New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional

by Paul David Tripp

it, you don’t like being weak. It’s not fun being the last one chosen to play on the team. It’s embarrassing to be asked a question you can’t answer. It’s frustrating not to be able to figure out the directions for assembling the furniture you just bought. It’s mortifying to forget that important appointment or the name of a good friend. It’s humbling to fail at a task, to drop the ball, or to make a promise and not be able to keep it. We don’t like getting lost or forgetting a phone number. We all hate those moments when we feel unqualified or unprepared. We don’t like being confused or not knowing. We covet the muscles and the brains of others. We all hate being afraid and wish we had more courage. In the face of heroes, we feel anything but. In the face of the accomplishments of others, we wonder if we have done much that’s worthwhile. We don’t like facing the truth that we’re all weak in our own ways. It is the universal condition of humanity.

In a world where you are on your own, where you have to find your own way and independently build your life, weakness is a thing to be feared. In a world where all you have in the end is your thinking, your drive, your performance, and your achievements, weakness is a thing to be regretted. In a world where you have no one to turn to for strength and few who accept you when you don’t have it, weakness is a thing to be avoided. But here is what you need to understand. Weakness is not the big danger to be avoided. What you need to avoid is your delusions of strength. Those assessments of independent strength are much more dangerous. Are you confused? The fact is that we are all weak. We’re weak in wisdom, weak in strength, and weak in righteousness. Sin has left us weak of heart and hands. It has left us feeble and lame in many ways. But God’s grace makes weakness a thing to be feared no longer. The God of grace who calls you to himself and calls you to live for him blesses you with all the strength you need to do what he’s called you to do. The way to enter into that strength is to admit how little strength you actually have. Grace frees me from being de...

Today you’ll look to find rest by trying to understand your life, or you’ll rest in the One who understands everything, including your life.

It’s not wrong to think and think hard. It’s not a sin to want to understand life. It’s not bad to embark on a quest to know, but you’d better not be looking for peace of heart. God created you with the ability to think and the desire for life to make sense. These traits were given to you so that you could come to know God and understand what he’s communicated to you. But it is important to remember that rest is never to be found in trying to figure it all out, because you never will. There will always be mystery in your life. God will always surprise you with what he brings your way. You will always be confronted with the unplanned and the unexpected. All of this is because you don’t rule your own life and you don’t write your own story. And the One who does rule and write doesn’t tell you everything about your life and his plan. No, he tells you the things you need to know to live as you were designed to live, and then he graces you with his presence and his power. Because he controls the details of your life, he is always near; at any moment, you can reach out and touch him (see Acts 17:26–27). Rest is only ever found in trusting the One who has everything figured out for your good and his glory. Because he is wise, gracious, faithful, and powerful, he is worthy of your trust and is alone able to give your heart rest.

When hardship comes your way, will you tell yourself it’s a tool of God’s grace and a sign of his love, or will you give in to doubting his goodness?

This means that often when you are tempted to think that God is loving you less because your life is hard, he is actually loving you more. The hardships that you are facing are the tool of his exposing, forgiving, liberating, and transforming grace. These hard moments aren’t in your life because God is distant and uncaring, but rather because he loves you so fully. These moments become moments of faith and not doubt when by grace you begin to value what God says is truly valuable. Do you value what God values?

Today you’ll face things bigger than you, but you needn’t be afraid because none is bigger than the One who rules them all for your sake.

I knew that they would minimize or forget two very important realities. First, they didn’t understand or would soon forget that they had been born into a dramatically broken world that is not functioning as God intended. They would forget that they woke up every day to a fallen world where real evil still exists. They often didn’t seem to understand that this meant they would face temptation of various kinds every single day of their lives. Their eyes would see things that God, in his original plan, never intended them to see. Their ears would hear things that they should not hear. The alluring, deceitful, and seductive pleasures of sin would be held before them again and again.

Second, they also tended to minimize or forget the sin inside of them. They didn’t seem to understand that the biggest danger to them was not the evil outside of them but the sin that still lurked with power in their hearts. This meant that they didn’t understand how vulnerable they were to the seductive voices of sin that would greet them every day. And when you forget how temptable you are, you don’t take precautions for your protection. So I knew that I had to work not only to protect my children from the evil in their environment, but also and more importantly to protect them from themselves.

