Leah Ramirez

10/29/2026

Much of the Christian life can feel like trying to get somewhere: closer to God, more approved, more secure. Many of us have lived that way for years.

The question that changes things is a simpler one. Where has God already placed you? Paul speaks of two locations, in Adam and in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22). In Genesis 15, God passes between the covenant pieces alone while Abram sleeps. And Paul tells us to "consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11).

I'm writing more about this in a study of Romans 5–8 that is coming out of Behold School. For now, I'll leave you with the question I keep coming back to.

If you began from where Christ has already placed you, what would you stop trying to reach?

10/28/2026

Have you ever read the story of the woman caught in adultery and come away with only "go and sin no more"?

For years I heard it that way too. But look at what Jesus does before he says a word to her. He stands between her and the men holding stones. Then he stoops and writes in the dust. I've come to believe we're watching something of Jeremiah 31 unfold, the Lord writing his covenant on the heart, right there in the dirt beside her. "Neither do I condemn you" is the Gospel preached to her before anything else is asked of her.

When you read John 8 this way, what do you notice that you hadn't seen before?

10/27/2026

If you have ever sat in a teaching and wished you could take it home and read it slowly, this is for you.

Chris and I are writing three books: Behold and Apostolic Architecture together, and Romans 5–8, which I am writing on my own. They come out of years of teaching the finished work of Christ: Sunday mornings, Behold School, and long evenings of simply looking at Jesus together.

They aren't ready yet. When they are, I want you to be among the first to know. I've made a simple place on Substack where you can be notified when they release.

What part of the Gospel do you wish you had something to read about?

10/23/2026

I want to understand Paul's Gospel.

Here was a man whose religious zeal had once led him to persecute the very people who proclaimed Jesus. A man who believed he was defending God while opposing the One God had sent.

And then he encountered Jesus.

Years later, he would call everything he had once trusted to establish his righteousness loss compared to knowing Christ.

Surely this man had not misunderstood Jesus' invitation to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him!

Paul understood something about self-denial that I believe we've often missed. He had surrendered his confidence in himself and in every system he had once trusted to establish his righteousness.

He belonged to Another.

And he would not prop up any religious architecture that obscured the One who loved him and gave Himself for him.

This is what we explored Sunday in a message called **The Offense of the Cross.**

Why was Paul's message so offensive? Why were the apostles persecuted for announcing the finished work of Christ?

Because the cross confronts the very foundation upon which we have attempted to establish our own righteousness.

We are often willing to believe that Jesus forgives our failures. We are less comfortable discovering that our successes cannot establish our righteousness either.

And yet, what glorious freedom is waiting for us when we surrender both!

I don't want a Gospel that simply helps me become better at navigating religion. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection.

And I want this Good News to so apprehend us that we cannot help but share it!

What a glorious Gospel we have been given.

10/21/2026

There was a season in my life when the Gospel stopped sounding like good news.

That's a hard thing to admit after spending so many years in ministry.

I loved Jesus. I loved the Scriptures. I wanted to be faithful. But somewhere along the way, my understanding of the Christian life had become so occupied with what I needed to accomplish that I had nearly lost sight of what He had accomplished.

I remember looking at people who didn't know the Lord and wondering what exactly I was inviting them into.

More effort? More responsibility? Another system to learn and maintain?

I knew how to preach grace. But I wasn't really living in the freedom of it.

And I didn't know how to distinguish the burden I was carrying from what Jesus Himself was asking of me.

That is a sobering place to be when you've given your life to preaching.

I have spent the years since discovering just how glorious the Gospel really is. And I am still discovering!

Paul tells us in Romans 7:4 that we died to the Law so that we might belong to Another, to Him who was raised from the dead, and bear fruit for God.

We weren't released from one system so that we could establish another. We were joined to a Person.

And sometimes I wonder how many people have quietly concluded that their exhaustion is simply the cost of following Jesus.

What if the burden we're carrying isn't the cross Jesus asked us to take up, but the weight of a religious system He never asked us to maintain?

I would love to hear your thoughts. I know I'm not the only one who has wrestled with this.

10/19/2026

What if some of the things we have called Christian obedience have actually been attempts to accomplish what Jesus has already finished?

I've been thinking about that question a great deal lately.

Jesus tells us to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. Paul tells us that our old self WAS crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6).

Are we supposed to spend our lives trying to accomplish a death that has already happened? Or have we misunderstood something about what Jesus was inviting us into?

I think these questions are worth wrestling with. And I am increasingly convinced that the Gospel is meant to disrupt the very religious confidence we have mistaken for faithfulness.

Paul wasn't interested in making people better at navigating a religious system. He was announcing that we have died to one order so that we might belong to Another.

A Person. The risen Lord Jesus.

And the fruit of that union is a life we could never produce independently of Him.

This doesn't make obedience irrelevant. It changes where obedience begins. We are no longer trying to produce life through our efforts. We are learning to live from the life we have received in Christ.

**The imperative is not God's invitation to become someone we are not. It is His invitation to participate in the life of the One to whom we have been joined.**

I'm curious. Have you ever reconsidered a passage of Scripture you'd understood one way for years, only to discover something beautiful you hadn't seen before?

10/16/2026

Chris and I co-preached for the first time on Sunday, and we had so much fun! What amazed me was how the Lord wove our messages together. Chris changed his direction the night before, I had been preparing something else entirely, and somehow the Lord brought it all together so beautifully.

Chris shared from the cave of Adullam, where broken, indebted, discontented men gathered around David and eventually became his mighty men. He talked about standing in our inheritance in Christ and drawing close enough to the King to overhear the longing of His heart.

And as he shared, the Lord began reframing some old stories for me. Stories about hearing God's heart for a region, praying for our children, and even my own experience of being healed of asthma.

We began to see how easily faith can become another thing we're trying to accomplish rather than our response to what God has already revealed.

Faith doesn't make God's Word true. Faith believes the One who has spoken.

I especially want to encourage you to watch if you've been feeling the pressure to believe enough, pray correctly, or somehow produce a breakthrough for yourself or someone you love.

I think there's something in this message that could bring real freedom.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/live/ysLJIm4vyak

The Audacity of Believing God | Chris Berglund & Leah Ramirez

And if you watch, come back and tell me what spoke to you. I'd love to hear what the Lord is showing you.

What if we actually believed what God has declared to be true in Ch...

10/14/2026

I've been carrying something in my heart for parents who are praying for their children. And really, for all of us who have people we love whose stories aren't unfolding the way we hoped.

Sometimes when we're deeply concerned for someone, we begin describing their life almost entirely through the things that are wrong. They're angry. They're wandering. They're making terrible decisions. They're so far from God.

And I understand that language. I've used it myself.

But I've been feeling the Lord challenge the way I see these stories.

God is already in their story.

Before we ever began praying, before we noticed the distance, before we felt the ache of what was happening, the Father knew them and loved them.

We're not trying to get a reluctant God interested in our children. We're being invited to see what He sees, love with His love, and participate in what He's already doing.

Their story is still playing out.

I wonder how much freedom would come into our praying if we really believed that.

10/14/2026

If you have a moment, take a listen or read my write-up. And if you don’t, just remember: the Gospel is good news!