christian living on Roots

Faith and good works are both necessary. But one is the root and the other the fruit.

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...

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 ...

A living faith is that which pours itself out in works.

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...

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...

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.

It’s remarkable that when the Father declares at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” Jesus hasn’t yet done much of anything that many would find impressive. He hasn’...

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.

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...

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...

Christianity is a rescue religion. It declares that God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ to rescue us from our sins. This is the main theme of the Bible. You are to give him the name Jesus, be...

The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God: it i...

The question of performance-free love transcends ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status. “Am I forever loved for who I am? Is the background elevator music to our hearts.

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 ...

Faith is nothing else than trust in the divine mercy promised in Christ…. This trust in the goodwill or mercy of God first calms our hearts and then inflames us to give thanks to God for his mercy so ...

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...

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...

In his book The Case for Grace , pastor and author Lee Strobel describes a dream he had as a child after having a significant argument with his father. Strobel does what most of us would do at that...

“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...

For ‘the Spirit breathes where He wills, and thou hearest His voice, but canst not tell whence He cometh or whither He goeth.’ He blesses the body that is baptized, and the water that baptizes. Despis...

If you’ve read or watched any of the biographies of Martin Luther, you will already know that he struggled at times with bouts of anxiety, self-loathing, and perhaps even depression. Shortly after his...

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...

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.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

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...

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...

At the beginning to the musical Les Misérables , the lead character Jean Valjean is arrested by the police, with silver he has stolen from a kindly bishop who had given him shelter. Valjean is plainl...

Baptism is like a wedding. It is a covenant act, a relationship-making agreement, in which commitments are made. A couple may love one another. But feelings can go up and down. That is why marriage is...

For us, Jesus instituted two ongoing signs to confirm our confidence in the gospel of his grace, the first of which is baptism. Though simpler and less obviously supernatural than the ten plagues on E...