God knows that we all are a lot like my children. We, too, minimize the fallenness of our world and the power of remaining sin, and when we do, we do not guard ourselves from temptation as we should. Isn’t it good to know that God in grace has placed his Warrior Spirit inside of us? He battles on our behalf even in those moments when we don’t have the sense to battle for ourselves (see Gal. 5:16–26). Isn’t it good to know that while we sti...

Envy denies grace. The assumption of envy is that we deserve what another has been given, when, in fact, you and I deserve nothing.

Envy is self-focused and self-righteous. It inserts you into the center of your world. It makes it all about you. It tells you that you deserve what you don’t deserve. Envy is expectant and demanding. Envy tells you that you are someone you aren’t and you are entitled to what is not rightfully yours. Envy cannot celebrate the blessing of another because it tells you that you are more deserving. Envy tells you that you have earned what you could never earn. The world of envy no more mixes with the world of grace than oil does with water. Envy forgets who you are, forgets who God is, and is confused about what life is all about. Yet, having said all of that, the fact is that all of us struggle with envy somehow, some way, and at some time.

Envy is universal because sin is.

Envy has its roots in the selfishness of sin (see 2 Cor. 5:14–15). Envy is self-focused; because it’s self-focused, it’s entitled; because it’s entitled, it’s demanding; because it’s demanding, it tends to judge the goodness of God by whether he has delivered what you feel entitled to; and because it judges God on that basis, it leads you to question his goodness. Because you question God’s goodness, you won’t run to him for help. Envy is a spiritual disaster.

Grace reminds you that you deserve nothing, but it does not stop there—it confronts you with the truth that God is gloriously loving, gracious, and kind, that he lavishes on us things we could have never earned. Grace also reminds us that God is wise and he never g...

Why do we say we place our hope in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and yet practically ask the law to do what only grace can accomplish?

It’s done every day in Christian homes around the world. Well-meaning parents, zealous to see their children doing what is right, ask the law to do in the lives of their children what only grace can accomplish. They think that if they have the right set of rules, the right threat of punishment, and consistent enforcement, their children will be okay. In ways these parents fail to understand, they have reduced parenting to being a law-giver, a prosecutor, a jury, and a jailer. They think that their job is to do anything they can to shape, control, and regulate the behavior of their children. And in their zeal to control behavior, they look to the tools of threat (“I’ll make you afraid enough that you’ll never do this again.”), manipulation (“I’ll find something you really want and tell you that I’ll give it to you if you obey.”), and guilt (“I’ll make you feel so bad, so ashamed, that you’ll decide to not do this again.”). This way of thinking denies two significant things that the Bible tells us. The first is that before sin is a matter of behavior, it is always a matter of the heart. We sin because we are sinners. For example, anger is always an issue of the heart before it is an act of physical aggression. This is important to recognize because no human being has the power to change the heart of another human being. The second is that if threats, manipulation, and guilt could create lasting change in the life of another person, Jesus would not have had to come. So this w...

Admit it, we’re all still a bit of a mess; that’s why we need God’s grace today as much as we needed it the first day we believed.

You and I need to say it to ourselves again and again. We need to look in the mirror and make the confession as part of our morning routine. Here’s what we all need to say: “I am not a grace graduate.”

It is so tempting to mount arguments for your own righteousness: “That really wasn’t lust. I’m just a man who enjoys beauty.” “That really wasn’t gossip. It was just a very detailed, very personal prayer request.” “I wasn’t angry at my kids. I was just acting as one of God’s prophets. ‘Thus says the Lord . . .’” “I’m not on an ugly quest for personal power. No, I’m just exercising God-given leadership gifts.” “I’m not coldhearted and stingy. I’m just trying to be a good steward of what God has given me.” “I wasn’t being proud. I just ...

We all tend to want to think we are more righteous than we actually are. We don’t like to think of ourselves as still desperately in need of God’s rescuing grace. And we surely don’t want to face the fact that what we need to be rescued from is us! When you argue for your own righteousness, working hard to deny the empirical evidence of your sin, then you fail to seek the amazing grace that is your only hope. Grace is only ever attractive to sinners. The riches of God’s goodness are only ever sought by the poor. The spiritual healing of the Great Physician is only ever esteemed by those who acknowledge that they still suffer from the spiritual disease of sin. It’s a tragedy when we praise God for his grace on Sunday and deny our need for that grace the rest of the week. Face the fact today that you’ll never outgrow your need for grace, no matter how much you learn and how much you...

You’re going to hunger for some success in life. May you hunger for the complete success of the gospel in your heart.

