But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift.

What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration.

Our repentance is merely the result of our personal realization of the atonement by the Cross of Christ, which He has provided for us. "Christ Jesus . . . became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). Once we realize that Christ has become all this for us, the limitless joy of God begins in us. And wherever the joy of God is not present, the death sentence is still in effect.

Sin can't be forgiven because it is not an act; you can only be forgiven for the sins you commit, not for a heredity. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9); sin must be cleansed by the miracle of God's grace.

If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain.

Sin is a fundamental relationship—it is not wrong doing, but wrong being—it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin.

As good heirs of the Bible, we think that a great misfortune necessarily follows a great infraction. In this respect the intellectual caste, in our world, is the penitential class par excellence, continuing the role of the clergy under the Old Regime. We have to call its members what they are: officials of original sin.

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

Sin makes us moral quadriplegics.

The Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin.

We're not only held captive by our sin, but also by the delusion of our righteousness. Resting in God's grace isn't just about confessing your sin; it's about forsaking your righteousness as well.

You'll never celebrate grace as much as you should when you think you're more righteous than you actually are.