christian living on Hedonism

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

Self-acceptance gives assent to be who I am—a small, limited person with bents toward sin as well as hungers for holiness—and allows me to live with all my contradictions, because my will, at least on...

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.

I see my past drinking as a behavioral problem, a learned response to dealing (or not dealing) with emotional pain and stress. Once I achieved the excavation of my wounds, I no longer lived with the s...

A few years ago, a journalist named Joseph Blackman wrote an Op Ed on an interesting subject, “Why Clubs are Dark.” That is, why is it when you walk into a nightclub or a bar, the lights are off, or a...

The neighborhood bar is possible the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but...

Pastor: O God of grace, you have taken my sin and put it on Jesus’ head, and you’ve taken his righteousness and put it on mine. You’ve made me holy and blameless in your sight; therefore, you delight ...

The ancient Greek word for intimate fellowship is koinonia. In the church, we can suffer from what might be called koinonitus: fellowship turned in on itself; cliques and enclaves and tight-knit group...

Every crook will argue, “I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged.

Each of us, Lord, has failed to fully observe your beauty. We fall in love with our own image and are left disappointed and alone. Please be faithful to us, Jesus, even when we turn from You. We...

In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centered on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an in...

Dear Everybody, We have a serious problem: All of us think we’re good people. But Jesus says we’re not. Sincerely, Brant P. Hansen …PS. IF YOU THINK I’M WRONG—about how we think we’re good people...

Christianity at its core is not about subscription to a theological system or the authority of a sacred text or ethical perspectives, although they are all important. Christianity at its core is about...

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is th...

Pope John Paul I recounted a story about Jonathan Swift and his servant. One morning at an inn, Swift asked his servant why his boots hadn’t been cleaned. The servant replied, “I didn’t see the point,...

You will never make yourself feel that you are a sinner, because there is a mechanism in you as a result of sin that will always be defending you against every accusation. We are all on very good term...

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...

Good people don’t go to heaven, forgiven people do.

God invented forgiveness as the only way to keep his romance with the fallen human family alive.

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...

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and ackno...

God of our hearts, we come to You admitting that we are lost. In our lives of chaos, we have lost our peace. In our selfishness, we have lost our ability to care for others. In our self-reliance, we h...

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...

Earth is Forgiveness School. You might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants.

As for Christians, well, we really have just one thing going for us. We have publicly declared… that we are desperately in need of Another to give us his righteousness, to complete us, to live in us. ...

Our inclination is to reveal to God only what we feel comfortable in sharing. Naturally, we want to love and be loved by God, but we also want to keep a little corner of ourselves, where we can hide a...

We are a people that prefer the darkness. The darkness hides that which we wish others dare not see and that which we loathe about ourselves, our twisted thoughts, perverted practices, and foolish fol...

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 not a good person” is a shockingly countercultural thing to say. We all want to think we’re “clean” and that we’ve avoided whatever “big sins” are on our own personal lists. But we trust ourselve...