1 john on Punishment

Leader: Scripture teaches us that there is one good and holy God; that we were created in God’s image, to commit ourselves to Him, to do good works, to reflect His glory, and to know Him as loving Fat...

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us ...

There is a famous story about Emperor Frederick the Great visiting Potsdam Prison. As he spoke with the prisoners, each one insisted they were completely innocent of the crimes that led to their impri...

Leader: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us fr...

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us fr...

Pastor: Let us then confess our sins to God our Father. People: Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by wh...

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us ...

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us ...

And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pl...

Defilement is what sin does to us; damnation is what sin introduces as our eternal end. Except for God’s intervention. We have needs, and God addresses our needs. Even our sin, the most destructive re...

Throughout the Old Testament this was always the idea of a sin-offering - that of a perfect victim; without offense on its own account, taking the place of the offender; the transference of the offend...

Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin.

What does propitiation mean? A modern dictionary will say that to propitiate means “to appease” or “to placate.” I find both of these words unsatisfactory because they suggest a mere soothing or softe...

I asked a few people if they’d ever forgiven anyone and what it felt like. They gave me answers so pious I knew they’d never done it…Forgiveness is a brutal mathematical transaction done with fully en...

Dieu pardonerra; c’est son métier; God forgives you — it’s his thing. *for contrast

God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, "no fishing."

Eternal God, our judge and redeemer, we confess that we have tried to hide from You, for we have done wrong. We have lived for ourselves, and apart from You. We have turned from our neighbors and refu...

A number of years ago I was discipling a young man who had recently been released from the state’s juvenile detention center. As a teenager he had been hooked on drugs, and he had resorted to stealing...

I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we don’t take evil seriously after all; it means that we do. In fact, it means we take it doubly seriously. To begin with, it means a settled determination to name evil a...

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have comm...

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

It is quite enough that you have sinned. Now let go of it. Don’t let your despondency lead to an even greater offence. The Lord says, ‘I do not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he repent ...

Shame has two conflicting instincts. It needs to isolate and hide, and it needs a community in which to be transparent. Hiding, of course, usually wins. It is the easier and more natural of the two. B...

Forgiveness is surrendering my right to hurt you for hurting me.

Therefore let us repent and pass from ignorance to knowledge, from foolishness to wisdom, from licentiousness to self-control, from injustice to righteousness, from godlessness to God.

He hurls our sins overboard. What a picture of the way God treats our sins. Corrie ten Boom, a dear saint of the last century, used to say, “And then God put up a sign saying, `No fishing allowed.”‘ W...

The holiness of God teaches us that there is only one way to deal with sin- radically, seriously, painfully, constantly. If you do not so live, you do not live in the presence of the Holy One of Israe...

Forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems.

O Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, look upon us and have mercy on us; you who are yourself both victim and priest, yourself both reward and redeemer. Keep safe from all evils those who...