christian living on Salvation

This is salvation in the deeper and more spiritual sense of the Old Testament. . . . But even in the religion of the Law, . . . obedience to the revealed will of Yahweh is recognized as the supreme en...

Sin is looking to something else besides God for your salvation. It is putting yourself in the place of God, becoming your own savior and lord, as it were.

​Christ, be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ where I lie, Christ when I sit, Christ where I ...

In his insightful book, Delighting in the Trinity , Michael Reeves shares an interesting point of connection between the Protestant understanding of sola grati discovered by Francis Xavier during...

In His free grace, God is for man in every respect; He surrounds man from all sides. He is man's Lord who is before him, above him, after him, and thence also with him in history, the locus of man...

There were two important steps to a Jewish marriage: the betrothal (the promised agreement to marry) and the actual wedding ceremony. These two events were often separated by an extended period of tim...

A book can teach you, a conversation can assure you, a poem can seduce you, a genius can inspire you, but only you can save yourself.

Max Lucado likens the coming of the Spirit to a dramatic rescue. Recall the twelve boys trapped in the Tham Luang cave in Thailand in 2018 for eighteen days? Imagine how they felt when the first rescu...

Jesus is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is He the best of several ways; He is the only way.

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...

We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.

Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on us this day. Spirit of God present and powerful, Spirit of God fruitful and faithful, Spirit of God filling and fulfilling us as children of the Father and foll...

Lord—There’s nothing You call us to do that you don’t equip us to do. You ask us to release those we care about to You–then You furnish the faith to give them to You who have the love and power to mak...

That which distinguishes Christianity has not been stolen. For what makes Christianity absolutely distinct is the identity of our God. Which God we worship: that is the article of faith that stands be...

When God’s grace changes our status from rebel to redeemed, we are empowered by his Spirit to obey him. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2) into his likeness (2 Cor. 3:18). Joy...

Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...

In his seminal work, The Cross of Christ , British pastor and author John Stott describes the unique, upside-down kingdom instituted on the cross: ‘Irresistible’ is the very word an Iranian stude...

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...

Gracious and faithful God – our Creator, Redeemer and Comforter: When we don’t know the way – You show us the way; and When we can’t find a way – You make a way. Thank you! Thank you for Your gif...

Hannah was one of my wife’s work colleagues. She used to love spending time with our congregation, but she found the gospel message just plain weird. We did some Bible studies with her over the summer...

Hear the good news: For the joy set before him, Jesus Christ endured the shame of the cross, taking all our weakness and failure. Jesus went to the cross for the joy of having you as part of God’s Kin...

Gracious and Merciful God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: When we wouldn’t love—You did. When we couldn’t do right—you could. When we wouldn’t give—You gave and gave all of yourself. So we come to You w...

In Christianity faith in the Mediator is not something optional, not something about which, in the last resort, it is possible to hold different opinions, if we are only united on the ‘main point’. Fo...

Compassionate God—In Christ, you enter our condition; you experience our sorrow and our joy ... and redeem them. By Your Holy Spirit, you carry us along: in crisis and celebration, in despair and acco...

Now faith is not just a cognitive affair: its being “sealed upon our hearts” is a matter of will and affect; it is a repair of the madness of the will that is at the heart of sin. Still, it is at leas...

To some God and Jesus may appeal in a way other than to us: some may come to faith in God and to love, without a conscious attachment to Jesus. Both Nature and good men besides Jesus may lead us to Go...

Lord, may your glorious Majesty surround us, the blessed Trinity protect us, and the eternal Godhead preserves us. Your unlimited mercy support us; your loving kindness encompass us; your favor c...

“He stands by you:” A drowning man cannot pull himself out of the water by his own hair. Neither can you do it. Someone else must rescue you. This is the good news of Christmas. He who stands by you a...

O God, your mercy is infinite and in your will is our peace. We learn your way so slowly; we choose your will so reluctantly. In this season of learning the limit­lessness of your love, help us throug...

Believe the incredible truth that the Beloved has chosen for his dwelling place the core of your own being because that is the single most beautiful place in all of creation.