christian living on Pride

Heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace to confess our sin. We have been selfish instead of generous; we have been proud instead of humble; we have held grudges instead of forgiving; we h...

Christmas is about receiving presents, but consider how challenging it is to receive certain kinds of gifts. Some gifts by their very nature make you swallow your pride. Imagine opening a present on C...

Self-righteousness is a sense of moral superiority that appoints us as prosecutor of other people’s sinfulness. We relate to others as if we are incapable of the sins they commit. Self-righteousness w...

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 ...

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...

Gracious Father, too often we base our worth on our performance. We believe if we do well, your love grows, and if we falter, your love lessens. Our God, how far this is from the truth. We confess our...

Pastor: Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! People: Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, Pastor: who forgives all your iniquity, who h...

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, ef...

Dear God, we confess that we have sinned and need Your forgiveness. We want to do things on our own, without You. We have been distracted from Your Word and behave as if Your instructions were vague. ...

Your grace, O God, has appeared for the salvation of all, calling us to renounce false gods and irresponsible love. In the midst of our sin, Christ has appeared as a sign of our hope, redeeming us and...

We gather today and recognize our need for You. We admit that it is easy to lose sight of Your goodness and purpose when faced with emotional, physical, and spiritual storms. Forgive us for the times ...

Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God l...

O God, who is rich in mercy, We come before you humbled and in need of your grace. Many of us have been in the church for so long that we have forgotten how each day your mercies are new, your grace ...

Creator Spirit, by whose aid The world's foundations first were laid, Come, visit every pious mind; Come, pour thy joys on humankind; From sin and sorrow set us free, And make thy temples worthy t...

One saint used to say that she was the type of woman who advances more rapidly when she is drawn by love than when driven by fear. She was perceptive enough to know that we are all that type of person...

The Lord our God is rich in mercy, slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love. He does not pay us back what we deserve, but even while we were his enemies he sent his son to die for us. Christ died ...

A friend of mine who is an entrepreneur was listening to a CD of a series of messages I had given on the Beatitudes. When he came to meekness, he told me, he skipped over it. He wasn’t interested in b...

“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...

Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.

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...

Faith cannot but pour forth from all creatures in most eager service to God as a dutiful son serves a godly father. The efficacy of faith is such that from its fruits it is very evident in whose heart...

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...

My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

Grace is God loving, God stooping, God coming to the rescue, God giving himself generously in and through Jesus Christ.

The generosity and the magnanimity of God are so great that he accepts nothing from us without rewarding it beyond all computation. . . The vast disproportion existing between our work and God’s rewar...

At the heart of the Protestant faith is the conviction that there is nothing we contribute to our salvation but our sin, no merit we bring but Christ's, and nothing necessary for justification exc...

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.

For although faith alone justifies, love is also demanded…. A living faith is that efficacious, burning trust in the mercy of God which never fails to bring forth good fruits.

Almighty and everlasting God, who hates nothing that you have made, and forgives the sins of all those who are penitent; create and make in us new and remorseful hearts, that we, worthily lamenting ou...