A collection of links from around the web to encourage your growth in grace!
Saved From Shallow Faith: A Sermon That Woke Me Up
“In our view, the difference between a Christian and non-Christian was whether he decided to invite Jesus into his heart and said a prayer to ensure it was so. And from then on, how one lived seemed to matter very little, if it mattered at all. How many were falsely assured? How many on that day would hear, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23) — and not despite what they heard at church but because of it?”
Churchiness is Back
“No matter the style—liturgical or charismatic—the worst decision a church could make would be to diminish its otherworldliness, its strangeness, because we would be discarding our role as a conduit of God’s light for the nations. We would undermine our best appeal to people who, whether they consciously recognize it or not, need deliverance from the self rather than through the self.”
True Freedom From the Devil’s Tyranny
“If we obey sin or our flesh or the will of the devil, then we are in bondage to the power of the devil. When someone is enslaved to sin, they prove themselves to be children of the devil by gladly doing their father’s will or doing evil and wicked acts for their own gratification.”
These links are a wake-up call—especially the point that many might be falsely assured not in spite of church teaching, but because of it. It really challenges us to consider how we’re presenting the gospel and what kind of discipleship we’re actually fostering in our churches.