christian living on Sin

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...

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 ...

The Lord is our Shepherd. He is aware of our wanton hearts. He has rooted out our sin and reversed its dire consequences upon His cross. The tree of life has become the cross of Christ. Although we ha...

We fixate on sins of commission far too much. We practice holiness by subtraction-don't do this, don't do that, and you're okay. The problem with that is this: you can do nothing wrong and...

Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed m...

Written almost a hundred years ago, this excerpt from the Reverend John W. Rilling points out one of the main reasons we continue to observe Lent, a period of repentance and discipline for many who ca...

Jesus, our Great Physician, our sins have brought wounds on ourselves and others. Heal our hearts first, that we would no longer desire the sins that have only brought us and others pain. Go on to hea...

We affirm the good news that this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He personally bore our sins in His body on the cross, s...

The hole in our holiness is that we don’t really care much about it. Passionate exhortation to pursue gospel-driven holiness is barely heard in most of our churches. It’s not that we don’t talk about ...

Pastor: Peter challenges Christians to live differently than the world around them with these instructions:   Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority, People: for...

Christ is the Good Physician. There is no disease He cannot heal; no sin He cannot remove; no trouble He cannot help. He is the Balm of Gilead, the Great Physician who has never yet failed to heal all...

Meister Eckhart, the late 13th century German Christian theologian and mystic, reminds us that "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,"thank you," that would suffice."...

This prayer could be voiced with one voice, all voices, or as a call and response with all voices responding on the bold print.  Jesus, You are our Refuge and Rock The Strong Foundation The Corner...

Why is it that countless American school-children memorize the Gettysburg Address each year? Is it a simple civics lesson? An opportunity to learn about the Civil War, a turning point in American hist...

Gracious God, You have called us out of darkness and into the light of Your love. You have redeemed us and made us whole in order to set us free from bondage. The challenge You place before us is to d...

O God, you are the sure foundation and the certain cornerstone. Building on you brings life, yet we often turn away and try to find hope by building on other foundations. Self-esteem, money, career, f...

Leader: As Jesus healed the afflicted and restored those who have died, he also forgives our sins and gives us new life. Friends, believe the good news of the gospel. People: In Jesus Christ we are f...

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p...

Myths about Faith and Work Faith is to be lived out 24-7-52. For many Christians this involves living out our faith at work. But several myths about faith and work can prevent us from being effecti...

Even if people reject the gospel, we still must love them. A good example of this was reported by Ralph Neighbour, pastor of Houston’s West Memorial Baptist Church (in Death And The Caring Community ...

An Unhurried Practice: Reading Scripture Slowly One of the disciplines that has been an important part of my spiritual journey over the years is reading and reflecting on Scripture.  In recent years,...

A couple years ago I got to take a tour of the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. The name is a bit misleading because what they are most known for are there amazing gardens. And so we were o...

When the Hebrews, recently enslaved but now free, were gathered at Sinai to begin their formation as a free people, God spoke the words that defined them over against their four centuries of slavery i...

Forgiving the unforgivable is hard. So was the cross: hard words, hard wood, hard nails.

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation...

What self denial! What self abasement! What self emptying! He, whom no infinitudes can hold, is contained within infant’s age, and infant’s form. Can it be, that the great ‘I AM THAT I AM’ shrinks int...

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 ...

The Jews looked upon a serpent to be freed from serpents; and we look upon the death of Christ to be delivered from death.

Heavenly Father, we confess that we have too often forgotten that we are Yours. At times, we live our lives as if there was no God and we fall short of being who You created us to be. We have lived fo...