How do you change your behavior? Change what you worship

To preach the gospel is to show people their need for salvation against a backdrop of God's nature and the character of sin, and then present Jesus as the only remedy for what ails them and the world. In my weekly preaching in the worship services I always call people to believe in Christ.

If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to merit God's salvation you haven't believed at all, even if you try to do a little bit.

Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting… We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow.

Christ did not suffer so you wouldn’t suffer. He suffered so when you suffer you will become like Him.

Legalistic remorse says, "I broke God's rules," while real repentance says, "I broke God's heart."

The irreligious don't repent at all and the religious only repent of sins. But Christians repent of their wrongfully placed righteousness.