Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
How do the words “The righteous shall live by his faith” go from a context of hope in hopelessness to the cornerstone declaration of the chief doctrine of the Christian faith?

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Here’s what lurks beneath this seemingly righteous behavior: they wanted to make a name for themselves, these tower-builders.
Just how should we think about our good works in the Christian life of faith as we live that life before others... and before God?
Good people like fist-pounding on the pulpit about the bad things that bad people do in this bad world of ours. It makes them feel better about themselves.
On Sunday mornings, when I confess my sins, I say that “I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them.” But those adverbs are like two accusing fingers pointed at my less-than-heartily-sorry, less-than-sincerely-repentant heart.
His reaction was totally wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When I’d finished confessing, he didn’t start yelling. Out of his mouth came words like forgiveness, grace, Christ, clean slate. He was saying all the wrong things.
When I revisit in my mind the very long list of stupid, mean, selfish things I’ve done, every one of them began with me saying something I shouldn’t have.
Focus on control and you’ll end up with nothing but confusion and frustration and disappointment. It’s not about who’s in control in this life but whose you are in this life.
By the time we pulled off the side of the road, they had spilled out and surrounded our vehicle.
Sinner: I see. I see for the first time. It’s clear to me. You died for me and for my sin. You took my verdict. God: I did.
One day I walked about that place I had tried to make home. I realized it was a prison cell of my own devising.
“Let’s face it,” my mom once told me, while delivering a lecture on making the right moral decisions in high school, “sinning is fun.”
What I will tell you is that, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite what you think and feel and imagine, God is indeed in that dark place. You don’t know it, but he’s licking your wounds, too. And he’s keeping the deeper, blacker darkness at bay.