A rightly-oriented heart and a rightly-oriented love will consistently do what is best for God and best for our neighbor, which is why St. Augustine speaks of sin as a disordered love.
For Bonhoeffer, Christ crucified, and the cross of the Christian life were not of peripheral importance, but foundational.
While we often talk about our growth, our progress, and what we are doing for the kingdom of God, the reality is that any goodness in a Christian does not originate in us.

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To be sure, the devil has an incredible arsenal of assaults with which he can waylay believers into ineptitude and ineffectiveness.
Why confess sin? Is it so we can get rewarded by God? A little extra grace or material good for our troubles, maybe.
Let's face it, Christianity is not for everyone.
The commonly accepted wisdom is that we feel guilt over what we’ve done and we experience shame over who we are. If guilt is the blemish on our face then shame is the cancer in our heart. It’s deeper, harder to dig out.
The reason the U.S. is blessed by God is that we are essentially a “good” nation. And this is the root of Bob’s problem (and that of all civil religion).
No worry, no fear. Nothing she can do can separate her from the love of Christ!
All the verbs of our salvation are passive. God calls and gathers people to him through his Gospel.
My Grandmother recently lost a long battle with cancer. Her name was Joy, and a name has never been more fitting.
There is a difference between preaching about Christ and preaching Christ.
We need a God who can heal us of true guilt and false guilt. We need a Christ who not only removes the shame we feel for what we’ve done, but who washes away the shame that others have smeared upon us.
Without the “simul” distinction, theology lapses into moralism.
A Roman execution device isn't exactly a picturesque scene of divine love on display.