It is in the gospel that God has revealed His plan. The righteousness He is willing to provide is based on faith in His Son. We might have preferred some other way, but God’s plan is what it is — and it is in the gospel that He makes it known.

Real faith involves more than accepting the facts of the gospel intellectually. As it grows to maturity, faith turns into confidence and trust — a trust that will risk everything in order to act on what God says about Himself and His will for us.

Whether in the operation of his intellect, emotions, or will, Abraham’s point of departure was always this: what has God said? And he continues to be the spiritual forefather of those who take sacrificial steps based on their trust in God’s promises.

The gospel does not deal in superficial solutions. According to Jesus, the problem is not just our dysfunctional behavior — it is us. It is in the deepest depths of our hearts that we need to change. We must die and become new people altogether.

It is simply not true to the Scriptures to say that a prayer like the “Sinner’s Prayer” is sufficient. We don’t find in any of the conversions to Christ in the Scriptures anyone being instructed to pray such a prayer, as if there was nothing else.

For eternal salvation, where else can we go but to Jesus Christ? As Peter said when Jesus asked him if he and the other disciples were going to turn away from Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life'” (John 6:68).

From the Greek for “lawlessness,” “anomie” has come into popular usage as a description of the “alienation” felt by individuals when they sense that the structures of society are collapsing. It’s that sickening feeling that the world is coming apart.

Dressed even in the best behavior of our present spiritual condition, we are not fit to be at the banquet table of our Maker. We must be converted. Deep change must take place — so deep that it can only grow out of what is called “godly sorrow.”

If we thank the preacher for chastising us now and then, our appreciation is probably for an emotional experience that somehow made us feel better for having been chastised. And having dabbled in religion, we go our way undisturbed and unchanged.

Whatever is “right here” can seem much more real than anything “over there.” But let’s be candid: if the lesser things seem more real than the greater, that’s a reality that we have helped to create by the things we’ve chosen to think about.

Solomon reached this conclusion long ago: “The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22). It takes trust to believe that this is true, and that God’s will is better — really better — than any alternative.

Life is a long journey, but although the steps that take us toward God are many, they are taken one at a time. The key to life is managing the moments. “Take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves” (Lord Chesterfield).

Sometimes we are defeated by discouragement. But the great hope of the gospel is that, while life lasts, none of us is a lost cause. Our defeats need not be final. Our failures need not be fatal. Real change for the better is always possible.

Our problem is not a lack of ability but an unwillingness to hear. As an old maxim puts it, “The truth is not always what we want to hear.” And even when the problem is a lack of ability, that lack of ability may be the result of neglect on our part.

Falling backward is a habit we all have. So we need more than an improvement in our moods — we need to get a fresh grip on our commitments every day. Significant spiritual progress comes from the frequent remaking of our promises to God.

We need to pay more attention to the yearnings that tug at us. That nagging feeling that there must be something more to life than we’ve experienced is an important clue to the meaning of life. Without God our desires will always be insatiable.

God never asks us to trust Him without evidence. If there is something spiritually that we need to accept His word for, He never asks for that acceptance without having offered a sufficient guarantee in the physical realm that His word is dependable.

Like the artist whose every brush stroke says something about the artist himself, God has left evidence of Himself in the things He has made. The tokens of God’s glory in this world are beckoning us to another world, one with a far greater glory.