Alligood is at pains to stress that glorification is not the result of our own efforts any more than sanctification or justification.
Forgiveness from Jesus is always surprising to us.
The Christ who rescues does not wait for you to be clean. He comes to clean you. He does not need your strength. He brings his own.

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Preaching is the first line of defense and catechetical offensive against these corrosive falsehoods.
Except for the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon’s Loci communes of 1521 were the most important of his writings.
The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
Rachel was the beloved wife, to be sure, but she was not the maternal link between Eve and Mary. That blessed position belonged to Leah.
The “Lamenter” does not ask to carry out the vengeance/action himself, rather He trusts the LORD God to take care of business.
When sin comes out of the shadows and makes itself known, Christians can rest in and declare Christ's resurrection.
But the biggest problem with the Pharisee’s prayer is that he judges himself compared to other people, rather than to God. Our natural tendency is to do just this.
We have a Servant who stands in/is a substitute for Israel. This is the One who will atone for the sin of Israel—even the sin of the whole world.
The grass withered for them too, but they held on to God’s Word. They knew that was eternal, so they lived in it. They lived in his forgiveness.
A seed grows the kingdom of God. A whisper eventually turns the world upside down. A carpenter’s son from nowhere becomes the Savior of everyone. Such is God’s way.
We do not live in the greatness of our own deeds. We boast in the greatness of one deed that God himself has done through Jesus Christ on the cross.
Let us move beyond the milk and onto solid food — the meat of biblical, creedal, confessional theology in our preaching.