“The sins we do not forget, God does not remember.”
All in Identity
One question I hear a lot is whether “sinner” is an appropriate term to describe a Christian? After all, didn’t Paul refer to Christians as saints? Once God saves us, aren’t we new creatures? The old (sinner) is gone, and the new (saint) has come?” These are important questions…
My friend Jacob Smith once suggested that all human beings are three bad days in a row from becoming a tabloid headline, and most of us are already on day two. At a time when our worst private moments, most shameful secrets, and deepest character flaws can be easily found out and publicly exposed for the whole world…
In my devotional, It is Finished: 365 Days of Good News, we share this amazing testimony from my friend Mike Adams. Mike is a former pastor and co-host/producer of The Grace Cafe Podcast with his wife, Susan. I had made theology my pursuit, my goal, my aim, my identity. And I was pretty good at it too…
My wife and I see a lot of movies. But our favorite movie of the last year or so is—without question—The Darkest Hour, featuring the Academy Award-winning performance of Gary Oldman playing Winston Churchill. There are so many things about this film that my wife and I love, but there is one scene in particular…
This past Sunday I had the privilege of preaching at the New Mount Olive Baptist Church in my hometown of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Mount Olive is a large, historic African American church which has been faithfully serving the greater Fort Lauderdale area since its founding in 1918. It was the first time I had spoken in…
My historical hero Martin Luther once said that “To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.” It’s the hardest thing because we are strings attached people living in a strings attached world with other strings attached people. Everything is conditional…
In 1738, literary giant Samuel Johnson wrote in his diary: “O Lord, enable me … to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth.” Nineteen years later, he wrote, “Almighty God, enable me to shake off sloth, and to redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin, by a diligent application of the days yet remaining.” Every few years…
Christmas is supposed to be “…the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” But for many of us, it’s the most painful. It’s that time of year when budgets break; when you’re reminded of how dysfunctional your family is; when you miss the people you love who have either died or left you. Maybe you’re still single, and Christmas is a…
We all suffer. Pain is unavoidable. It’s not a question of “if” but “when.” It can take the form of a sudden catastrophe, such as the news of a brain tumor or an affair or the death of a child. Or it can be something more ordinary like a strained relationship that never seems to get easier, dragging on in a kind of dull ache…
Believe it or not, when people ask me which book of the Bible they should read first, I often answer, “Ecclesiastes.” It is unlike any other. Smack dab in the middle of the Old Testament sits a bombshell of diagnostic brilliance, capable of cutting through our avoidances and suppressions, and returning us to reality…
The primary purpose of the Law is to show us our sin and God’s hatred of it. The Law exposes our failure, and it diagnoses our disease. It reveals God’s perfect will and our inability to keep it. The Law is good, but it is ruthless. It demands everything but gives nothing. The Law cannot produce in us what…
Last weekend I had the privilege of spending a few days in Salt Lake City at the kind and gracious invitation of South Mountain Community Church. To celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, they asked me to come out and talk about grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone in light of…
Many of you already know this (though some of you may not), but I used to be a pastor. Some would even say a successful pastor. I was leading a large church that serves a college-prep school and a seminary, writing a book a year, traveling extensively all over the country to speak at conferences…
