christians on Original Sin

Context The Roman World Sin was a very real thing in Paul’s world. The city of Rome, the home of this church to which Paul was writing, had circuses, amphitheaters, theaters, baths, and more. And to...

Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo...

In this beautiful poem by the English Divine John Donne, our nature as both redeemed and still sinful is eloquently described: We think that Paradise and Calvary, Christ’s Cross and Adam’s Tree, ...

As for Christians, well, we really have just one thing going for us. We have publicly declared… that we are desperately in need of Another to give us his righteousness, to complete us, to live in us. ...

Preaching Commentary One of the things I’ve (Stu) noticed when talking about spiritual growth with Christians of all backgrounds, is a consistent desire to “do better,” to “keep fighting the good fi...

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? . . . The point is that he felt huma...

The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insi...

It was this…intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you ...

All great Christians have been wounded souls.

Beloved, Let us love one another; for love is of God And everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this God’s lov...

To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins— is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?

In a class that I was in once, I saw a man with his well-worn, heavily marked Bible open before him, playing a game of “trap the teacher.” He should have known better than to try to trap this particul...

Thus a Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after. For we must keep at it without ceasing, always purging whatever pertains to the old Adam, so that what...

The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.

The Church is not a clean, well-lit place where everything runs smoothly and actions automatically match ideals. It is, in the words of the Gospel, a field of chaff and wheat growing up together and b...

The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a one whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him.

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.

I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?...The point is that he felt human de...

We cannot be true Christians without being original. Nothing gives us personality like prayer. Nothing makes man so original. To be creative, we must live with the Creator. Prayer places man in direct...

Leader: In Jesus Christ God has removed our sins from us and given us a new name. People: Now we are called Forgiven. Leader: In Jesus Christ God has assured us that he could never forget us. Peopl...

“Dear friends, Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God…. This is love: Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his So...

Whether we like it or not, the moment we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that is, from the time we become a Christian, we are at the same time a member of the Christian church … Our membe...

Context This passage comes right at the end of the Gospel of John (save for just a few concluding verses excluded from the lectionary pericope). John 21 reads as a rather strange epilogue to this go...

Context This passage comes right at the end of the Gospel of John (save for just a few concluding verses). John 21 reads as a rather strange epilogue to this gospel, especially after chapter 20 has ...

In this short excerpt from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, the fictional demon Wormwood instructs his apprentice Screwtape to build on the doubts that often occur once the initial spiritual and emo...

In view of all that God has accomplished for his people in Christ, how should his people live? They should present themselves to God as a ‘living sacrifice’, consecrated to him. The animal sacrifices ...

As a newborn baby breathes and cries, so the signs of life in a newborn Christian are faith and repentance, inhaling the love of God and exhaling an initial cry of distress. And at that point what God...

The farmers in the old prairie days used to prepare for a winter storm by putting up a rope between the house and the barn. They did this because they knew that in a swirling blizzard, even a brief di...

People had only to look at Jesus to see what God is like. People today should only have to look at us to see what Jesus is like.