Faith, hope, and love–What do they really mean?

Posted on July 29, 2025 by Pastor Foley

“Faith”, “hope”, and “love” are important biblical words which we tend to understand only vaguely. We define them according to modern definitions, not biblical definitions. We think of “faith”, “hope”, and “love” as feelings or psychological states:

We think of “faith” as “believing in something you don’t see”.

We think of “hope” as a kind of optimism that things will turn out well.

We think of “love” as an emotional attachment to another person or thing.

But in scripture, “faith”, “hope”, and “love” are objective realities. They are real things that do not change based on what we are experiencing or feeling.

Many pastors preach “You need to have more faith, hope, and love!” So, Christians feel bad about not having enough “faith”, “hope”, and “love”. As a result, they work harder to exert their wills to do better in these areas.

But “faith”, “hope”, and “love” are gifts from God that do not change. They are part of the “easy yoke” of the Lord, which he gives to us.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Throughout scripture and Christian history, “faith”, “hope”, and “love” are the basic Christian virtues, the main gifts from the Lord upon which the Christian witness is founded.

 In Luke 18:8, Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” He does not ask, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find Christian values on earth?” Jesus is concerned with whether we are stewarding the gifts of “faith”, “hope”, and “love” he has given us.

“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2)

What is true of the gospel is true of “faith”, “hope”, and “love”. They are things that the Lord has given to us, which we steward carefully.

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel,” (Colossians 1:3-5)

We should note here that receiving “faith”, “hope”, and “love” is connected with hearing the gospel. And, interestingly, here hope and love do not come from faith, but faith and love come from hope.

Paul says that hope is “laid up for you in heaven”. But Paul is not talking about rewards we get when we die. Paul tells us in Titus 2:13 what he means by hope:

 “…while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,” (Titus 2:13)

There is only one “hope” that the New Testament talks about: the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. To say that this “hope” is stored up in heaven is to say that Jesus is currently enthroned and reigning in heaven but will come again soon to judge the living and the dead. It is the same as what Paul says in Colossians 3:1-4:

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4)

Scripturally, our hope is not that we will go to heaven when we die. Our hope is always in Christ’s soon return. Even if we die before he returns, he will take us to himself and bring him with when he comes again to bring the new heavens and new earth.

If “hope” is hope in Christ’s return, and “faith” and “love” come from hope, we cannot have faith or love if we omit Christ’s return from our proclamation of the gospel.

This is why, in the Gospels, Jesus’ main activity on earth was not telling people that God loves them, that he would die for their sins, or that heaven is a great place to live after dying. Jesus main activity was to preach about the day of the Lord, the judgment, hell, the eternal destruction of God’s enemies, the bodily resurrection of the righteous, and the new heavens and new earth. 

Jesus comes with a final offer of mercy before that judgment and seals that offer of mercy in His own blood. He gives the disciples the gift of Himself and the promise of His return in the Lord’s Supper and tells them to watch for Him.

Hope in Jesus’ return is the anchor of the Christian life. It is what holds everything else in place. When other people do wrong to us, we don’t take revenge on them. Instead, we anchor ourselves in the blessed hope, knowing that at Christ’s return every wrong that was done against us will be made right.

When we are ill, we pray for healing. But we never lose hope even when we are not healed because we know that, on the day of the return of the Lord, that…

“in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:52-53).

If this is hope, then what is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 tells us.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith is the substance of hope. Most of the things that we will receive when hope is realized are things that we do not have now. But some things we do receive now. Scripture calls these a “deposit” or “guarantee”. They are gifts of faith–the substance of hope.

When we are baptized in Christ in faith, we receive the forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit, the direct teaching of Christ, relationship with the Father, and much more…even though such things are still “unseen” to us. 

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14)

“Faith” is a deposit on our future “hope”. This is why “hope” comes before “faith” and why “faith” grows from “hope”. “Faith” is the part of “hope” that we get to receive and hold tightly to in this lifetime.

Paul says that “love” is also rooted in “hope”. “Love” is our using the gifts we receive in “faith” to the benefit of other members of Christ’s body.

In the story of Simon Magus in Acts 8, a magician named Simon tried to give money to the apostles so that he could have the gift of giving other people the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. He was trying to use the gift of faith for his own benefit. This is not “love”. “Love” is when we use the gifts of “faith” for other believers.

 Now we understand “faith”, “hope”, and “love”, and why “faith” and “love” spring forth from “hope”.

The Lord’s Supper is the gift of faith that we receive in this present age as a deposit—a guarantee—of our invitation to the wedding supper of the Lamb that will happen at Christ’s return, which is our “blessed hope”.

