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The gospel is the announcement that God has reconciled us to Himself by sending His Son Jesus to die as a substitute for our sins, and that all who repent and believe have eternal life in Him. I want you to see the gospel not only as the means by which you get into heaven, but as the driving force behind every single moment of your life.
Being able to articulate the gospel with accuracy is one thing; having its truth captivate your soul is quite another.
When we “make our home in” His love—feeling it, saturating ourselves with it, reflecting on it, standing in awe of it—spiritual fruit begins to spring up naturally from us like roses on a rosebush.
In the same way, spiritual fruit isn’t made by focusing on the commands of spiritual growth. You can’t just grit your teeth and say, “I will have more loving feelings toward God! I will be more patient!
So if you want to see spiritual fruit in your life, don’t focus primarily on the fruits. Focus on Jesus’ acceptance of you, given to you as a gift.
Focusing on spiritual fruit will usually produce only frustration and despair, not fruitfulness.
The problem with mechanical changes is that they quickly become wearisome to you. That’s not to say you shouldn’t ever do things when you don’t want to do, just that if the extent of your Christianity is achieving the right behavioral standard, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
You worship whatever it is you deem most essential for life and happiness.
We try to cover the shame of our nakedness by establishing our worthiness in some way.
True worship is obedience to God for no other reason than that you delight in God. There is a fundamental difference in serving God to get something from Him and serving Him to get more of Him.
when we don’t feel like we measure up to others, we despair. Our sense of nakedness and fear of rejection grows.
When our salvation depends upon our righteous behavior, our righteousness will be driven by a desire to elevate ourselves in the eyes of God. This is not love for God; it’s self-protection.
That means that God could not love me any more than He does right now, because God could not love and accept Christ any more than He does, and God sees me in Christ. God’s righteousness has been given to me as a gift. He now sees me according to how Christ has lived, not on the basis of what kind of week I’ve had.
Satan’s primary temptation strategy is to try and make us forget what God has said about us and to evaluate our standing before God by some other criteria.
So get this clearly: both Satan and the Holy Spirit will point out your sin. But they do so in entirely different ways and for entirely different purposes. I’ve heard it said like this: Satan starts with what you did, and tears down who you are. The Holy Spirit starts with what Christ has declared over you, and helps you rebuild what you did.
Each day Jesus says to us, “You are My beloved child. I am well pleased in you. Now live that way.” Satan, on the other hand, says, “Look at you. Look at the condition of your circumstances. Look at how poorly you’re living. There is no way you are God’s beloved child.” Which voice are you going to believe? There’s an eternity of difference between them.
Satan has tricked so many of us into believing his voice is actually the voice of the Holy Spirit. We’ve grown so accustomed to the voice of condemnation that we think the only thing the Holy Spirit ever says to us is, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! What’s wrong with you? You’re terrible!” He speaks altogether different: “I have made you, My child. I have taken away all your sin. I could not approve of you more than I do right now. Live that way.”
God, however, motivates us from acceptance, not toward it. Jesus’ affirmation would give this woman the security that could free her from her destructive relationship with sex. Without that, she’d never truly break free. God’s approval is the power that liberates us from sin, not the reward for having liberated ourselves.
