Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.

What is indisputable is the fact that unbelief is the force that gives birth to all of our bad behavior and every moral failure. It is the root.

Our assurance is anchored in the love and grace of God expressed in the glorious exchange: our sin for His righteousness.

God is not interested in what you think you should be or feel. He is not interested in the narrative you construct for yourself, or that others construct for you. Rather, He is interested in you, the you who suffers, the you who inflicts suffering on others, the you who hides, the you who has bad days (and good ones). And He meets you where you are.

Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make good people good; it makes dead people alive. That's the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion. All the others exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshiped deity is. But the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.

Grace frees you to be honest about what you've always known to be true about yourself: that you're weaker & more afraid than you want to be.

God did not rescue me out of the pain, He rescued me through the pain!