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.

My struggle isn't believing my performance can earn God's favor; my struggle is believing my performance can keep God's favor

The gospel is not about a lifestyle that we live, it's about the law-fulfilling life that Christ lived.

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

What kind of person should you be to someone who has fallen? The kind of person you will run to when you fall.

Your pain could be God prying open your life and heart to remove a gift of His that you've been on to more dearly than Him.

There is no better story in the Old Testament, or perhaps the whole Bible, for depicting the difference between the ladder-defined life and the cross-defined life than that of the Tower of Babel.