The passive righteousness of faith frees me from passing final judgment on myself.

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.

The Gospel is not ultimately a defense from pain, it is the message of God's rescue through pain. In fact, it allows us to drop our defenses, to escape not from pain but from the prison of "How" and "Why" to the freedom of "Who?"

The law demands that we do it all; the gospel declares that Jesus paid it all.

As long as I am focusing on the faults of others, then I don't have to face my own.

People who know they are not good make the best messengers of grace because they are desperately aware of their own need for it.

I was a surfer so I hung out with people who were surfers and made fun of people who weren't surfers and I listened to surf music and made fun of people who didn't listen to surfer music.