Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry

I described the role of a priest as standing between God and the people, representing each to the other. A prophet does this, too, but in terms of speech: what the people have to say to God and what God has to say to the people. When a priest stands in the gap, it isn’t about words. It’s about sin. Sin and sacrifice.

You exist because God made you, and God made you because he loves you.

But if we unclench our fists, if we let go of our lives, if we confess that we are not our own, that we need and depend on God for life and for every other good thing—then, Jesus says, we will keep our lives, not only in this world but in the world to come.

Holiness is the number one job description for Abraham’s children. The people of God must be holy, as the God whose people they are is holy. If they’re not holy, then what makes them different from any other people? To be holy is to be set apart. It means to be other, different, distinct, unlike the rest. God is holy because there is no one and not

Israel is the moon to God’s sun, reflecting the divine light to a world blanketed in darkness.

You and I are made by God and for God. Our home is in God. We are beloved. We are dependent. We need God, every second of every day, if we are going to be happy or good, much less both. Very little is worth knowing more than this.

in the first century, the writings we now call the Old Testament were simply Scripture for Israel, and thus for Jesus and the apostles. The first generation of the church had no inkling of a New Testament, much less of a need for one. They had the Law of Moses; they had prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; they had the psalms of King David

God does what only God can do: make a way out of no way, something from nothing, life from death.

Sin is a turning away from God; it is missing the mark of giving God what God is due—namely, the whole of ourselves.