Idolatry is Life Apart from Jesus

Some false gods are made of wood. Some are bank accounts. Some are in our mirrors. False worship isn't limited to a few moments of slavish action toward a physical thing; it's a whole life apart from Jesus, an outpouring wasted on false kingdoms and false gods, even if that god is ourselves.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 111.

Why Our Spiritual Life is Great

When people ask us how our spiritual life is doing, our reflexive answer, no matter what else is happening in our lives, should be to say that it's great, not because we've performed well, and not because our circumstances are good, or because we just advanced socially in some way, but because our life is hid with Christ in God and we are completely acceptable to the Father through his lavish, free grace.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 81.

All Grace

The gospel declares that our right standing with God and our continued life in his kingdom are all a gift of his grace. Life with God comes by grace. The cross is given to us by grace. We have life with God not because of anything we have or could have done or anything we have failed to do but because God has freely given it to us at Jesus's expense. We are safe, we are accepted, we are loved because God has made it so by his grace. Period.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 80.

Underestimating Our Sin Results in Underestimating God's Remedy

If we underestimate the depths of our sin, we will underestimate the cure. You don't bring a squirt gun to a bazooka fight, as they say, and we don't fight Satan, sin, and death with a Bible study, a worship song, a clean voting record, or a tithe check. Only something so dramatic as a holy God suffering and dying in our place can provide a cure.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 78.

Jesus Alone Leads Us Into God's Presence

Every time we credit a worship leader with "leading us into God's presence," we are anointing them as priests, and crediting them with doing something that only Jesus can do.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 77.

The Cross Reveals What We Deserve

The gospel of grace is a message that can be heard only by those who are aware of their own brokenness and need. It's a message that's exceedingly difficult to hear in a culture that tells us that we deserve everything: happiness, low interest rates, affordable health care, a skinny body, and a fat wallet. The gospel of grace insists that we deserve none of this, and points to the anguish of God nailed to the cross as the proper measure of what we deserve. Without such a signpost, there's nothing amazing about grace.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 75-76.

Grace Offends Because It Exposes

Grace offends because it exposes. It exposes our sins, showing that we've underestimated the depths of our problem, and it exposes our helplessness; God doesn't need any help from us for the cure.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 73.

No Such Thing as a Nonworshiper

Idolatry is everywhere because there's no such thing as a nonworshiper.

--Scotty Smith, Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), Kindle location 339.

Revenge Stories

At our core, we love revenge stories because of a twisted hunger for justice.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 69.

The Triumph of God through the Death of God

Something beyond our comprehension went on within the Trinity, as the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, breathed his last. God punished God. God's wrath was poured out in all its fullness upon God. God suffered. God was forsaken. And somehow through it, God triumphed.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 58.

Blind to Blindness

This is the predicament of our world: a competing cacophony of kingdoms and power-mongering, all ruled over by Satan himself, the evil old king whose end goal is death and decay. Humanity is trapped under an oppressive ruler, blind to his control, and blind to its own spiritual blindness. We jockey for power, we bicker and fight, we wage war politically and economically, and we watch with hope for someone who can set us free.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 34.

Blind Slaves

It's the kingdom of Satan, hell-bent on spreading lies, disease, and death, and it's all around us.

Of all the established kingdoms, this is the one at the root of evil in all the others. The evil king of that kingdom staked a claim in the human heart with Adam and Eve, and that curse has been passed down generation after generation. It's the reason we all are petty tyrants, and it's the reason we see bodies stacked like cordwood in Auschwitz and Rwanda. It has a death-grip on the world, simultaneously enslaving us and blinding us to our enslavement. We think we're free. We're not.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 32-33.

Hearts Afire with Wonder

Too often, we're given the impression that life after faith in Christ is met with a burdensome list of things to do, but there appears to be none of that burden in the book of Acts. Instead, people who've been hit with the gospel respond naturally with radically changed lives and hearts. The church and the ministries of the church are gospel centered when they flow from hearts that are afire with wonder at the glory and grace of God, revealed in the person of Jesus.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 23.

Three Complementary Perspectives on the Problems the Gospel Addresses

Our tendency toward pharisaism can be tempered by looking at God's scandalous grace. Our tendency toward individualism can be corrected by looking at God's kingdom, a transgenerational, global movement of new-making. And our tendency toward triumphalism and pride can be confronted with the crucified Savior, whose wounds are an eternal reminder of our sin and need.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 22.

The Perfect and Sufficient Gospel

There is no perfect way to do and be the church. There is only a perfect and sufficient gospel that informs and transforms every aspect of our lives, and fills every step of the journey with surprising joy, life, and hope.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 20.

When One Good Thing Becomes Everything

Fads lead to factions; people committed to one fad usually position themselves against another fad, rallying around their fad and declaring war on the opposition. Churches divide and denominations and movements form when one good thing becomes everything.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 15.

Gospel Transfer

The gospel transfers us from the familiar territory of self-centered living into a glorious wilderness, a beautiful and strange place where we're invited to explore the wonders of who God is and what he's done.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 12.

Redemptive Redundancies

Praying the gospel involves "redemptive redundancies." I intentionally always come back to who we are in Christ and who he is in us. Like Luther said, we need the basics of the gospel every day because we forget the gospel every day.

