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.

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

The Bible makes it clear that self-righteousness is the premier enemy of the Gospel.

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.

I never realized how much I've become dependent on human approval until God took it away. I didn't even realize that I was in a self-made prison of human approval and human acceptance. Most of the prisons we live in we are not conscious of. God showed me Jesus plus nothing equals everything. And everything minus Jesus equals nothing. That set me free.

God reminds us again and again that things between He and us are forever fixed. They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has been paid, the ledger put away, and that everything we need, in Christ we already possess. This re-convincing produces humility, because we realize that our needs are fulfilled. We don’t have to worry about ourselves anymore. This in turn frees us to stop looking out for what we think we need and liberates us to love our neighbor by looking out for what they need.

Before we can even begin to grapple with the frustrations and tragedies of life in this world, we must do away with our faithless morality of payback and reward.