Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair.
Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both...
If you know you have been forgiven, you will forgive and reconcile with others.
Here are some key words to go along with shame: Inferior Alienated Embarrassed Minority Ridiculed Weak Powerless Failure Different Insulted Rejected Inadequate Humiliated Ignored Loser
God does not forgive you based on the quality of your confession or your resolve to be a better person. But you keep thinking otherwise. Your standard is what you would do to someone like yourself, an...
For now, what things have you done that you prefer to keep private? What things in your life do you insist on keeping secret? That’s where we will find the shame that is attached to what we do.
Depression ... involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attemp...
With this? Do you live as if this is true? Let’s keep going. The Bible isn’t just about heaven and only for the by-and-by. It is gritty and real. It is about messed-up people and the way God pursues t...
There is an important difference between embarrassment and shame. Whatever caused your embarrassment has been experienced by everyone else too, at one point or another. Your sense of social isolation...
The culture with the most peace, money, and leisure is also the one with the most malignant sadness.
A lingering sense that something was very wrong with him. That sense is called shame.
Your future includes manna. It will come. There is no sense devising future scenarios now because God will do more than you anticipate.
You never expected that God himself would, by his representatives, actually come close to unclean people and touch them. The Holy One is not human. The triune God is not human. Don’t limit God’s chara...
When your wants become needs, it means that you have put your trust in people. They have become like a god to you. Yet, for some reason, the true God is patient with you. Although you might reject him...
When your emotions feel muted or always low, when you are unable to experience the highs and lows you once did, the important question is not How can I figure out what I have done wrong? but it is, Wh...
When you know that the kingdom is God’s alone (though he gives it to us), that is the only thing that can lead to peace and rest. Owners are the ones who do all the worrying; stewards simply listen to...
When you have to manage the world, please everyone, earn more than you did last year, and work off five pounds, you will be driven. If not, you run the risk of being un-American or even un-Christian b...
When you are in the grips of low self-esteem, it’s painful, and it certainly doesn’t feel like pride. But I believe that this is the dark, quieter side of pride — thwarted pride.
We must hate the evil and ungodly assumptions of the world, we must hate our own sinful nature, and we must hate Satan. To accomplish these tasks demands the most powerful resources we have: the Word,...
To paraphrase Augustine, if you want to know your God-given gifts, first know that the purpose of spiritual gifts is to bring unity to the church. Then love God and do what you feel like doing. But th...