ephesians on Guilt

In a way, the Reformation began in one monk's overwhelming guilt. Martin Luther was riddled with guilt and filled with anxiety because he could see that he could not live up to God's standard ...

Leader: Blessed Lord Jesus, before your cross I kneel and see the heinousness of my sin, my iniquity that caused you to be made a curse, the evil that provokes divine wrath. All: Show me the enormit...

According to Dallas Willard, grace is “God doing in us and for us what we could not do ourselves.” We are meant to be forgiven by grace; we are also meant to live by grace. We often believe that only...

A Great (and Weighty) Work of Literature That Will Delight Like Moby Dick and War and Peace , Les Misérables is a hefty novel. Affectionately known as the ‘Brick’ for its formidable length, it c...

In his book The Case for Grace , pastor and author Lee Strobel describes a dream he had as a child after having a significant argument with his father. Strobel does what most of us would do at that...

Pious souls can derive great confidence and delight from this sacrament, as being a testimony that they form one body with Christ, so that everything which is his they may call their own. Hence it fol...

O Lord God, You have commanded us to believe in Jesus; and I would flee to no other refuge,  wash in no other fountain,  build on no other foundation,  receive from no other fullness,  res...

Richness in the Slapstick I don’t know about you, but when I think of insightful, theologically rich content on Christmas , I don’t naturally start with blockbuster films. And no, I’m not referring ...

Being saved always involves being both saved from something and saved for something. We are saved for shalom—a flourishing life with God. What are we saved from? Salvation as described in the Bible is...

Only at the cross of Christ does man see fully what it is that separates him from God; yet it is here alone that he perceives that he is no longer separated from God. Nowhere else does the inviolable ...

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am...

Pastor: By grace, through Jesus, God calls us His children so that we might become more like Him, setting our hope on His grace, and living as holy people who fear the Lord and love one another. Whe...

Before I spoke at a conference, a soloist sang one of my favorite songs, “Amazing Grace.” It was beautiful. Until she got to the tenth word. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a soul like ...

The next time you say something deceitful, hurtful or proud, you cannot say “I don’t know what came over me.” Nothing came over you. Such sins come _out_of you. They come from a wellspring that is ver...

The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same ti...

Dear Lord Jesus, we feel our sins. They bite and gnaw and terrify us. Where shall we go? We will look to You, Lord Jesus, and believe in You. Although our faith is often weak, we look to You and find ...

Loving father, there are times when it feels like we never get it right. We compare ourselves to others and we don’t measure up. It seems like we can never get our act together and live up to the stan...

Gracious God, you are quick to show us your love. yet we soon forget. We live as if we have to earn your love, perform in order to receive your approval, and succeed in order to receive a smile. These...

I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, more loved and welcomed than I ever dared hope.

The law is harsh and cannot help us to receive forgiveness. In Craddock Stories, a collection of outstanding stories by Fred Craddock, is the following account with one who could understand law, but ...

O Lord, We marvel that you would take on flesh and blood in order to be crucified, killed, and buried for us. You humbled yourself and submitted to the hatred of sinful men, accepting the thorns, the ...

Lord Jesus, we approach Your throne with confidence, though we recognize the sin in our lives. Help us to hold on to the good and growing work You have begun in us. Continue to grow us into Your liken...

Every person enjoys dignity and suffers from depravity. The structure of personality is a result of the interaction of these two dynamics.

We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

I asked her what was so scary about unmerited free grace? She replied something like this: If I was saved by my good works -- then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through....

We sometimes find God’s forgiveness to be offensive: “It reveals us to be distressingly like everyone else!” (And we are so special.)

The piling on of grace upon grace is incredible. God had given us his Son. We killed him. In response God says, “I want to forgive you and offer another ‘family member,’ so to speak.” It was a case of...

Insecurity is a funny thing. It makes us into someone we’re not as a way to cope with someone we used to be. For me, it started at home. Growing up, my dad had been critical of my mother’s weight, and...

The more enlightened we are, the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.