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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Solomon did not write Ecclesiastes to bum you out. He wrote it to set you free.
Maybe for the first time you can begin to receive creation as a gift, a sheer gift from God’s hands. And who knows what might happen in the power of this grace? All possibilities are open.
This is an excerpt from “Crucifying Religion” written by Donavon Riley (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Christians have the rare faculty, above all other people on earth, of knowing where to place their care, while others vex and torture themselves and at length must despair.
From the junkyard of my past, I assembled the scrap metal of self-preservation, self-righteousness, and unalloyed selfishness, to weld together a hollow divinity. In its core, I stuffed myself: a god without divinity, offering forgiveness with conditions, to sinners without love.
Little do we know the ancient and everlasting healing powers of God’s beloved tender shoot.
Character development? Change? Saying that it’s behind you? Yeah right. You’re just saying that because you want your nice polished image back. You haven’t changed. We know. We’ve got the receipts.
We forget that Christians need the Gospel. Not as a side note, but as the front-page headline.
God doesn’t give us second chances. No one earns another shot at forgiveness. We cannot earn forgiveness, it’s too costly.
What does it take to be a Christian? Christ.
This is an excerpt from the book, “Paul and the Resurrection” written by Joshua Pagán (1517 Publishing, 2020).
We’ve become experts at making deals with God.