s story is so much more than the things of this world. God’s story is a sneak peek into the depths of His love, which we will only fully realize when we are brought into His presence. However, right now, we aren’t there yet. So, as a broken people, how do we live in this world where the pitfalls of fake gospels and false promises lie around us everywhere?

First of all, we must realize that we aren’t worthy of God’s love. We are sinners who rather deserve God’s swift judgment. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The payment for our sin, even if we sinned just once, is eternal separation from God. Fortunately, God didn’t want that for us and Paul doesn’t end this verse with that phrase. Paul continues, “but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (also, Romans 6:23).

We must not only recognize that we are unworthy sinners but that we have a gift given to us by God through His mercy and grace. It has a name, and it is called “salvation.” Christ won this for us on the cross, as He himself said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16–17). This salvation is not temporal, but eternal. This grace is not worldly, but divine and all-surpassing. God intended it to be this way, to cover the sins of all people because He “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

This salvation is not obtained by our own doing but only through His Holy Word and Sacraments where He deigns to be present. We do not find God by our own wanderings or seeking, but rather, He finds us and comes to us through these blessed means. He does not come by glorious means, but rather, He comes by humble means. As a baby born in a manger in an insignificant town called Bethlehem. Through mere words. In water and in bread and wine. God uses these common means to come to everyone. He puts to shame the glory of worldly kings and rulers and is found in meekness and humility. He is a king who gives Himself up for His people. It is not our own good doings which the prophet Isaiah calls, “filthy rags” that could ever win his favor, but it is solely because of the wonders of His bountiful mercy and unending grace. “Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Worship was not meant to be flashy but common and full of beauty. Sermons were not meant to be talk shows or coffee chats, but the good news preached to all people. The hymns that we sing are not solely to praise God but to teach each other and remind each other of the great gift that we find in His House, the Church.

Christianity isn’t a movement. It isn’t just a way of life. It’s a way from life to life. A way that leads to the arms of the Heavenly Father where there will be no more tears, nor sighing, nor pain. A way that leads back to the Tree of Life. A way that leads back to Zion (that is heaven).

God’s story is not found in the fleeting things of this world. God’s story is found where the ordinary becomes divine. God is found right here in your heart. God dwells within you through His Holy Spirit. You are part of God’s story, not because of the great things you did, but because of the great things He did for you. Now, you can cry out, “Abba, Father!” to the one who has adopted you from the dominion of darkness and brought you into glorious light.

That’s the true power of the Gospel. It’s not a power of this world. It’s not found in the riches of this world. It’s found at the foot of the cross. It’s found in the God who died for us. It’s found in mercy and love.

God doesn’t care about our politics or the things of this world because those things will never last. May He grant us the strength to fix our eyes and focus on Him, for He is the only way forward and the only answer. He is your all in all. He is what your soul is longing for. He is what you truly need.

“Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy and pleasing to God— which is your appropriate worship.” -Romans 12:1 (EHV)

Think about your daily routine. What do you do to get ready for the day? Surely, you probably take care of your body by taking care of personal hygiene, eating at certain meal times during the day, and remembering to stay hydrated by drinking water. We know, without thinking much about it, that there are certain things that we have to do to take care of ourselves.

In the text above, Paul tells, or rather, urges us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. What does that mean, though? Here, what Paul is talking about, is not necessarily just taking care of our bodies, but using them to bring glory to God. Just as all of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Christ, God wants us to use our bodies and our lives to do the same.

God wants you, as a student, athlete, artist, or whatever you may do, to do it because of what He has done for you and to live your life accordingly. As followers of Christ, we recognize that our works do not save us, but that they help our neighbors and they demonstrate an outward sign and reason for the faith that exists within us.

In this season of Epiphany, we remember foremostly how God reveals Himself to all people, both Jew and Gentile. We are reminded that the Gospel is for all people. Let these words of Paul encourage you as you continue to be a light to others and glorify God in all that you do as you tell and show others the reason for the hope that is in you. Amen.