Pardon for the Penitent
God is rich in mercy to all, but shows the magnificence of his grace in bestowing favor to the penitent who deserve nothing but his unmitigated justice.
Forgiveness
The Price of Forgiveness
The perfect and infinitely valuable life of Son of God fully paid the just demands of the Father’s holiness by incurring all the painful punishments our sins deserve.
Christ’s Unfaithful Friends
Peter’s denials certainly remind us that our best intentions to follow Christ will be punctuated by stumbling, but they should also motivate us to quickly get up, confident that God uses imperfect servants to do great things.
Pain and Temptation
The triune God demonstrated love for us in the most costly transaction imaginable; in response we ought to eternally thank him and sacrificially obey all that he commands.
God’s New Covenant
Christ’s institution of the Lord’s supper in the presence of Judas should lead us to a vigilant introspection as we regularly and actively remember Christ’s death and coming kingdom.
The Picture in the Passover
The biblical Passover celebration provides us a helpful picture of the eternal redemption that has been provided for us by the eternal and divine Lamb of God.
The Impact of Repentance
Dig into the key verse for Book of Luke. We should rejoice in our salvation and pursue our sanctification knowing that when God works repentance in our lives his forgiving grace entirely covers our sins and permanently redirects our lives.
Loving God’s Undeserved Mercy
We must identify and thank God for his many acts of mercy toward us, remembering that these are small foretastes of the ultimate mercy of the eradication of our debt of sin by his cross.
Loving God's Flawed People
We must remember that our friends’ sanctification is flawed, just like our own, and so we must continue to graciously forgive them when they sin and be wholeheartedly restored to them when they repent.
Astonished at God's Amazing Grace
Christians should regularly examine and contemplate the amazing grace of God that provides our salvation so that we might rightly worship and sincerely thank him for it.
Patience & Forgiveness
Because for now our Christian friendships will be periodically marked by insensitive actions and sinful transgressions, we must for Christ’s sake resolve ahead of time to reflect God’s patience and forgiveness.
Accepting Hard Truths
While the hard realities of God’s just retribution of the lost in hell should sober us, we ought to sincerely rejoice in the gracious realities of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf to free us from that penalty.
Christ. Freedom & the Resurrection
For those of us who believe Christ’s teaching and continue to trust in him, God promises to release us from the eternal penalty of sin, helping us now to increasingly overcome the corrupting power of sin in our lives.
The Fear of Perfect Justice
Understanding that God is able to be gracious toward us because his perfect justice was satisfied on the cross should prompt us to be profoundly grateful and extraordinarily gracious toward others.
The Prayer of a Righteous Person
We can pray the powerful prayers of a righteous person that are spoken of in James 5:16 when we are careful to sincerely confess our sins and wholehearted turn from them.
Teaming Up to Prepare Our Generation
Our personal dissimilarities and diversity actually work in favor of our mission when we pull together as a church to evangelize and disciple our generation in preparation for Christ’s return.
The Hallmark of the Spiritually Prepared
To be prepared for the arrival of Christ’s kingdom we must be sure that we have grappled with the gravity of our sin and are trusting exclusively in Christ for our forgiveness.
Godly Perspectives in a Godless World
God rewards us as we mercifully relate to others, mindful of his kindness and mercy toward us – that may not preclude all forms of judgment, but it does rule out the petty and hypocritical kind.
Our Struggle to Say "Any Thing"
Because Christ is the sovereign Lord knowing best how our lives should be invested, we must resolve to love and trust him enough to willing do anything he might ask of us.
Urgency & True Importance
We need to see all of our seemingly urgent concerns in light of the incomparable gift of God?s gracious forgiveness secured for us by the life and death of Christ.
Jesus as Deliverer
Christ’s compassionate acts of supernatural healing proved that he was God’s credentialed Deliverer sent to free us from our ultimate problem with sin.
Jesus, Son of Adam: Indebted to a Forgiving God
We should gratefully celebrate the incarnation, knowing something of the cost to Christ in taking on the humanity of Adam to save sinful humans.
Zechariah: God's Doubting Senior
God typically chooses to enlist faithful and obedient Christians to powerfully advance the cause of Christ, usually in ways they could have never imagined.
Count Your Blessings
Worship is not always an impulsive emotional reaction, it should also take place as a dutiful expression of thanksgiving as a result of an intentional, thoughtful decision.
The Brevity of Life
As we start to understand the trouble & brevity of this life as God’s theological & sometimes practical response to sin, we should learn to earnestly seek his solutions.
Guilt & Forgiveness
God is loving and faithful to inflict his children with feelings of guilt and conviction so that we will quickly be brought to confession, repentance and restoration!
Caring About Christ's Reputation
When we are mistreated we must respond strategically not emotionally, being more concerned about Christ?s reputation than the satisfaction of personal revenge.
Modern Israel and Our Jewish Messiah
Knowing that God is using his relationship with us to provoke jealousy in Israel should be one of the many biblical motivations to pursue a vibrant spiritual life