goodness on Rebellion

Almighty God, you created us good, but by our sin, we have corrupted that goodness. Through our sinful nature, our default way of life is rejection of you, living for self, and doing what’s easiest. W...

Consider using the prayer of adoration by itself or as a prelude to the prayer of confession. Prayer of Adoration Lord of yesterday, today, and tomorrow: You alone rule the universe; setting time...

Pastor: “Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the la...

A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation over things evil.

Badness is only spoiled goodness.

Heavenly Father We confess before you and before one another that we do not always trust your goodness. We are worried about losing control of our lives, and we are scared of what taking up our cros...

Every one of the great revolutionists, from Isaiah to Shelley, have been optimists. They have been indignant, not about the badness of existence, but about the slowness of men in realizing its goodnes...

Gracious Father, the words of scripture are not without harshness in relation to our sin. We are prone to lead others astray in our words and actions. Knowingly or unknowingly done, we are condemned. ...

Lord, you have in fact searched us and known us. You know when we rest and when we rise, when we go out and come home. You know our inmost thoughts. And yet even so Lord, even so we turn our backs to ...

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

“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...

The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain. Such an error conceives of the good-evil dichotomy ...

God of the Ages Our Deliverer and Provider We bow in humility before your grace You feed us with the divine Your word Your body You quench our thirst with living water A stream in the desert You gu...

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away . Rather than offering mercy, we c...

Confession is not telling God what he doesn’t know. Impossible. Confession is not complaining. If I merely recite my problems and rehash my woes, I’m whining. Confession is not blaming. Pointing finge...

Almighty and merciful God, the fountain of all goodness, who knows the thoughts of our hearts: We confess that we have sinned against you. Wash us, we implore you, from the stains of our past sins...

[The chief aim of Christianity] was to give room for good things to run wild.

Forgiving God, too often we hear your call, think it over, and turn away.  We can be like Jonah, believing we know better the ways you should bless others. We run from Nineveh, preferring to keep en...

Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in u...

But let me point out something we almost always fail to notice. We can only be tempted to something that is good on some level, partially good, or good for some, or just good for us and not for others...

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

Holy God, to Your grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let Thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I l...

Pastor: Satan and the powers of darkness seek to divide and destroy. And all too often God’s people either run from the battle in fear and defeat, or pick up the wrong weapons in the fight, relying ...

Father, we speak the truth about who we are apart from you. Paul summarizes our condition in Romans 3 using the truth found in the sacred writings of the Psalter and Prophets, There is no one righteo...

For most of us it takes a long time for the Spirit of freedom to cleanse us of the subtle urges to be admired for our studied goodness. It requires a strong sense of our redeemed selves to pass up the...

Heavenly Father, let it not be said that we are disunified as a people. We are unified by our grumbling. We grumble against you for what you have done or left undone, according to our misplaced commun...

The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

Nothing shows up my badness like a concerted effort at goodness.

In his classic fictional work on spiritual warfare, The Screwtape Letters , C. S. Lewis imagined a senior demon (Screwtape) corresponding with one of his protégés (his nephew Wormwood) as the latte...