In 1 Corinthians 11:20-21, Paul rebukes the Corinthian church, saying: “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk.”

When we eat the Lord’s Supper focused only on our own needs and benefits, we are like Simon the magician: we do not have love. So as you partake of the Lord’s Supper, pray for the person who is in front of you in the line. Pray that as they receive the Lord’s Supper, that the Lord anchors them into the blessed hope of his return. Pray that they receive the fullness of the gifts of faith available to us believers in this lifetime, including the blessings of this bread and cup.

That is the prayer that comes from true Christian love.

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What kind of a “thing” is the gospel?

Posted on July 11, 2025 by Pastor Foley

In math, if you get the first step wrong in an equation, the whole equation will be wrong. It is the same in the Christian life. If you get the first step of the Christian life wrong, all of the other steps will be wrong. So it is important to get the first step right.

Before becoming Paul the Great Apostle, Paul was Saul the Great Pharisee. And we see in Acts 9, that he was on the way to persecute Christians when a bright light knocked him off his horse and a voice said to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me.” Saul answered, “Who are you, Lord?”

Saul had probably memorized most of the Old Testament. He was faultless according to the law (Philippians 4:6). But because he got the first step wrong, he is here at step one, asking God “Who are you, Lord?” By the grace of God, Saul was granted the humility to be able to start again at the first step.

Martin Luther also had the experience of having to begin again. He was ordained as a priest in 1507. He was extremely serious about his faith. He fasted frequently and prayed for hours. He confessed his sins often. He taught theology at a university and chaired the theology department. And then the Lord showed Luther through Paul’s letter to the Romans that Luther had gotten the first step wrong. Luther later wrote: “To make progress in the Christian life means to begin again.”

For both Paul and Luther, they didn’t focus on beginning again in order to sin less or increase personal holiness. Instead, they began again by recalibrating to a proper understanding of the gospel.

The way forward for the church is to begin again by re-examining what our understanding of the gospel is. Not only what the content of the gospel is but, even more fundamentally, what kind of a “thing” the gospel is in the first place.

So, what kind of a “thing” is the gospel?

The gospel is the name for the specific message given by God to the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to proclaim to the people of God, Israel. Jesus was the first preacher of the gospel. He commissioned his disciples to preach the gospel to the whole world exactly as he preached it in both content and method.

This understanding of what the gospel is is not a new idea, nor should it be considered controversial. Scripture is clear that God sends His Son to bring a message:

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Hebrews 1:1-2)

 “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard,” (Hebrews 2:3)

 We see in the gospels how Jesus is described as proclaiming the “gospel of God”:

 “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)

 “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.” (John 12:49)

 Paul claimed to be an apostle of “the gospel of God” and claimed that there is no other gospel:

 “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,” (Romans 1:1)

 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Romans 1:6-8)

Scripture is clear that the gospel is a message entrusted by God to Christ to give to his disciples. We are not given the right to adjust, reformulate, or update the gospel message. We are specifically denied that right. This not only applies to what we say, but how we say it (i.e. the method of proclaiming the gospel).

In Luke 10, Jesus commissions the disciples to go to the places where he is about to go. And he tells the disciples “Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.” (Luke 10:3-4)

Jesus laid out the method which the disciples consistently followed when they went out to preach the gospel throughout the New Testament. The gospel is never to be proclaimed from any position considered desirable or advantageous from a human perspective. It is to be proclaimed by lambs to wolves. Messengers of the gospel are to go out with nothing to give other than the gospel.

Messengers of the gospel are not to “greet anyone on the road”. Preaching the gospel is not about friendship evangelism.

The place where they are to stay is the first place that does not throw them out, and their wages are the food and lodging the hosts of such a house give them.

“Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.” (Luke 10:5-7)

They are not to rent the house, set up a mission center, and host short-term mission groups for tours. They are to immediately proclaim the gospel to the people in the town. And, if they are rejected, they are to announce to the town that its residents are in trouble and then move on to the next town.

“But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’” (Luke 10:10-11)

In 1 Corinthians 2, we see that this method of preaching the gospel from a position of weakness continued on to the mission of the gentiles as well.

“And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (Luke 10:3-5)

This method was not peculiar to Jesus and Paul. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 that this method was the common experience of all the apostles.

“For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.” (1 Corinthians 4:9-13)

The reason why Jesus sent the apostles to preach the gospel in this way is because it is the way that the Father sent Jesus to preach the gospel. Christ tells those who want to be Christ followers these things:

“As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57-62)

 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26)

So, if Christianity is a math equation, the first step is to get the content and method of preaching the gospel right. That is, to know what the gospel is and how it must be preached. We are not permitted to change the content of the gospel nor the method which it is proclaimed. That method is the method of human weakness.

