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Our Pet Sins
By Holly Scheer The name “pet sins” has always made me uncomfortable. When I think of pets I think of cute, warm, cuddly animals– the kind of thing you nuture and like to keep around. That’s not how I like to think about my sins. It’s fitting, though, isn’t it? The sins we take in, hold close, and nuture through our lives. The ones we hold close. The ones that we excuse as just part of us. Pet sins. Having a predisposition to something doesn’t make it something that’s good for us, though. Sometimes the sins that come easiest to us are the hardest to really call sin– because that’s…
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Welcome Spring
By Emily Cook “It’s like this, children,” said pastor-daddy, trying to explain the mysteries of faith one bleary morning, “Imagine little Peter walked across the street to the pond, and he fell through the ice and he died.” “No daddy I didn’t do that!” “Peter, it’s just a story, like a parable, I know it didn’t really happen.” “But I DIDN’T! Don’t laugh at me, Marcus!” “Okay, Peter. We know. Just listen.” “So, imagine he died. Could he call for help then? If he were dead, could he wave his arms and holler for us to come save him?” Heads shake. No way. That’s ridiculous. “Of course not. This is…
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Adoption and Loss
by Amy Stafford People often say how blessed our daughter is to have been adopted. And of course, my response is always that we are the blessed ones to have her in our lives. People also often say she was meant for our family. She certainly appears to be. Her personality is so much like her older sister’s, it’s scary. She fills what was previously a gaping hole in our family. She is the delight of our lives and fits in perfectly. But it must be said, she was also meant for her birth family. She was born to another mother, and another father. To other grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. …
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5 Things That Do Not Offer Salvation
Spend much time at all among Lutherans and you’re likely to eventually hear the phrase “proper distinction of Law and Gospel”. This is something we cherish — the preaching of God’s Law along with the soothing words of His Gospel predominating. Yet, we aren’t a perfect lot, and sometimes we can find ourselves drifting away from this right balance, falling to one side of the sword edge or the other — diving into a Gospel reductionist mindset (where we downplay the importance and necessity of the Law) or wandering into Law-Law-Law territory. While both deviations are equally possible, it is the latter that has me up at 4am writing, rather than attempting to catch…