How Can I Be Forgiven When I Sin Again and Again?
The Bible teaches that God loves to forgive our sins. All we have to do is to confess them and, where necessary, turn from them (Luke 15:18–22). The most common sins for those with genuine faith are sinful actions that are not premeditated. They involve moments of weakness. Other sins are more deeply rooted and, […]
I Must Remind Myself I Have Died
We tend to understand “Christ in me” better than we understand “me in Christ.” It’s easy for us to see Jesus as a spiritual part of us, rather than us to see ourselves as dead to sin and alive in him. Pastor Matt Wilson describes our predicament and how we can see our identity more […]
Sinners or Saints? Coming to Terms with What We Are
“Golden bars of sunlight come sneaking through the shutters laying stripes on my back like a zebra Sweaty fingers turning pages, and clinging to the bed like it’s a bride and I never want to leave her Paul calls me a ‘saint,’ and the mattress shakes with laughter and the sheets let out a chuckle […]
Confronting Bad Plot Summaries
Have you read any of the “bad plot summaries” that are going around the internet? For example, here’s a bad plot summary of the Lord of the Rings movies: “Group spends 9 hours returning jewelry.” Here’s one for Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back: “Talking frog convinces son to kill his dad.” Here’s a bad plot […]
God Renews Strength, Selves, and Sinners
God is a God who loves to renew things. Like what? Here are three. 1. God renews exhausted strength. You find yourself tired most of the time? Busier than is healthy? Under pressure and overextended? Guilty because of all the obligations you still haven’t gotten around to? And what’s even worse is that the way […]
The Sin of Greed: Money & the Protestant Reformation
How destructive is the sin of greed? Greed is an attitude that craves more and more and can never find enough. Colossians 3:5 equates greed with idolatry, so that should put to rest the debate whether Christians today can be tempted by idols. People are infinitely more important than things, yet, in the pursuit of […]
Why Is the World So Messed Up?
Why is the world so messed up? The world is broken because the first humans—and every human since—rebelled against their Maker. By seizing autonomy from God, we have upset the intended order of things and brought evil into the world and death upon ourselves. But in this broken world, we are given a great and […]
Sermon on the Mount: Mammon
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt. 6:24) I like Dave Ramsey’s program. I also get that the title “Financial Peace” is a lot catchier than […]
