God and Life

“Trusting God for what he has done positions our hearts to trust God for what he has promised to do.” – Mike Bullmore

When I am fully trusting God for what he has done, trusting that Christ really did take my sin upon himself, that he really did pay the penalty for it, that I really have been forgiven, that I really am fully and finally reconciled to God—when I trust God in all of this, my heart is now positioned to trust God for what he has promised he will do today and in the future. And what has he promised to do? He has promised to make me holy. He has promised to sanctify me, to help me put sin to death and to replace it with joyful obedience. He has promised that the Holy Spirit is operating within my life to bring me into closer conformity with Jesus Christ. He has promised that the very same power that has saved me is now sanctifying me. Now I have hope and confidence that this really is happening and that this really can happen. I really can put sin to death, I really can grow in holiness, I really can grow in Christ-like character and look more and more like the One who saved me.

--Tim Challies

“...The Christian life is simply a process of having your natural self changed into a Christ self, and that process goes on very far in time.
One’s most private wishes, one’s point of view, are the things that have to be changed...As long as the old self is there it’s taint will be over all we do.
We try to be religious and become pharisees. We try to be kind and become patronizing. Social service ends in red tape of officialdome.
Unselfishness becomes a form of showing off. I don’t mean of course that we’re to stop trying to be good.
We’ve got to do the best we can...The real cure lies far deeper. Out of our self and into Christ we must go.”

 - C.S.Lewis