The Doctrines of Grace Study Guide
This resource is now available as a FREE download that can be sent directly to your inbox. To get your copy, just complete the form and submit!
Read More The Doctrines of Grace Study GuideA Resource Ministry Designed to Help Christians Come Alive to the Wonder, Beauty, and Transforming Power of the Gospel by Magnifying the Cross of Jesus in Every Book, Article, and Small Group Study We Create.
This resource is now available as a FREE download that can be sent directly to your inbox. To get your copy, just complete the form and submit!
Read More The Doctrines of Grace Study GuideThe 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, […]
Read More 7 Strands of GraceThe 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 […]
Read More What is Wrong with the 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 […]
Read More Should You Really Trust an Ancient Religious Document to Guide Your Life in the Modern World?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 […]
Read More What if There is Incontrovertible Evidence for the Existence 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 […]
Read More What is the Fundamental Entrance Requirement for Membership in the Kingdom of God?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 […]
Read More Does Your Repentance Feel Like Death Yet?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 […]
Read More What if Jesus is Still Buried?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 […]
Read More The Grace of AdoptionIn 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 […]
Read More God’s Work For Us Versus In UsAfter 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 […]
Read More The Gospel is Not a Second Chance nor a Clean SlateIn 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 […]
Read More The Grade ExchangeWhy 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 […]
Read More The Heart of the Christian MessageSeminary 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 […]
Read More The Question Everyone Gets WrongImagine 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 […]
Read More You are taking the exam of your life right now.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 […]
Read More What do you mean Christianity is not religion?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 […]
Read More How Sanctification Works1 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 […]
Read More The Indwelling SpiritToday 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 […]
Read More By Grace Through Faith1 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 […]
Read More How Will History End?