christian living on Condemnation

Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.

Hear the good news! Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ, and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us. (Romans 8:34, Phillips) Leader: Friend...

I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray; no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession ...

God buries our sins in the depths of the sea and then puts up a sign that reads, "no fishing."

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 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 ...

Pastor: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (Jn 3:17) All: His love endures forever Pastor: "...

Pastor: O Lord, we are in over our heads. So many are the sins that we’ve committed this past week, and they condemn us in your presence. Only because you love us with a never-ending, unbreaking, alwa...

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. He protects all of their bones. Not one of them is broken. Evil shall kill the wicked. Those who hate the righteo...

Know this, the Lord is slow to condemn and swift to forgive and so we can claim the words of the psalmist who declares, “Therefore my heart greatly rejoices. The Lord is their strength. He is a strong...

When God “credits righteousness", He is conferring a legal status on someone. He treats them as actually righteous and free from condemnation, even though they are still actually unrighteous in t...

To have Abraham-like faith brings blessing (v 9). The result of living by the law is that we are “under a curse” (v 10). This “curse” has two aspects. Theologically, anyone who says-. I can be saved b...

The Puritans in American Literature “Welcome to Honors American Literature!” You probably haven’t heard that line since high school, right? After his first couple of weeks of school, my boy came home...

Out of the depths of darkness and despair we have cried out for your mercy, O God. Instead of marking our iniquities with the just weight of our condemnation, you have forgiven us, breathed new life i...

So long then as the word of truth is on our side, never be in any wise distressed at the calumny of a lie; let no imperial threats scare you; do not be grieved at the laughter and mockery of your inti...

If you read through G.K. Chesterton’s writings, it will not be long before you recognize the recurring theme of joy. Joy, Chesterton believed, ought to be a central experience of the one who realizes ...

In her excellent book, Liturgy of the Ordinary , author Tish Harrison Warren deals with an issue on many people's minds: why is it that so many people, especially younger generations, don't...

Confession reminds us that none of us gather for worship because we are “pretty good people.” But we are new people, people marked by grace in spite of ourselves because of the work of Christ. Our com...

The book of Proverbs is, in ways, a treatise on talk. I would summarize it this way: words give life; words bring death—you choose. What does this mean? It means you have never spoken a neutral word i...

Let me first tell you what I mean by the word “blessing.” In Latin, to bless is benedicere. The word “benediction” that is used in many churches means literally: speaking (dictio) well (bene) or sayin...

Its [Romans] message is not that ‘man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains’, as Rousseau put it at the beginning of The Social Contract (1762); it is rather that human beings are born in sin ...

Confession is verbal humiliation.

Sanctification is a community project.

Sanctification costs to the extent of "an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth and an immense broadening of all our interests in God.

Sanctification means more than being freed from sin. It means the deliberate commitment of myself to the God of my salvation, and being willing to pay whatever it may cost.

[The fall is the] vandalism of shalom.

Roman citizens were exempt from crucifixion, except in extreme cases of treason. Cicero in one of his speeches condemned it as crudelissimum taeterrimumque supplicium, ‘a most cruel and disgusting pun...

Rebellion against divine election is often founded on the idea that the sinner has a sort of right to be saved, and this is to deny the full desert of sin.

Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.

Locked into captivity by an airplane seat, a kindly disposition of keeping a friend company, or a telephone connection, we become ex officio confessors to those with troubled consciences and traces, o...