We all desperately need God’s only Son to take our place, to cleanse us by His blood, to wipe away our evil deeds.

God in Jesus takes off your shirt of shame, your bitterness, your anger, your guilt, your hopelessness, and drapes these rags on himself.

I recently began seeing a chiropractor for what turned out to be a compressed disc. He took routine x-rays to facilitate his diagnosis, and on the day he was to go over the results with me, I was placed in a conference room to wait for our consultation.

Inside our heads is a courtroom where our whole lives are put on trial. And we are declared guilty of things. Big things, little things. God things, human things. True things, false things. We never can measure up.

Hear that confession of saving faith? Rahab may have been a prostitute in Jericho, but she was secretly a virgin daughter of Yahweh.

He holds you tight and loves you even as you weep and fight in his arms. His Son suffers alongside you as your brother in the flesh.

What we see in the face of this God is not a loathing expression. We find the face of a compassionate man who knew all about shame himself.

Years ago a young woman approached her pastor with a request. It wasn’t a strange request. She simply asked if he would perform her wedding ceremony.

When you see a cross, you see the smile of your Father. He’s not mad at you. He’s overjoyed that you’re his daughter.

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.

Rather than praying a lie by pretending all is well, this psalm places upon our lips a truthful plea. A godly complaint. These are God’s words, given as gifts to you, by which you can speak back to him.

Job’s friend Zophar had it up to here! He was done hearing Job defend himself in the midst of his suffering. Surely, Job must have done SOMETHING to bring all this calamity upon himself.