Grace allows you to face your sin, to own it and not shift the blame.

Perhaps before you start confessing your sin you should first confess your righteousness.

The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and sanctification center, where flawed people place their trust in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he has designed.

There's not a day without sin rearing its ugly head and not a day in which God's abundant mercies are not new.

Since sin means that you are a bigger danger to you than anything else in your life and since it is impossible for you to run from you, there is only one hope for you. It is that someone with power, wisdom, and mercy will invade your life, forgive your sins, and progressively deliver you from the hold that sin has had on you. That mercy comes to you in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his mercy is always fresh, uniquely fashioned for the sin struggles of this new day.

grace is greater than all of the sin we're grappling with.

On your very worst, most rebellious, and most faithless day, you can run into the holy presence of your heavenly Father and he will not turn you away. Your acceptance has not been, nor will it ever be, based on your performance.

You can be courageous in admitting your sin precisely because God is richly abundant in his mercy.

We are God's forever and ever. He will never turn his back on us. He will never angrily throw our sin in our faces. He will never withdraw his presence and his promises, no matter how messed up we continue to be, because our standing with him is not based on our performance, but on the perfect record of his Son. But

Grace forces you to feel the pain of your regrets, but never asks you to pay for them, because the price has already been paid by Jesus.

If you aren't daily admitting to yourself that you are a mess and in daily and rather desperate need for forgiving and transforming grace, and if the evidence around has not caused you to abandon your confidence in your own righteousness, then you are going to give yourself to the work of convincing yourself that you are okay.

Change is about learning what is right, acknowledging that it is right, confessing that you have been wrong, committing to a new way of living, and seeking the help you need to do