The gospel doesn't make bad people good, it makes dead people alive.

We make a big mistake when we conclude that the law is the answer to bad behavior. In fact, the law alone stirs up more of such behavior. People get worse, not better, when you lay down the law. To be sure, the Spirit does use both God's law and God's gospel in our sanctification. But the law and the gospel do very different things.

Thankfully, while our self-righteousness reaches far, God's grace reaches farther.

The gospel doesn't just free me from what people think of me, but also from what I think of me.

The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn't make people work harder, it makes them give up. Moralism doesn't produce morality; rather, it produces immorality.

To be Biblically balanced is to let our theology and preaching be proportioned by the Bible's radically disproportionate focus on God's saving love for sinners seen and accomplished in the crucified and risen Christ.

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace.