thought exercise on Power of Sin

Nearly everybody knows of at least one sin habit in their life that they wish to leave behind them. Yet, no matter what they do, it seems impossible for them to be free of this habit, character flaw, ...

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

I’m a huge advocate of catechisms, for example, having used this approach with my kids. I even wrote one. The strength of a catechism isn’t in memorizing the questions and answers of the catechism; th...

In this wonderful interaction with a neighbor-turned-friend, the widow Miss Maudie Atikinson, Scout Finch tries to understand why some Baptists, called “foot washers” in the book, seem to shun most of...

As we try to live a life in obedience to God, the stubbornness of our sins can discourage and frighten us. If we are supposed to have a new heart, why are we still so broken? C.S. Lewis struggled with...

Some skeptics today speak about “evolving” from a primitive condition, but the Bible (Romans 1:18-32) sadly portrays a  descent  rather than an ascent. The result has been given the theological term “...

The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...

Whenever there is a separation between values and practice, things break down. In ancient China, the people desired security from the barbaric, invading hordes to the north. To get this protection, th...

In the vast, frozen wilderness of the Arctic, an Inuit hunter used a clever technique to trap a wolf. He took a sharp knife and carefully coated its blade with layers of animal blood, letting each lay...

A climber recently had to be airlifted off Japan’s Mount Fuji due to altitude sickness. That alone would have been a dramatic enough story. But four days later—still recovering—he climbed back up ...

An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...

In Four Quartets , T. S. Eliot writes that “any action is a step to the block.” He means that our actions always draw us closer to death, and in that sense every action we take is a wager of our ...

All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. T...

Because the gospel of Jesus is not an ideology or a philosophy or a methodology or a therapy but a supernatural in-breaking of God into our lives, I am concerned at how many Christians do not bring it...

Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity. We need now to consider the ‘inwardness’ of sin. It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a dee...

One of the great ironies of sin is that when human beings try to become more than human beings, to be as gods, they fall to become lower than human beings. To be your own God and live for your own glo...

Please know that when I take up my cross every day I am not talking about my wheelchair. My wheelchair is not my cross to bear. Neither is your cane or walker your cross. Neither is your dead-end job ...

For years Kyle and I [Jamin Goggin] had no trouble looking critically upon others in their quest for power. We bemoaned the rock-star pastors who were in the spotlight, whose churches appeared to be m...

Months of struggle, of strategy, of sacrifice all paid off in a landslide victory for President Richard Nixon in 1972. On election night his aide Charles Colson was in the place he had always wanted t...

Faith and pessimism are incompatible. To be sure, we are not starry-eyed idealists; we are down to earth realists. We know well that sin is ingrained in human nature and in human society. We are not e...

And here’s a further complication: the church is not an entity outside of me. I do not stand on the outside looking in. I am as much part of the church as (in the words of Paul) a hand is a part of a ...

If power is the ability to get things done, to change circumstances and people, then this takes us to the heart of the Christian understanding of power: it is the power of self-sacrificial love and se...

“If your eye causes you to sin…” is one of the boldest phrases from the mouth of Jesus, appearing three times in the gospels. Our eyes not only leads us into sinful behaviors, but also to take in sinf...

One of the movements in the rhythm of discipleship and sanctification is the movement of dying. The practice of confession is where the “dying” of conversion repeatedly occurs. We come as though to th...

In The Seven Storey Mountain , Thomas Merton describes his life of sin and his eventual turning to God in his early years. He despised and ridiculed the word virtue, which had come to mean “prudery p...

Reading Aquinas, I found the vices to have revealing and illuminating power. By contrast, many voices in contemporary culture, unfortunately, dismiss, redefine, psychologize, or trivialize them. Some...

For several years, Jason and I nurtured a friendship that led us to decide to work together because we knew each other so well. But things soon became complicated between us. I began to notice some tr...

Thus the incomparable George Herbert writes of our glorification in his poem “The Star”:  Bright spark, shot from a brighter place,  Where beams surround my Saviour’s face,  Canst thou be any where ...

If the Cross of Christ is anything to the mind, it is surely everything – the most profound reality and the sublimest mystery. One comes to realize that literally all the wealth and glory of the gospe...

Relational needs are not a by – product of the fall. Likewise, the need for rest, or Sabbath, is not an aftertaste of human sinfulness, unlike our chronic inability to receive rest. In fact, as we sha...