Because we have been made righteous by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is through him, and through faith in him, that we have been brought into the grace in which we stand. This is why we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And,...... Read More

But now God’s righteousness has come to us apart from the law, although the Law and Prophets bear witness to it — God’s righteousness that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, and are justified only by his gift of grace...... Read More

I’m not saying that I have already achieved these things or that I have reached perfection. But I press on to gain that for which Christ Jesus first took hold of me. Although I have not achieved it, I focus on one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to...... Read More

For you are a chosen people, royal priests … God’s very own possession, so that you can declare the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his glorious light. 1 Peter 2:9 A few months ago I attended a retreat where the participants spent a good deal of time seeking to...... Read More

When the goodness and loving kindness of God our savior appeared … Titus 3:4 In 1741, Jonathan Edwards – one of my two or three favorite theologians – preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” His words remain one of the preeminent Protestant examples of what I call “Wrath Theology,”...... Read More

No longer do I call you servants, but friends; for everything that I have heard from the Father I will declare to you. John 15:15 How do you do the friend thing? Are you a BFF kind of person, with one or two people who are really close to you? Or do you engage a...... Read More

As for me, to be near to God is my happiness. Pss. 73:28 One of the interesting things about watching people relate to each other is what kind of space or distance they maintain while interacting. Sometimes there’s barely a hair’s breadth of separation (as it was among my Italian relatives and Jewish friends). Boundaries...... Read More

O Lord, you have searched me and known me … and in your book every one of my days is written before they ever come to pass (Psalms 139:1, 16). I grew up in a house that looked like a miniature library. My parents believed that reading was a kind of sacred exercise and experience...... Read More

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). Certain ideas are more subject to becoming clichéd than others. Love, life, happiness – and our word for today, freedom – are all abstract, big-picture concepts that writers, singers, and casual conversationalists abuse every day. We constantly trivialize and banalize the fundamental questions...... Read More

“By faith, Abraham heard the call to leave his home for the place he would receive as his inheritance, even though he didn’t know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:18). To me, the most obviously difficult aspects of faith are its unknowingness and seeming invisibility. The story of Abraham is cautionary and emblematic. Every piece...... Read More