“This is why it is perhaps helpful to speak of the preservation of the Christian by God before speaking of the Christian’s perseverance. Yet, even as we do this we need to be clear about what the Christian is persevering in doing. Put another way, what does God’s preservation of his covenant people, the bride... Continue Reading

God has looked down the corridor of time and has seen your sinful attitudes, thoughts, words, and deeds. Additionally, with his omniscient eye he has foreseen your incorrigible free will. Left to yourself, you will not relent and you will not repent. However, despite knowing your sin and lack of repentance, God has foreknown you. He... Continue Reading

If you are a Christian you are ‘more than a conqueror through him who loved us’ (Rom. 8:37). More than a conqueror? Me? Yes, you. This is not true only of seasoned, mature, particularly holy Christians – it is true of all Christians, whether you feel it to be true or not.   One of the... Continue Reading

The human male baby, born of a woman created in God’s image, is what the Creator gives us at Christmas time. Jesus is the perfect image of who we were meant to be. Thus, we need the incarnation, not reincarnation. We need the final revelation of God in human form, who, bearing our sins, died on the... Continue Reading

As we have said, our union to Christ and to one another is His gift, not our achievement. But the manifestation of our union is both a calling and an achievement. As Calvin taught us, what is true of us in Christ must be “ratified amongst us by reciprocal harmony and brotherly love.”   All believers... Continue Reading

“Somewhere along her Christian path, some teacher or mentor had told this woman that God is good because He does what seems right to us. She had been taught that we are to name what we want and claim it territorially, as if we can instruct God on the best way to do things.”  ... Continue Reading

“It’s sometimes said that Christians are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good—and in view of the truncated gospel many of us have believed, the labeling is sometimes justified. But there’s no reason this should be the case.”   When I was growing up, I wanted—at various points—to be an astronaut, a comic artist, a... Continue Reading

Our problem is that, like astronomers before Hubble, we are so earth-bound with this world’s concerns that the atmosphere around us distorts our view of God’s love. Our lusts for rusting treasures, our worries over life’s issues, our yearning for yet one more pleasure render us unable to comprehend love’s measure without the assistance of the Spirit of God. Like a telescope, we need God’s Spirit to take the enormity of God’s love and focus it down into our hearts so that we can grasp more of the measure of what Christ has done for us.

Despair, in other words, is only remedied through faith in Jesus Christ, "through whom we have now received reconciliation" with God (Rom 5:11). Even those united to Christ through faith continue to struggle with despair--to live and act as though the grace of God is not enough--insofar as their faith remains imperfect in this life. For this reason, despair is as universal as sin (see part 1 of this series) and not to be reduced to or confused with mere consciousness of despair, since the consciousness of despair may be absent or superficial or even be false (see part 2 of this series).

Concerning how we understand repentance, Bible-believing Christians should be wary of at least three major errors. First, the Roman Catholic Church has turned repentance into a sacrament, where in the sacrament of penance, it is believed that penance is actually a meritorious work by which sinners make real satisfaction for their sin (add to the work of Christ). Second, and similarly, Arminianism believe that repentance is a work on the part of the individual that is a necessary precursor to regeneration. Third, and very different from the first two errors, there are some who speak of repentance as a ‘dead work’ and therefore unnecessary.