christian living on Willpower

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, ...

Pastor: Father in Heaven, I have sinned times without number. I am guilty of pride and unbelief. I’ve failed to delight my heart in your Word and have neglected you in my daily life. All: My transgr...

All: Gracious God, you promise that your light drowns out darkness, yet the darkness is so persistent. We cannot see in front of us, so we look to our own knowledge and ways. Forgive us for turning to...

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.

A number of you may be aware of Jerry Bridges’ series of books on holiness, and the book that maybe put him on the map was Pursuit of Holiness . Jerry’s a friend, so he’s told me these stories, and I...

The greatest and most powerful Christian distinctive is not the exercise of power; it is the offer of grace.

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am...

The psychotherapist M. Scott Peck spent many years of his practice as an agnostic. He, along with thousands upon thousands of his colleagues were taught that evil was a social construct, and therefore...

Grace is not simply about pardoning sinful behavior; it’s also about rewiring the sinners themselves. The grace the Bible talks about is power not just for justification but also for transformation.

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...

Solitude... keeps us from making judgments about other people’s sins. In this way real forgiveness becomes possible. The following desert story offers a good illustration: A brother . . . committed...

One of the most powerful illustrations of grace and mercy in all of western literature has to be the great scene between Monseigneur Bienvenu and Jean Valjean in the stirring epic Les Miserables by Vi...

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.

Heavenly Father, forgive us for delving so much into our own lives that we forget the love and purpose with which you have created us. When we are faced with doubt and despair, help us to turn to you ...

God of power, love and wisdom: you’ve known us and loved us from before we even were, and extended your grace to us before we knew your name. You save us from ourselves – from our arrogance, rebell...

Never doubt in the dark what God showed you in the light

Jesus reassures us that every effort to love ourselves and others more faithfully, however imperfectly we are able to do this, is a response to God's call to love as he loved. It is a response to ...

Love keeps no record of wrongs. We keep to-do lists so we don’t forget We check them twice We carry them in our pockets Holding on to the pain The disappointment The failure Re-viewing the wrong Poi...

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 pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Lord God, we know that you are life, the life which is the light of the world But sometimes we allow the darkness to close in We find ourselves driven apart from you We confess that we do not ...

It is always crucial to remember that our beliefs are formed not only through reason and argument but also through social conditioning.

Darkness. If you’ve experienced it, you know what I’m talking about. Darkness sets in long before we’re old enough to recognize it. It begins with anguish. We’ve been hurt, sometimes tragically, and w...

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

Reality is what doesn’t go away when you stop believing in it.

Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Dallas Willard gave a series of lectures on the kingdom of God. In one, he discussed the popularity of the phrase, “The truth will set you free” by putting it in its proper kingdom context: The whole...

It’s important, then, to have our eyes open to this deception. How is it that so many modern promises sound true but in the end lead to our deception, or even our destruction? A long, long time ago, t...

We are forbidden to take sin more seriously than grace, or even as seriously as grace.