Yes, the church is part of the good news of Jesus. And the church proclaims the good news of Jesus. But when men and women have only seen churches formed by unhealthy power, celebrity, competitiveness, secrecy, and self-protection, our corporate ecclesial life belies the truth of the gospel. The church can only witness to the truth of Jesus by seeking justice, serving with humility, operating transparently, and confessing and lamenting failures.

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance)." And: "As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both 'I did it, my sins sent him there' and 'he did it, his love took him there.

level than observing democratic institutions, it is Jesus' foreignness to sin that permits him to have a perfect conviction of the unique tragedy of our sinfulness. Since Jesus has perfectly clear eyes to see the tragedy of sin, his confession is utterly true.

This is the glory of our religion: that when man decides to rise up from his mistakes, from his sin, from his evil, there is a loving God saying, "Come home, I still love you.

The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.

What grieves me most in my past offenses, O my loving God, is not so much the punishment I have deserved, as the displeasure I have given You, Who are worthy of infinite love.

None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience.

Let us never lose hope! God loves us always, even with our mistakes and sins.

Though you have sinned much, that is no reason why you should despair, but only why you should love much, having so much forgiven.

The heart is like a viper, hissing and spitting poison at God.

Our obligation to love, honor and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honor and authority. Therefore, sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations must be a crime infinitely heinous and so deserving infinite punishment. If there is any evil in sin against God it is infinite evil.

now I saw it was so far from any goodness in me to own myself spiritually dead and destitute of all goodness that, on the contrary, my mouth would be forever stopped by it; and it looked as dreadful to me to see myself and the relation I stood in to God—I a sinner and criminal, and He a great Judge and Sovereign—as it would be to a poor trembling creature to venture off some high precipice.