There is no damage to our souls that Christ cannot repair. But He will not be manipulated by fake repentance on our part. If we expect His forgiveness and help, we’d better lay it all down before Him, with extreme honesty. No exceptions, no excuses.

In Christ, we may come confidently before God’s throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), but we had better not come with anything less than a no-strings-attached commitment to change our ways. We may fool others about our hearts, but God is not deceived.

God should be more than a “maybe.” Our hearts must be inclined to Him. We must fix their minds on Him. We must — and here is the main idea– be devoted to Him. This devotion should be the result of a conscious, deliberate choice we have made.

The man in Psalm 10 is doing what Satan wants us all to do: manage our own lives. And that pride is what led us onto the downward slope of destruction. Since Satan can make it look so respectable and progressive, I imagine he is quite proud of it.

Sometimes holiness requires physical separation (and we are foolish if we don’t understand this). But with or without physical separation, holiness requires that our principles, our values, and our decision-making — our character — be different.

As God went through the land in judgment that night, the people of Israel waited, trusting the protection of God’s promise: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”

Those who love God will keep His commandments, certainly. But more than that, it is only those who genuinely love God who will find His commandments easy. That which would be burdensome to willpower alone is found by love to be light indeed.

The ugly, painful hardship of human experience does not contradict or call into question the love of God. Rather, that is where we learn God’s love the best. The way to God is not over, under, or around our difficulties — it is through them.

Anything that stirs up our self-sufficiency is something that will hinder our wisdom, while those things that humble us and remind us of our dependence on God are those that increase our wisdom. Whatever increases pride, contributes to foolishness.

Our emotions need to be managed wisely. Faithful discipleship often comes down to good stewardship of such things as our feelings. Discipline does not mean denying our emotions. It means training them — to help us live for God’s glory!

Our obedience must be grounded in our love for God. Our love must be determined by our knowledge of God. And our knowledge of Him must come from His own self-revelation in the Scriptures. Each of these reinforces the other to help us grow.

When we’re making decisions, we must do more than simply consider God’s viewpoint as helpful input. In every case, God’s way of looking at things ought to be decisive. A unique, concentrated desire for God’s glory ought to move our every action.

Prudence counsels caution when we face the unknown, but faith counsels courage. Here be dragons, you say? Fine. I’m eager to see them and, if need be, fight them. Whatever else it may be, life in Christ is never dull. It is truly the Great Adventure.

Reaching forward is not optional. When we obeyed the gospel, we committed ourselves to it. We made a public promise to strive for heaven the rest of our lives. And if we ever quit doing that, we’ve broken the most important promise we ever made.

We need to wake up. In our present condition, we are under condemnation for our sins, and so the “default position” is condemnation. Taking the course of least resistance always leads downhill, and doing nothing will get us nothing but hell.

We are not “of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” So having turned from futility and death to salvation and life, let us be as passionate in what we pursue as we are decisive in what we reject.

Of all the painful emotions, perhaps the worst is despair. We all have desperate days, of course. But desperate decisions are dangerous, and so desperate days are the worst time to decide whether we’re going to yield to a temptation or say no to it.

Fighting on the front lines, some days will be discouraging. But what a difference it makes to remember that Christ died for us! The thought that Somebody loved us like that can turn us around no matter what ditch the devil has dragged us into.