You and I don’t live by instinct. We are value-oriented, goal-oriented, purpose-oriented, and importance-oriented human beings. We are constantly rating everything in our lives. We all have things that are important to us and things that are not, things that mean a lot to us and things that mean very little. We willingly make sacrifices for one thing and refuse to sacrifice for another. We grieve the loss of one thing and celebrate the loss of another. We love what another person hates and we see as a treasure something that another person thinks is trash. We look at something and see beauty while the person next to us sees no beauty in it at all. Some things are so important to us that they shape the decisions that we make and the actions that we take. Some things command the allegiance of our hearts, while other things barely get our attention.

In the center of this value system is our definition of success. No rational human being wants to be a failure. No one wants to think that he has wasted his life. No one wants to think that in the end she will look back and realize that she invested in things that just didn’t matter. Everyone wants to think that his or her life is or will be successful. But what is success? Is it judged by the size of your house, the prominence of your friends, the success of your career, the power of your position, the size of the pile of your possessions, the perfection of your physical beauty, the breadth of your knowledge, or the list of your achievem...

Contrast that view of success with the success of God’s work in and through you. God offers you things of supreme value (his forgiveness, his presence, welcome into his kingdom, a clean conscience, and a pure heart). These things will never pass away. They are the eternally valuable gifts of divine grace. This leaves you with this question: “What do I really want in life: the success of God’s agenda of grace or the fulfillment of my catalog of desires?” At the end of the day, what do you long for: for God’s grace to do its work or for more of the stuff that this physical created w...

Your life is not good because it is easy or predictable, but because the I Am has invaded your existence by his grace.

If you don’t acknowledge sin, you won’t value grace. If you don’t value grace, you won’t seek the forgiveness and rescue it provides.

I will make this confession, although it hurts to do so: I am a very skilled self-swindler. I am very good at playing monkey games with my morality. All too often, I argue for righteousness that simply is not there. It’s too easy for me to convince myself that the wrong that I have done is not so wrong after all. And as I work to minimize the gravity of my condition, I in turn devalue the grace that is my only hope of rescue, transformation, deliverance. Lord, please crush my heart with the guilt of my sin so that you may fill it once again with the glory of your redeeming grace.

There are two things in life you simply don’t have to worry about anymore, two big concerns that you just don’t have to carry. Every day, you and I carry important life concerns. No, I’m not talking about being crushed with worry, but rather about taking important things seriously. It’s right to be concerned about your finances. It’s important to carry the concern that your marriage would be all that God means it to be. It’s good to focus much concern on the welfare and development of your children. It’s vital to take your church and your relationship to the body of Christ seriously. It would be silly not to see your physical health as an important concern. It is responsible to carry these concerns. It would be unwise not to consider all of these things as important and worthy of your attention. But you do not have to carry the two most significant and important things in your life as concerns. You do not have to burden yourself with worry about these things. You do not have to plague yourself with the thought that though these things are yours today, they may not be yours tomorrow. You can wake up morning after morning after morning with a smile on your face put there by the knowledge that the most important things in your life are simply never, ever at risk. It is one of the sweet gifts of God’s grace that you can rest assured that these things that now define you and your life are yours forever. You can lose your house, your job, your family, your friendships, your heal...

There aren’t two things in all of life more important than these—that grace has purchased for you a place in God’s family and that, because you are in his family, God rules over all things for your good. You could never have earned these two unshakable realities. They are only ever yours by grace. It is because of grace that you have a forever place in God’s family. It is because of grace that your life is under the careful administration of the King of kings himself. It is because of grace that on your darkest day, you are still loved and accepted. It is because of grace that when nothing in life makes sense, your life is still under his control. There is much for you to be concerned about, but not these two things. His love will never fail, and his rule on your behalf is eternal.

It’s what we all are. We’re all failures. Own it; it will be good for you. There is not a day in any of our lives when we don’t lay down empirical evidence that we are failures. Maybe it’s in an unkind word, an ugly thought, or an ungodly desire. Maybe it’s in a moment of selfish envy or unbridled greed. Maybe it’s in a moment of pride, when we have to be the center of attention or steal some of God’s glory. Perhaps it’s in acts of gluttony or in the desires of lust. Maybe it’s in an instance when our hearts are cold and lack sympathy for the poor or the suffering. Maybe it shows itself when we are jealous of the beauty or power of another. Perhaps it’s revealed when we surrender our hearts once again to some earthbound idol. Perhaps it shows itself when we take what is not ours to take or fail to give what we have been called to give. Somehow, some way, we all do it every day—we fall short of God’s righteous standard. We all fail to be what he has created and called us to be. Now, when confronted with your failure—and you will be if you’re at all humble and honest—you have only three choices. You can commit to be an evidence denier, working to convince yourself that you’re okay when you’re really not okay. You can comfort yourself with plausible arguments for your righteousness, giving ease to your conscience. Or, in the face of your failure, you can wallow in guilt and shame, beating yourself up because you did not do better and working hard to hide your failure from God...

