romans on Works-Righteousness

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, ef...

The work of salvation is God’s work from beginning to end. He loved us when we were dead, and made us alive in Christ.

But we must add at once that the pious will not cease from good works simply because it is impossible to gain any merit by them. Rather, the greater our faith, the more and greater our works…. For sin...

Ancient lens What's the historical context? Ancient Boundaries The world of Jesus and of the early church saw a Jewish people that had well-established boundary practices. These were behavior...

Lent 2024: Do This in Remembrance Remembrance and Gratitude AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Ancient Boundaries The world of Jesus and of the early church sa...

​O my all-merciful God and Lord, Jesus Christ, full of pity: Through Your great love You came down and became incarnate in order to save everyone. O Savior, I ask You to save me by Your grace! If You ...

To have Abraham-like faith brings blessing (v 9). The result of living by the law is that we are “under a curse” (v 10). This “curse” has two aspects. Theologically, anyone who says-. I can be saved b...

The faith by which we are justified is faith. Faith is like a channel through which the benefits of Christ flow to us. We are not justified on account of faith; we are justified through faith. It is t...

Pastor: Heavenly Father, save me from sin! I know I am righteous only through Jesus’ righteousness, but I greatly desire to be more like him! I am your child, so help me to resist the temptation to si...

At the heart of the Protestant faith is the conviction that there is nothing we contribute to our salvation but our sin, no merit we bring but Christ's, and nothing necessary for justification exc...

It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. T...

Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God l...

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

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 ...

What are you doing right now that requires faith?

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts...

Kevin Vanhoozer draws on 1 Corinthians 4 to argue powerfully for reading and teaching the Bible as drama. As Paul talks about his apostolic ministry, he says this: “For, I think, God has exhibite...

As Christians, we do not need to justify who we are; Jesus took care of that. We are loved and forgiven. When I’m tempted to advertise my accomplishments, qualifications, or résumés when talking with ...

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

The Incarnation through the death of Christ makes it possible for God to be "just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus." If God should be merciful without the satisfaction of jus...

But we must remember there is only way that we can participate in Christ’s victory over the demonic Powers. We can only do it by doing it his way. If we try to do it our way we will be back into the r...

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What . Miller took this point to an even further extreme. In his book, he tells a story about one occasion when he was speaking to a class at...

You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, “Take up your Cross”—in other words, it is like going to be beaten ...

John Wesley’s covenant prayer demonstrates a level of sacrifice and devotion to Jesus that has been rarely matched. How many of us have asked for suffering, in order to experience the humility and the...

[For Christians] the entire religion shop has been closed, boarded up, and forgotten. The church is not in the religion business. It never has been and it never will be, in spite of all the ecclesiast...

To accept this [Jesus' self-humiliation in washing the disciples' feet] is to be converted. And nothing can be added to this. If you imagine that you can add something to what is given in the ...

Amazing grace How sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, But now am found. Was blind, but now I see. Lord of all, you have called us toward a new way of life. Give...

God’s grace is not defined by our ability to be good. God’s grace is defined by God’s desire to be with us.

Shepherd Book: “River, you don’t . . . fix the Bible. River: It’s broken. It doesn’t make sense. Shepherd Book: It’s not about . . . making sense. It’s about believing in something. And letting that b...