God's ability to clean things up is infinitely greater than our ability to mess things up.

Self-righteousness is the fruit of a low view of God's law and a lite view of your own sin.

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.

Unfortunately, some Christians are guilty of throwing out an equivalent sentiment when they play the "God is sovereign" card as a way to trump every evil that comes your way.

Thankfully, God's restraining grace keeps even the worst of us from being utterly depraved. The worst people who have ever lived could've been worse.

Don't get me wrong - what we do is important. But it is infinitely less important than what Jesus has done for us.

I never had an intellectual struggle with the Bible, with the gospel, with the claims of Christ.