grace

Generosity

We all love generosity—that is, when others are generous to us. Christians, of all people, should appreciate the value of generosity, being the recipients of the most extravagant and undeserved generosity from...

Obedience vs Legalism

Obedience vs Legalism   Pastor Mike answers the question about obedience: Isn't rule keeping and obedience just legalism? I thought we were under grace?

Amazing Grace

The doctrine of God’s grace reminds us that not only do we not deserve God’s love and forgiveness, but we actually deserve nothing from God but his exacting judgment. And not the kind of judgment which we would incur were we to sin against a fellow citizen, some high ranking diplomat, or even an exalted and holy angel...

Keeping Grace in View

We are prone to forget, especially as we compare our relative righteousness, that our salvation is all of grace. We must never fail to remember that everything about our lives – our spiritual efforts, our moral resumes and our celebrated accomplishments – are all exchanged for Christ’s. Our salvation is secured in the same way

Hell

Hell. No one likes to think about it. The world attempts to dilute its force by using the word as an expletive or as an impertinent adjective. But much like tax day

Assessing Motives

Unfortunately Christians these days routinely and confidently assert their supposed insight into the thoughts and motives of those with whom they disagree. God’s people are regrettably mirroring the practice of the world by all too often claiming to know what others are thinking. While it is common to routinely impugn motives

Good News

To trust in Jesus as the sole provision for my acceptance before God is the essence of the gospel. But by definition this gospel cannot be the same as a gospel which allows you to trust in Jesus plus something else. Many are glad when they find those who “love Jesus” and are quick to consider them

Loving God

When the call of God on our lives and the message for us in Scripture is distilled into one line it reads like this: “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.” This was the central command of Old Testament Judaism (Dt.6:5) and it was the primary imperative...

Joyful Thanksgiving

Psalm 96 calls us to “Sing to the Lord” (Ps.96:1a). Regardless of our present pains or disappointments, the Bible assumes that if we are recipients of his grace and mercy, we have a lot to sing about. And the focus should not only be historical (i.e. what God did for us in years past), but our attention should also be on...

Grace

God’s grace is the theme of the New Testament and yet with all this scriptural emphasis it seems we are still slow to rightly understand it. We either tend to think that it is some kind of extra credit that adds to our goodness, thus making us acceptable to God. Or we secretly tend to believe it is a “get out of jail free” card that allows us to dabble in sin without consequences. Both are obviously a...

Worship Always

The suffering of Job was intense. To bury all of your children after a catastrophic storm is doubtless a devastating pain that would cause many to shake their fist at God. Instead, as you know, Job did not. He did take on the ancient near-Eastern sign of a person in...

God’s Forgiveness

Our theology regarding justification is often revealed by how we embrace God’s forgiveness when we sin. On the one hand, we may say that we heartily affirm the orthodox doctrine of justification by faith (i.e. that we are accepted as perfectly righteous before God by our trust in Christ, without the aid of good works), but on the other hand...

Antinomianism

From time to time we speak of the error of “antinomianism” – the belief that for Christians the rules of the Bible don’t apply. “Anti,” of course, means “against,” and “nomos” is the Greek word for “law.” “Antinomians” are opposed to the rules – they do not see...

Fresh Start

Embedded in the Jewish calendar of the Old Testament is the ultimate “reset button.” Every fiftieth year, after a perfect set of seven “seventh years,” the ram’s horn was to sound and everything was to start afresh. (See Leviticus 25.) In the “Year of Jubilee,” as it was called, all debts were cancelled...

Real Pleasure

As the people of this world perpetually chase after good feelings by doing whatever their selfish impulses dictate, God has called his children to take hold of profound joy and lasting gratification by cultivating a deepening relationship with their Maker. Sin is deceptive and...

Suffering and God’s Plan

So often we are surprised that God “would allow” suffering, pain and death. But actually, these unpleasant realities are the promised outworking of God’s response to sin in Genesis 3. Our Creator has clearly and consistently maintained that the wages of sin is death – and all the painful

Healing Grace

Because of God’s grace, our lives are full of potential usefulness for Jesus Christ. God has a proven track record of consistently reaching out to restore his stumbling servants. Proverbs 24:16 compares the “falling” of

Hope Misplaced: Pharisees

We’ve all heard about the Pharisees. The religious leaders of Jesus’s day who clung to the letter of the Law and placed heavy, over-reaching rules on the people. What is interesting is that...
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