It’s the heart that’s the problem. People, locations, and situations don’t cause me to sin; they’re where the sin of my heart gets revealed.

If you ask the little boy why he hit his sister, he won’t tell you it was because of the sin that’s in his heart. No, he’ll say, “She was bothering me.” If you ask the teenager why he came in so late, he won’t willingly take responsibility. He’ll tell you a long story of how there was an accident on the freeway, then a long train he had to wait for, and then a water main break that flooded the street he normally drives on. If you ask the father why he is so angry all the time, he won’t tell you it’s because of the selfishness and impatience in his heart. No, he’ll say it’s because of his kids; they just drive him crazy. If you ask the single person why she’s so moody and discontent, she won’t say it’s because of the jealousy that resides in her heart. She’ll point to all the ways that life has been hard. If you ask the old man why he is so mean, he won’t tell you it’s because of the bitterness that has captured his heart. No, he’ll talk about all the times in his life when he didn’t get what he knew he deserved. Sometimes I think it’s the one biblical truth that no one believes. When we do something wrong, we all tend to point outside ourselves for the cause: “This traffic makes me so angry”; “She gets me so upset”; or “My boss pulls the worst out of me.” It’s a comfortable, street-level heresy. It feels good to think that your biggest problems in life exist outside you and not inside you, but the problem is that it simply is not true. Jesus devastated the self-atoning per...

Yes, your life is messy and hard, but that’s not a failure of the plan; it is the plan. It’s God working to complete what he’s begun in you. It is so very different from the way we normally think about grace. It’s not the way we tend to think about God’s love. It doesn’t seem wise and good to us. It causes us to question God’s faithfulness and love. It’s just not what we thought we signed on for when we placed our trust in Jesus Christ. It’s not a typical definition of the good life, and it causes us to think at times that God isn’t paying attention and that the bad guys are winning. You are tempted to think that because you’re God’s child, your life should be easier, more predictable, and definitely more comfortable. But that’s not what the Bible teaches. Instead, it reveals that struggles are part of God’s plan for you. This means that if you’re God’s child, you must never allow yourself to think that the hard things you are now going through are failures of God’s character, promises, power, or plan. You must not allow yourself to think that God has turned his back on you. You must not let yourself begin to buy into the possibility that God is not as trustworthy as you thought him to be. You must not let yourself do any of these things, because when you begin to doubt God’s goodness, you quit going to him for help. You see, you don’t run for help to those characters you have come to doubt. God has chosen to let you live in this fallen world because he plans to employ the...

God questions us, “Why spend money on what’s not bread and labor for what doesn’t satisfy?” Sadly, many of us do that day after day. It’s another one of those things that we all tend to do. We all tend to look for life in all the wrong places. We all tend to look for life horizontally when the reality is that we will only ever find life vertically. Somehow, some way, we all tend to look to the created world to give us life. We all carry around with us our personal catalog of “if-onlys.” “If only I was married, then I’d be happy.” “If only I could snag that job, then I’d be satisfied.” “If only we could buy that house, I don’t think I’d want another thing.” “If only my marriage was better, then I’d be okay.” “If only my children would turn out right, then I’d been content.” “If only I could achieve ____, I wouldn’t want anything more.” “If only our finances were more stable, then I wouldn’t complain anymore.” Whatever sits on the other side of your “if-only” is where you are looking for life, peace, joy, hope, and lasting contentment of heart. The problem is that you continue to spend money on what won’t fill you and to work too hard to get what won’t ever satisfy you. It is a big, disastrous spiritual mess that leaves you fat, addicted, in debt, and with a still unsatisfied heart. Why? Because earth will never be your savior. This physical, created world, with all of its sights, sounds, locations, experiences, and relationships, has no capacity to make your heart content. ...

The stuff outside you, no matter how troubling, is not as dangerous as the mess inside you, and for that you have the grace of Jesus.

