The truth is that everyone but the sinless Jesus merits the active wrath of God. None of us deserves love, grace, or mercy from God.

Tragically, when sin entered the world, human beings were separated from God and from one another. For example, in Genesis 3 we see our first parents hiding from God and one another in shame that includes confusion over their nakedness and sexuality.

Shame exists where there is sin, and so feeling ashamed, particularly when we sin, is natural and healthy. Therefore, shame is not bad, but unless the underlying sin that causes the shame is properly dealt with through the gospel, then the shame will remain, with devastating implications.

we worship our way into sin, ultimately we need to worship our way out.

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.

If we don't forgive ourselves for mistakes we've made-and everybody's made their choices, some worse than others-we'll never experience the good life God has in store.

My life's an open book. Some of the pages are a little ripped, but it's open.

The unchangeableness of the Lord's love, and the riches of his mercy, are likewise more illustrated by the multiplied pardons He bestows upon his people — than if they needed no forgiveness at all.

But this is the second work of the law when it hath by its convictions brought the sinner into a condition of a sense of guilt which he cannot avoid, -- nor will anything tender him relief, which way so ever he lose, for he is in a desert, -- it represents unto him the holiness and severity of God, with his indignation and wrath against sin which have a resemblance of a consuming fire. This fills his heart with dread and terror and makes him see his miserable, undone condition.

The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.

He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.