 To be very clear, you are called to leave behind all earthly ties in service of a message.

You may be asking yourself, “What does that mean? Should I quit my job? Forsake my family? Leave my parents alone in their old age?”

 Interestingly, those are the same kinds of questions which people ask throughout the New Testament. And Jesus is clear that we should remove anything in our lives that stops us from following him.

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:29-30)

This doesn’t mean that Jesus is against us having jobs and families. But it does mean that Jesus expects that when we are forced to choose between our calling as servants of the word and our worldly responsibilities that we will always choose our calling as servants of the word even if it means being thrown out of our job, thrown out of our families, or losing our material possessions.

We hired a young woman for a job at VOMK one year ago. She had been using her talents in the world and making a lot of money. But she told us that she felt it was meaningless and that the Lord was giving her the opportunity to use her talents for him. But then, right before she was scheduled to start work, she sent us a short text message saying that she had decided not to accept the job because her parents felt it was too dangerous.

That is an example of a wrong choice.

Another woman worked at VOMK for about a year. Then her father died. Her mother said, “Now you need to come and take of me. I am lonely.” So the woman quit and went to take care of her mother.

That is an example of a wrong choice.

Paul talks to the Corinthians about what to do if you are married to a nonbeliever. He says

“To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you[b] to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?”

He is not saying that if you have an unbelieving spouse that you are excused from your role as a servant of the Lord. Paul is not saying that you have permission not to talk about Jesus in front of your unbelieving spouse and children. Christians are never excused from our role as servants of the word. This is true in public, in your family, with your children, and certainly your spouse.

In the same way, if you have a home and many material possessions, the counsel of the New Testament is this: Hold on to your role as a messenger of the gospel tightly and hold on to your material possessions loosely, removing anything from your life that prevents you from proclaiming the gospel in human weakness.

Do you own a dog? When a dog gets sick, the way that you get a dog to take pills is to wrap the pills in meat because dogs love to eat meat.

Today, Christian workers think of the gospel as a pill that must be wrapped up in meat in order to get people to accept it. The meat that they wrap the gospel in is things this world finds desirable like food, money, relationships, security, comfort, wealth, physical attractiveness.

But the gospel is not a pill and people are not dogs. The desires of this world cannot be used to make the gospel of God more appealing.

“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:56)

The word of the Lord which has been given to us in the gospel of God is real food. And the gospel can only be proclaimed in human weakness and believed in human weakness.

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The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Is it the same for us?

Posted on July 9, 2025 by tdillmuth

And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58)

In verse 58, Jesus identifies himself to the first follower as the “Son of Man.” He said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Only one person in the Gospels ever referred to Jesus as the Son of Man and that one person is Jesus himself! In fact, it was his favorite designation for himself. This is used over 80 times in the Gospels alone.

The Jews who heard Jesus referring to himself as the Son of Man would inevitably think back to Daniel 7. In Daniel 7, Daniel receives a vision from the Lord that seems very “Revelation like.”

He sees the Ancient of Days sitting on the throne. His clothing was white as snow, his hair was like pure wool, and his throne was fiery flames.

And in verses 13-14, one like a son of man came with clouds was presented to the Ancient of Days. Verse 14 says,

And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

The most explicit connection Jesus made between himself and the Son of Man in Daniel 7 was right before his own crucifixion. In Matthew 26:63, Caiaphas the high priest said, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” In verse 64 Jesus replied to him by saying,

You have said so, But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

Caiaphas and the other priests understood that Jesus was claiming divinity and was connecting himself to Daniel 7. Caiaphas tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy”, and the other priests said, “He deserves death.”

Son of Man = Servant

In Luke 9:58, we don’t see the Son of Man coming on the clouds, we see him with nowhere to lay his head. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus connects the Son of Man to rejection, suffering, death and resurrection. We see this in Luke 9, just a few verses before our passage. In Luke 9:22 he tells his disciples,

The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And in Luke 9:44, he says,

Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.

This is very different from the Son of Man as seen in Daniel 7.

The mother of the sons of Zebedee learned this in Matthew 20. She asked Jesus for her sons to sit at his left hand and at his right hand in the kingdom. She was likely thinking of Daniel 7 where the Son of Man reigned from heaven with all dominion and authority!

But after this request, Jesus spoke to the disciples and said,

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

In this passage, Jesus connected his disciples with the servanthood and suffering of the Son of Man.

