2 Cor 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (ESV) Have you ever wondered “why the cross?” If you grew up in a western evangelical church you were probably taught something about a “payment to and angry God” and…
Mat 5:12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (ESVST) Why do we read this verse in its negative contrast? What I mean is why do we say that the reward is conditional on the suffering? Here is another question: why do…
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (ESV) This is easily the most misunderstood and misused verse in the New Testament. Without a doubt the evangelical conservative western church pounds people with a perverse fear of a…
I don’t know if you understand how much our way of thinking and processing has been hijacked. Really. Our insistence on good-bad fruit and socratic methods and Aristotelian cosmology and Neo-Platonism concepts have so messed up our heads we can’t really “see” apart from His revelation. This is what John calls the darkness: John 1:5 The…
This month Alancetotheheart is two years old. Wow what a journey it has been. 342 posts later I can say much has changed and much has stayed the same. That sounds pretty cliché I know but let me see if I can explain. When I started writing I felt like the “great defender of God’s…
Help me in my unbelief. That is what the man cried out when he wanted his son healed. Here is a bit from that passage: Mark 9:22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23…
In the last few posts I’ve been trying to reveal a new way to see mediation. In our fallen nature we are dead to a loving God. We lost our connection in the Garden after being poisoned by forbidden fruit. Adam ran from God, instead of to God. In a moment, Adam went from walking…
Gal 2:16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will…
Rom 3:20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (ESVST) The law cannot make anyone right with God. We need to understand that He is right with us period. All he wants is our love. All he wants is…
In the last post I talked about this verse: Luk 16:16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. (ESVST) I would encourage you to read that post so it makes more sense. When someone gets a…
