The Doctrines of Grace Study Guide

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7 Strands of Grace

The Ordo SalutisIn What is the Gospel: Part 1, we explored the gospel in macro. In part 2, we’ll dig a bit deeper into the micro aspects of God’s grace in order to untangle a variety of strands that have left some believers confused over the years.The tool we will use is called the Ordo Salutis, […]

What is Wrong with the World?

The Bubonic PlagueIn the mid-14th century, a bacterium called yersinia pestis was carried by fleas from Asia to Europe, being transported on rats that commonly infested merchant ships. As these ships arrived in ports such as Constantinople, Marseilles, and Barcelona, the rats would disembark, carrying the infected fleas through Europe. And the Bubonic Plague was born.Estimates put […]

Should You Really Trust an Ancient Religious Document to Guide Your Life in the Modern World?

There are times in our lives when it will feel like we are in the dark as the fog descends and we can’t see the horizon. We will experience a spiritual form of spatial disorientation, where, because of the emotions associated with fear, guilt or peer pressure, we will be tempted to steer the plane […]

What if There is Incontrovertible Evidence for the Existence of God?

The Great Continental Divide extends from the Bering Strait in northern Alaska, through Canada, from Montana to New Mexico and all the way through Central and South America to the Strait of Magellan, in southern Chile.The divide is not named because it slices the continents into two halves. It is a hydrological divide that separates […]

What is the Fundamental Entrance Requirement for Membership in the Kingdom of God?

Anyone who applies for admission to a university knows that there are entrance requirements. Typically, you have to have an accredited high school diploma. There is often a standardized test minimum score requirement. Sometimes, essays are required as well as participation in extracurricular activities and community service.In this post, we are going to talk about […]

Does Your Repentance Feel Like Death Yet?

Table of Contents Repentance is DeathRepentance and CrucifixionNo More Plastic Bananas A Dangerous QuestionExactly Fessing and FeelingOwning It Repentance is Death”Repentance should feel like death.” I’m not sure where I heard that. But it is true because repentance is a death. Not a literal, physical death, but a very real, present, painful and active execution, nonetheless. It is chemo […]

What if Jesus is Still Buried?

Introduction – 1 Corinthians 15:12-32 “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, but if true, is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”In that statement, C.S. Lewis, the Oxford professor and author of the Narnia books, challenges us to re-evaluate our assumptions. What would make Christianity either true or false? What is […]

The Grace of Adoption

We must not leave our gospel introduction before we see how union with Jesus by faith is not merely a legal issue. We are not merely given a new status as fully forgiven, perfectly righteous humans.We are engrafted into a new relationship with God as adopted sons and daughters. The gospel is not merely about […]

God’s Work For Us Versus In Us

In the grade exchange, Jesus does the work and we get the credit. He studies; we succeed. This is called justifying grace, where God works for us. However, there is another kind of grace that takes place when God begins to work in us. This is called sanctifying grace, where God indwells his people in […]

The Gospel is Not a Second Chance nor a Clean Slate

After we have made the grade exchange through repentance and faith, what now? This is where true Christianity often gets derailed. If you have ever heard anyone say that in salvation God “gives you a clean slate” or “a second chance” then you know what I am talking about. When we experience the grade exchange, God […]

The Grade Exchange

In our last post, we discovered that God requires perfection. But we have all failed the test… and miserably. But there is hope! This hope is what I call grade exchange. Here is how it works. I fail the exam and Jesus makes a perfect score. As the grades are being handed out, Jesus stands up and […]

The Heart of the Christian Message

Why do we have Christmas? In other words, why did Jesus have to be born? Why not just Easter? Why did Jesus, as the eternal God, have to enter this world as a human child and live thirty-three years before going to the cross? The simple answer is that Jesus came to be a substitute. He […]

The Question Everyone Gets Wrong

Seminary professor and author, Dr. Michael Horton, attended the National Christian Booksellers Convention in Denver, Colorado a number of years ago and asked the vendors a simple, but revealing question: “Does God require perfection?” Meaning, does God require that we be perfect in order to be in good standing with him now, and eventually experience […]

You are taking the exam of your life right now.

Imagine that God is a professor and is giving each of us a comprehensive exam. The subject of the exam is personal morality, with His law being the standard. We are not graded on what we know about right and wrong, good and bad, but by how we perform in light of the standard—and not […]

What do you mean Christianity is not religion?

The ancient Egyptians believed that when a person died, his heart was weighed on a scale by the god of the underworld, Osiris. On one side of the scale was a feather. If the individual’s heart was lighter than the feather, it was considered good and would pass on to eternal blessing in the next […]

How Sanctification Works

One of my spiritual heroes is a pastor from the 19th century named Octavius Winslow. In fact, I named my youngest child after him, calling her “Sarah Wynn.” The Wynn is from Winslow. Get it? Sarah is after Jonathan Edward’s wife. But I digress. His book, The Work of the Holy Spirit (1840), has had a profound effect […]

The Indwelling Spirit

1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 2:12, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” Listen to the message: You may know that […]

By Grace Through Faith

Today we continue with our Growing in Grace discipleship course with Part 4, which is titled “By Grace through Faith.” Our two memory passages on this subject from the Navigator’s Topical Memory System are Ephesians 2:8-9 and Titus 3:5. Ephesians 2:8-9, 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your […]

How Will History End?

1 Thes. 4:13-18; 5:1-11 13Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have […]