Three Potential Followers

In Luke 9:57, the first follower of Jesus boldly said, “I will follow you wherever you go!” Jesus told him that “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”, with the implication that it would be the same for that follower as it was for Jesus. Just a few verses earlier, a Samaritan village did not welcome Jesus as he came through. And in Luke 8, the people of the Gerasenes kicked Jesus out of their village. Jesus let the man know that if happened to him (Jesus), it would also happen to his followers.

The third potential follower also proclaimed in verse 61, “I will follow you Lord”, but he added, “let me first say farewell to those at my home.”

It sounds like a reasonable request. Especially since we know that Elijah let Elisha say goodbye to his family in 1 Kings 19. But Jesus responded by saying in verse 62, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

And in fact, Jesus’ response can only be understood by knowing the story of Elijah and Elisha. When Elijah called Elisha, in 1 Kings 19:20, he asked Elijah if he could  “kiss my father and mother” goodbye before following him.

But Elisha did something interesting. He went back and killed the oxen and burned his plowing equipment. He then held a feast for all those around him with the meat that he cooked.

When Elisha said goodbye to his family, he was not trying to get his family’s permission. He didn’t ask his dad, “What do you think about this Elijah character?” He didn’t tell his mother, “I’ll make sure to visit you every weekend.” When Elisha said goodbye to his family, he was destroying his old way of life (killing the animals and burning the plowing equipment)!

In Luke 9:51, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus journey to Jerusalem would involve suffering and it would end in death. To follow Jesus would not be easy. It required a complete dependence on Jesus for everything. It required a singular focus on “the kingdom of God.” It also meant that his followers would experience suffering and difficulties just like Jesus would.

Jesus responded to this potential disciple in this way, not because it was wrong to say “goodbye to your family”, but because he should say goodbye in the same way that Elisha said goodbye, “burn the plow and kill the animals.”

Right in the middle of these two followers, was the second man. Luke sets this man apart from the other two because Christ called this man to follow him (rather than the other way around).

He responded to Jesus’ call in verse 59, by saying, “Let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus responded in verse 60, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

There are many good theories as to what Jesus really meant when he responded this way. One commentator said that it’s likely this man’s father wasn’t dead yet. In the Middle East the phrase, “let me go and bury my father” is an idiom that means “it is necessary to care for my parents until the time that they die.”

This is certainly possible, but the truth is, we don’t really know. We aren’t given any other explanation or definitive clues as to the situation of this follower of Jesus.

Jesus answered this man and said, “let the dead bury their own dead.” This is a strange saying and hard for us to understand. Some people suggest that Jesus is saying “let the spiritually dead people bury their own physically dead.” While this is also possible, the truth is, we don’t exactly know if this is what Jesus meant.

But it’s possible to not understand if this man’s father was really dead and still understand this passage of scripture. It’s also possible to not completely understand what Jesus meant when he said, “let the dead bury their own dead” and still understand this passage of Scripture. Why? Because Christ’s main point, in verse 60 was, “you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Peter Krol compared Jesus’ words in verse 60 to an imaginary tea party that a young girl might have with her dolls. He said,

Somewhat like a modern father of a preschooler, late for a family gathering, telling his daughter to just leave her baby dolls to have their own tea party; we only need to get in the car! She would be missing the point if she began dissecting the question of whether dolls really have the ability to have their own tea parties without her.

The same is true in these verses. We don’t have to deeply analyze who the first and the second dead are. We just have to understand “go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

In fact, in Luke 4:43, Jesus said that his purpose was to “preach the good news of the kingdom of God”. And the pattern of Christ’s life is also the pattern of our life. Just as Christ proclaims the good news of the Kingdom of God, so we also proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Come and Die

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said,

As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

This giving “our lives over to death” is what we call martyrdom. And it is actually a gift from God. And this gift was given to us at baptism. The Bible says that we were buried with Christ in our baptism. Martin Luther called this “the big death” and our physical death “the little death.”

White and Green martyrdom is us daily living out the fact that we were given the gift of “being dead in Christ.” This is the same idea when Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Many modern-day Christians follow Christ for the benefits. They think, “If I follow Christ, maybe my family relationships will improve. If I follow Christ, maybe my business will be blessed. If I follow Christ, maybe I will be generally happier.”

But the starting point of following Christ is not earthly blessings, it is death. Elisha burned the yoke and killed the oxen. We are baptized into Christ’s death. And through baptism, we are given the Holy Spirit. But we aren’t given the Holy Spirit so we can live a blessed, happy and easy life. We are given the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel. The suffering that Christ experienced when he proclaimed the gospel is the same suffering that we experience when we proclaim the gospel.

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