Repentance is the fruit of salvation, not its price tag.

"Faith is a problem only to those who are ignorant of their rights and privileges, and their place in Christ." ~ by E.W. Kenyon. (Knowing that he is now righteous, man is restored to his lost faith.)

People are afraid that if you remove law from people, you will give them a license to sin. But have you noticed that people are already sinning without a license and that being under the law has NOT stopped sin? ~ Joseph Prince.

Only in Christ does a man stand fearlessly before both his Father in Heaven and his defeated foe, the Accuser of the brethren.

We often think of the cross as the only way God could satisfy His holy wrath--by pouring it all out on the marred figure of Jesus.  But the cross is also the only instrument upon which He could make Himself vulnerable and vent His inexhaustible love toward us.

Not only did Jesus leave His Father and become one flesh with us, but our union with Him far surpasses the physical union of man and wife.  We have become one spirit with Jesus (1 Cor. 6:17).  So great is His love for us, but don't get caught up trying to understand this spiritual union with Jesus.  You don't analyze a kiss--you enjoy it!

2 Cor. 3:9 - if the ministry of condemnation accuses you as condemned, what then does the ministry of righteousness do? It proclaims you're righteous!!!!

Christians have been taught to embrace condemnation and guilt, because that will motivate them to return to God. But let's look at the Bible: what did that do for Adam and Eve? They HID from God. Only Grace motivates us to approach Him.

"The New Testament is not a prescription for what our behavior should be, it is a description of what happens when the Holy Spirit moves in a life." ~ Rob Rufus paraphrased.

Those who wallow in guilt and condemnation are the ones who have no ability to overcome their sins. Since they believe that God's grace has departed (because of their sin), what hope can they have? Victory over sin comes only when people encounter the superabundance of God's grace. It is His grace that has made sinners righteous! ~ Joseph Prince

Temptation for the believer: If we go down that road, it can be an adventure, but in the end, it will only serve to confirm that we acted contrary to who we are, because our new nature can only find true pleasure in God.

The reason people are full of bitterness, anger, and resentment is not that God does not love them. It is that they think they must earn God's love by their conduct and doing good works. Jesus speaks to those under the burden of the law and says "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest".

"We mistakenly believe that we go to Heaven when we die.  This is not true. You entered Heaven when Jesus died. Your death is not the doorway to Heaven.  His death was the doorway to Heaven. It was your co-crucifixion with Him that has now seated you in heavenly places."  ~ John Crowder

God actually *wants* to boast that He single-handedly saved the world. That's why it was *your* cross that He died on, not His own.

You sit down at the inner table and all it takes is one blessing to sanctify your hamburger! No inner healing program necessary. Your food is going to get cold if you spend too much time saying the blessing, and yet we think for us to be sanctified we need to add the magic formula of "time". The moment you were saved, you were set apart for God. Period. Get over it and get used to it!!!

If God is against us having prosperity, then why did Jesus include in the story of the "prodigal son" the fact that the father restored the wealth of the household to his son? God is not against us having money; He's against money having us.

The Gospel is meant to be soooo good that it seems to us too good to be true...even impossible for us to believe. Too marvelous, too extraordinary, too scandalous. So much so, that even our faith (our ability to believe) in it is a gift of God's grace to us. Crazy goodness from God.

It was Jesus who worked for our inheritance, not us. We only receive--we never work for what He freely gives! In His goodness, He has given you spiritual gifts, health, power, authority, etc.... Stop working and find out everything that is yours as your inheritance.

True Slavery / True Freedom

"Submitting self to God is the only real freedom--because the deepest slavery is self-dependence, self-reliance. When you live your life believing that everything (family, finances, relationships, career) depends primarily on you, you're enslaved to your strengths and weaknesses. You're trying to be your own savior. Freedom comes when we start trusting in God's abilities and wisdom instead of our own. Real life begins when we transfer our trust from our own efforts to the efforts of Christ". Tullian Tchividjian in "Surprised by Grace".

Let Us Not Exchange the Truth of God For a Lie

Our enemy seeks to distort our view of God and our understanding of His gracious character. The result is that our disposition toward God becomes twisted. We begin to think about God, and respond to Him, as though He had the identity of the Evil One. Satan's plan is to blind us to God's grace and diminish our trust in Him, crushing our love for Him and destroying all the pleasures of grace.

From "By Grace Alone" by Sinclair Ferguson