And all of this can be summed up in the phrase "forgiveness of sins." None of it has to do with redeemed souls leaving the world of space, time, and matter for something better. All of it has to do with the strange, unanticipated fulfillment of the hope of Israel.

Sin" is not just "doing things God has forbidden." It is, as we saw, the failure to be fully functioning, God-reflecting human beings.

Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.

Breathe and don't try to be perfect.

On the one hand, for each of us, sin is the claim to the right to myself, and so to my way of seeing things, which—far more than class, gender, race and generation—is the ultimate source of human relativity. On the other hand, sin is the deliberate repudiation of God and the truth of his way of seeing things. If my way of seeing things is decisive, anyone who differs from me is wrong by definition—including God. No

The first level of understanding necessary to faith is becoming critically aware of our dilemma in life without God.

Faith desires to let God be God. Sin has framed God, whether by the ultimate insults that he, the creator of all things, does not exist, or that he, the white-hot holy One, is responsible for the evil and suffering that humans have introduced into his good creation.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

I, a guilty sinner, can never work to get right with God—it is impossible. There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ.

We are not meant to be seen as God's perfect, bright-shining examples, but to be seen as the everyday essence of ordinary life exhibiting the miracle of His grace.

If I build my life on the things which God did not form He will have to destroy them, shake them back into chaos. That is why whenever a man, moral or immoral, sees for the first time the light of God in Jesus Christ it produces conviction of sin, and he cries out, 'Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer—"O Lord God, You know" (37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, "Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done.