In his words, Jesus calls us to humbly admit that the biggest danger to each of us is not the sin that lurks outside us, but the iniquity that still resides in our hearts. Once you admit this, you begin to get excited about God’s grace in Jesus Christ. If your biggest problem lives outside of you, you don’t really need grace, you just need situational or relational change. I understand why many people who call themselves Christians are not excited about grace. If you think your environment is your problem, you won’t esteem grace, but once you admit that you’re your biggest problem, you will celebrate the grace that rescues you from you.

Of course you haven’t been fulfilled in this world. It’s a sign that you have been designed for a world to come.

Here’s the real-life, street-level issue: if you don’t keep the eyes of your heart focused on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never be.

When you forget this, you work very hard to try to turn this moment into the paradise it will never be. Your marriage will not be a paradise. Your job will not be the paradise you long for. Your friendships will not be the paradise your heart craves. The world around you will not function like paradise. Your children will not deliver paradise to you. Even your church will not live up to the standard of paradise. If you’re God’s child, paradise has been guaranteed for you, but it will not be right here, right now. All the things that disappoint you now are to remind you that this is not all there is and to cause you to long for the paradise that is to come. The dreams that die remind you that this is not paradise. The flowers that wilt remind you that this is not paradise. The sin that captivates you should remind you that this is not paradise. The diseases that infect you are to remind you that this is not paradise. Live in hope because paradise is surely coming, and stop asking this fallen world to be the paradise it will never be.

If you mourn the fallenness of your world rather than curse its difficulties, you know that grace has visited you.

Life in this terribly broken world is hard. You are constantly dealing with the frustration of this world not operating the way God intended. You are always facing the unexpected. Almost daily you are required to deal with something you wouldn’t have chosen for your life, but it’s there because of the location where we live. Life right here, right now is like living in a disheveled house that has begun to fall down on its own foundation. It is still a house, but it doesn’t function as it was meant to. The doors constantly get stuck shut. The plumbing only occasionally works properly. You are never sure what’s going to happen when you plug an appliance in, and it seems that the roof leaks even when it’s not raining. So it is with the world that you and I live in. It really is a broken-down house. Now, there are really only two responses we can have to the brokenness that complicates all of our lives: cursing or mourning. Let’s be honest. Cursing is the more natural response. We curse the fact that we have to deal with flawed people. We curse the fact that we have to deal with things that don’t work right. We curse the fact that we have to deal with pollution and disease. We curse the fact that promises get broken, relationships shatter, and dreams die. We curse the realities of pain and suffering. We curse the fact that this broken-down world has been assigned to be the address where we live. It all makes us irritated, impatient, bitter, angry, and discontent. Yes, it’s rig...

I looked everywhere. I looked high and low. There wasn’t a drawer, a cabinet, or a dark closet I didn’t tear apart in my search. I even went out to the car twice to make sure I hadn’t left it there. The file contained important papers, and I had lost it somewhere. It was so frustrating. And after all my searching, it was just as lost as when I had begun. That night it hit me that my lost file was a picture of how little control I have over my own life. I do not even have sovereignty over my little world to guarantee that I will never lose important things. It can be a bit scary to consider. You and I have very little power and control over the most significant things in our lives. You and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. We don’t have a clue what will be on our plates next week or next month. We have little control over the principal people in our lives, little power over the situations in which we live, and almost no control over the locations of our lives. Honestly facing your lack of sovereignty over your own life produces either anxiety or relief. Anxiety is God-forgetting. It is the result of thinking that life is on your shoulders, that it is your job to figure it all out and keep things in order. It’s worrisome to think that your job in life is to work yourself into enough control over people, locations, and situations that you can rest assured that you will get what you think you need and accomplish what you think you need to accomplish. If you fall into t...

Corporate worship is designed to once again clear up our confusion as to what is truly important in life. Here’s what we all need to understand. This side of eternity, it’s very hard for us to keep what God says is important as important in our hearts. For all of us, things rise to levels of importance far beyond their true importance and begin to command the thoughts, motives, desires, choices, and allegiance of our hearts. As human beings made in the likeness of God, we don’t live by instinct. No, we are value-oriented, goal-oriented, purpose-oriented, and importance-oriented beings. We are always living in the quest for something. We are always in pursuit of some vision, some desire, or some dream. Every day we all name things as important, and when we do, we work to have those things in our lives. You could argue that everything we do and say is our attempt to get what is important to us from the situations, relationships, and locations in which we live. What I am describing is a huge spiritual battle that is fought on the turf of your heart. You see, whatever important thing rules your heart also shapes your words and behavior. The fact of the matter is that we all lose sight of what is truly important. Winning an argument becomes too important for us. A beautiful house rises in importance beyond its true worth. Getting that next promotion becomes too important. Having a comfortable and predictable life takes on too much value. Being liked by other people becomes more...

