#erwin lutzer

God has a program of character development for each of us. He wants others to look at our lives and say, He walks with God, for he lives like Christ.

When the mask of self-righteousness has been torn from us and we stand stripped of all our accustomed defenses, we are candidates for God’s generous grace.

If we haven’t learned to be worshipers it doesn’t really matter how well we do anything else. Worship changes us or it has not been worship. To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change. Worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience.

Sadly, the influence has been in the wrong direction, as we see evidence that our culture has begun to permeate our churches. The church is seduced by the social agenda of wealth and pleasure, and has condoned sinful compromises. There is moral decay within the church, with highly publicized scandals involving ministers, and divorce statistics which are not much better than those outside the church. Think of all that we and our churches would have to repent of if a spirit of holiness began to captivate us. How can America be influenced by an inconsistent and hypocritical church?

Don’t ever think that there are many ways to the Divine. Jesus is the one qualified mediator, the only qualified sacrifice, and the only qualified savior.

Only those who see themselves as utterly destitute can fully appreciate the grace of God.

Most of us find comfort in being told that we are going to go on living; [the apostle] Paul was comforted when he was told that he would soon be dying [see Philippians 1:21]! He kept referring to death as that which was “far better.” The fact that we don’t view death with optimism just might be because we think of death as taking us from our home rather than bringing is to our home! Unlike Paul, we have become so attached to our tent that we just don’t want to move.

Don’t ever think that there are many ways to the Divine. Jesus is the one qualified mediator, the only qualified sacrifice, and the only qualified savior.