When we despair of ourselves, we repent of these self-justifying schemes and allow ourselves to be shaped by God, covered in Christ’s righteousness, and reborn with a new heart.
This is the first in a series of articles entitled “Getting Over Yourself for Lent.” We’ll have a new article every week of this Lenten Season.
We can’t remove our crosses or the reality of our deaths. Only Jesus can.

All Articles

God isn’t interested in your sins. He isn’t interested in keeping score, making sure that you keep at least one more good work than bad in your ledger.
God isn’t interested in your sins. He isn’t interested in keeping score, making sure that you keep at least one more good work than bad in your ledger.
If even your family has disowned and discarded you; yes, if every single person in this world regards you as a hopeless, embarrassing failure at life, the Father of all mercies does not.
To whatever extent we follow God’s perfect commands we will benefit from following them.
We spend the first nine months of our lives in utter darkness. There are no tiny fluorescent bulbs beaming from the ceiling of the womb, no fetal flashlights, not even a pinprick of illumination.
Don’t get me wrong, I always read the comments on my own posts, but otherwise I try to avoid them like the plague.
We hang on to our sins not despite the fact that they hurt, but precisely because they do hurt. We need to hurt, to fret over them, to cry over them, to make amends over them, because by doing so, we will grease the wheels of God’s forgiveness.
Our faith is not a mountain but a grain of sand, not pure gold but gilded plaster. And all it takes is a few nicks and scratches to reveal its shallowness.
Grace is easier to tweet about than extend. When we are talking about my sin and the impact it has on others, I want grace.
What is really good for the soul is not so much confession as absolution. If confession is us telling the truth about ourselves to God, then absolution is God telling us a truer truth about ourselves.
When God is at work, oftentimes the best activity is non-activity, the best speech is non-speech. Sometimes God wants us to shut up.
As with so many things, regret can begin as something natural, even beneficial, as you struggle to recover from a wound in your past. But over time, regret can devolve from a sadness to a sickness.