What it means to be a saint, in Christ Jesus, and the joy, freedom, and security that comes with knowing God as our Father and Christ as our Lord.

Many Psalms of Lament conclude with confidence in God despite suffering.  However, Psalm 44 begins with confidence, followed by a complaint, concluding with a call for God to act.

Lamentations articulates some of the worst human suffering. In response, a prayer for the Lord’s restoration is made.

When language devolves into lies and power-relations to drown out trustworthiness, we find divine rescue in the sevenfold pure words of the Lord.

We will see how wisdom holds the secret to being truly alive in every generation.

Why do we conceal our sins rather than confess them, especially when they imprison and distance us from God’s presence and his people? We’ll consider the folly of this approach to the Christian life and the liberating joys of confession flowing from our faith in the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus.

God, according to His sovereign will, works all things together for the good of the believer. Not some things or most things, but ALL things … even our thorny trials and hardships.

From deep waters we cry to an attentive Lord for deliverance and forgiveness. Our watchful hope looks to his word of promise and plentiful redemption.

When you are going through suffering, what is your relationship with God like? When your friends or family are suffering, how do you comfort them? Job tells us that God has the answer to our suffering, and how we are to look to Him during those times.

In this wilderness journal King David records his experience of the steadfast love of the Lord in the face of deep suffering. His poetic witness points us to the love of Christ and the promised joy of abiding in the greater son of the great King David.

The Parable of the Sower invites us to consider both our own hearts and our outward engagement with the world as we receive and share the good news of God’s kingdom.

In times of distress, darkness, and hopelessness, the Psalmist exhorts believers to turn to the Lord and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. God who is faithful will answer and will show his people His salvation.

As stewards of the gospel, Christians are called to share in Christ's afflictions in order to take His gospel to the nations.

God led his people through the rushing Jordan River to demonstrate that his power and presence are more than sufficient to meet his people’s needs. We serve a God who takes a particular delight in ordaining difficult circumstances to serve as the perfect context in which he proves his unrivaled power on our behalf.  

Saving faith is vindicated by Spirit-wrought good works.

Dr. Bitner reads through the letter of James in its entirety in this special morning devotion.

In the story we see the hopelessness of seeking salvation through the law and the beauty of salvation found in Jesus Christ. He is the merciful king who seeks, saves, and loves us.

James compares two forms of God’s law, the royal law that condemns us for just one sin and the law of liberty by which God shows us mercy. We who are under the latter law must speak and act mercifully.

Psalm 61 provides the believer a wonderful roadmap for prayer, bringing us back into the way of trusting God when we cry out for guidance, remember his faithfulness, and long for his presence.

God is working all things for our salvation, but the path that gets us there is rarely that of least resistance. In Exodus 2, we find the crooked roadmap that prepares Moses to be the savior of Israel–prefiguring the cruciform itinerary that leads Christ to be the Savior of the world.