You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:6-8 While we might readily acknowledge that we are powerless to change our condition and that we were indeed ungodly, we struggle to admit the third truth - that we were sinners. I may make a few mistakes but I’m not a bad person. It’s why we can sing Amazing Grace without really thinking about the words … “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” None of us like to think about how wretched we are. We’d rather live in the self-delusion that compared to others we…
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You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:6-8 What does it mean to be ungodly? It's really not all that complex. It simply means to be unlike God. But it does go deeper than that. Imagine a child wandering into The Louvre in Paris with a Sharpie and drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. What would you call that? A mistake? A felony? One appropriate word would be desecration. At its core, desecration is a failure to respect a masterpiece, to not respect or uphold what is sacred. From the earliest pages of Scripture we learn that we are…
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Sometimes we refer to the writers of the New Testament as “saints” such as St. Paul or St. Peter. But God didn’t seek us out because we were saints. He loved us when we were far from him. Listen to these sentences from Paul - they reveal three truths about ourselves and one amazing truth about God. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:6-8 Truth number one: we were powerless to change our own condition. A few years ago, I hurt my lower back. For the first several years I would have "flare-ups" every few months and they…
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I began using Scrivenor (a writing app) several years ago. It's a great tool for gathering and organizing information, creating characters or scenes, and then exporting the finished product for e-book or paperback. But here's the catch: it's loaded with possibilities and I learned the hard way - by trial and error. If you're interested in writing, check out Learn Scrivenor Fast by the Scrivenor Coach. It's been used by Michael Hyatt and others. ----------
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Many good intentions will die in the next seven days. It's not that they were bad ideas. They might have been the intention to exercise more, lose weight, get out of debt, or pray on a regular basis. Starting with a bang and ending with a whimper. While there might be several reasons for the whimpering, often it stems from the lack of a compelling why. Why should I stick with this? Why does this matter? What will happen if I don't follow through? One of the most driven individuals in the early church was the apostle Paul. Few accomplished as much as he did - starting churches, baptizing people, and enduring hardship and hostility. But why? Some might say that Paul was simply acting out of guilt, that he was trying to overcome his years of persecuting the church. Or, it could have just been his personality. Some people are…
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