Any time you question God’s wisdom or step over his boundaries, you are telling yourself that you are smarter than God.

These words were penned by David in one of the most heartbreaking moments of his life. He’s hiding out in a cave with a band of faithful men because his son is out to take his throne. In a monarchy, the only way to securely take a throne is by ending the life of the person who is on the throne. Imagine where your thoughts would go, where your emotions would be, and where your heart would run to in a situation like this. Is David content? Of course not. It appears that little good can come out of this moment in his life. Yet in his grief and discontent, he knows remarkable peace. He even talks about his heart being filled with joy! Why? Because at the deepest of levels, neither his peace nor his joy is based on the circumstances, but on the God who rules the circumstances. If David’s security is in God and God alone, then he has as much security in that cave as he does in the palace, because it is the Lord alone who makes him dwell in safety. There is no doubt in David’s words. What will it be for you today—the discontent of doubt and fear or the contentment of peace and rest? It is only grace that can deliver us from fear and give our hearts rest even when we’re in the cave once again.

It really is one of the sloppiest words used in human culture. If need means “essential for life,” then the vast majority of the things we say that we need we don’t actually need. You know this if you have children or are around children. Let’s say you’re a parent and you have taken your child to the mall (which is your first mistake). As you’re walking through the mall, your child sees the sneaker store and immediately makes a left-hand turn. Now, with nose pressed against the window of the store, he says, “Mom, I neeeeeeeed those sneakers.” You look down at his feet, which are encased in perfectly good shoes, and you say: “No, I’m not getting you those sneakers. You already have perfectly good shoes.” Now, when you say this, your child does not think: “What a wise mother I have been blessed with. She has seen through my distorted sense of need, has recognized selfish desire, and has lovingly rescued me from me.” No, your child lashes out against you: “You always say ‘no’ to me. I don’t know why I have to have the one mom who hates sneakers.” Then your child refuses to relate to you for the rest of the time that you are in the mall. When you tell yourself that something is a need, three things follow. First, you feel entitled to the thing, because, after all, it is a need. Second, because it is a need, you feel it’s your right to demand it. And third, you then judge the love of another person by his or her willingness to deliver the thing. This not only happens in our rel...

It is almost a humorous story. It’s found in Judges 6:11–18: Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said to him, “Please, sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.” God approaches Gideon to call him to lead Israel in a very important battle and calls him a “mighty man of valor.” Where does he find this “mighty man”? He finds him threshing wheat in a winepress. He’s doi...

Christ’s sacrifice satisfied the Father’s anger so that, as his child, you will receive his discipline but need not fear his wrath. It is the bottom line of your acceptance with God. It is the foundational reason why grace is your only hope. Jesus fully and completely satisfied the Father’s anger so that you and I will never, ever again face the penalty for our sin. You do not have to live in fear of God’s anger. On your very worst, most rebellious, and most faithless day, you can run into the holy presence of your heavenly Father and he will not turn you away. Your acceptance has not been, nor will it ever be, based on your performance. You have not been welcomed into an eternal relationship with God because you have kept the law, but because Jesus did. If you obey God for a thousand years, you will not have earned more of his acceptance than you were granted the very first moment you believed. Here’s how radical the gospel of grace really is—you do not have to be something before God because Jesus accomplished everything on your behalf. Since you are God’s child and he loves you dearly, he disciplines you. But in the face of his loving discipline, a very important distinction needs to be made. His discipline is not punishment for your sin, because all of your punishment has been borne by your Savior, Jesus. Rather than being punitive, his fatherly discipline is transformative. It is designed to change your heart. It is one of the tools God uses to propel and ultimately t...

No need to be paralyzed by regret, because your slate has been wiped clean by God’s amazing forgiving grace. Let yourself bask today in the comfort of these passages: And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. (Col. 1:21–22) For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Rom. 5:10) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. (Gal. 3:13–14) For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8–9) And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Col. 2:13–14) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Rom. 8:1–2) Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through ou...