--Scotty Smith, Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), Kindle location 172.

The Gospel is Personal, but It is Not Private

Though the gospel is personal, it is not private. God's grace frees us to be quite specific with things going on in our lives, but it also compels us into deeper community with others.

--Scotty Smith, Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), Kindle location 165.

Our Messes and God's Mercy

The freer we are in acknowledging our messes, the louder our cry will be for God's mercies.

--Scotty Smith, Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), Kindle location 125.

My Real Problem is Me, Not My Circumstances

Real repentance means that you see that your biggest problem is you, not your circumstances.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 165.

God's Love Propels Holiness; My Pursuit of Holiness Does Not Propel God's Love

When rightly understood, God's love will propel you toward holiness and growth in grace. The order is essential: I am a new creation, accepted, adopted, and free; therefore I want to please God. We do not say: I will try to please God so that I may become a new creation, make myself acceptable, and hope that God adopts me and sets me free.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 163-164.

I Am "In Christ" More Than I Am Anything Else

My fundamental identity in the Cross of Christ supersedes whatever struggle I am going through now.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 160.

Being "In Christ"

While a Christian should never minimize personal gifts, past problems, or current struggles, these do not displace his or her more fundamental identity of being in Christ.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 159.

The Cross of Christ is Central to the Christian's Identity

The Cross must be central, because it defines who you are, who you are becoming, and who you will be!

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 159.

New Spiritual DNA

If a Christian is going to make progress in the Christian life, she must be convinced of this powerful new reality. We are personally united to Christ through the Holy Spirit. We have new resources and potential because God has moved in. The basic spiritual DNA of every believer has been radically altered, and we are part of a new story of redemption that includes the entire creation!

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 155.

Spiritual Life is Awakened Internally the Same Way for Every Christian

Regardless of the outward manifestation, the Bible says that the inward reality of new spiritual life is the same for every believer.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 155.

Difficulties Don't Cause Sin

While external conditions can be very influential in our lives and should not be ignored, the Bible says that they are only the occasion for sin, not the cause. Difficulties in life do not cause sin. Our background, relationships, situation, and physical condition only provide the opportunity for our thoughts, words, and actions to reveal whatever is already in our hearts. Our hearts are always the ultimate cause of our responses, and where the true spiritual battle is fought.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 132-133.

If God Still Has Work for Me Here, I Cannot Die

Our death is just as meticulously planned as the death of Christ. There is no combination of evil men, disease, or accident that can kill us as long as God still has work for us to do.

--Erwin W. Lutzer, One Minute After You Die (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1997), 168.

"Accident" is Not in God's Vocabulary

The Christian believes that God is greater than our "if onlys." His providential hand encompasses the whole of our lives, not just the good days but the "bad" days too. We have the word accident in our vocabulary; He does not.

--Erwin W. Lutzer, One Minute After You Die (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1997), 159.

Applying Romans 8:28-30

If you are a believer, you are in the process of being remade to reflect the character of Jesus himself. And your Lord is employing every circumstance and relationship in your life to accomplish that goal.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 93.

Circumstances Do Not Determine My Responses

Scripture makes it clear that these responses are not forced upon us by the pressures of the situation. What I do comes from inside me. The things that happen to me will influence my responses but never determine them.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 93.

Making Sense of Your Life

[O]nly when you have an overall sense of what God is doing can you make sense of the details of your life.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 81.

Together With God

We can't become the Christians we are meant to be by being alone with God. This is not God's intent. What we become, we become together.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 71.

A Love-Hate Relationship with Relationships

In creation, we were made to live in community, but because of the fall, we tend to run from the very friendships we need. Quite often, our longing for them is tainted by sin. We pursue them only as long as they satisfy our own desires and needs. We have a love-hate relationship with relationships!

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 65.

What is Your Life?

We see that our lives do not consist only in what we have, how we feel, or what we have accomplished, but in who we are in Christ. This enables us to stand where we would once have fallen down.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 61.

Anything Rightly Called Good Comes from God

But remembering your union with Christ reminds you that any good thing in your life is the result of his mercy and grace, not your own wisdom, goodness, and effort. Any effort we put into our lives began with the strength he gives us and continues because he is committed to us forever!

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 60.

Perceived Identity and Perceived Resources

All of us respond to life based upon who we think we are and what we think we have.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 58.

Humanity Outside of Christ

We are powerless and enslaved (see Col. 2:9-15). Paul uses the word "dead" to describe how trapped and helpless we are. When you are dead, you can't do anything. You cannot improve yourself. Even if we wanted to do what God requires (which we don't because we are alienated enemies), and even if we knew what pleased him (which we don't because we are fools who suppress the truth in unrighteousness), we would do neither because we are incapable of doing anything that is pleasing in God's sight.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 55.

Comfort as Idol

Comfort and leisure are good things, but when my personal comfort becomes more important to me than Christ, it impacts my behavior sinfully.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 50.

The Metaphor of Marriage

While there is a sense in which our marriage to Christ is not yet completed, biblical writers use the marriage metaphor to depict the legal, deeply personal, two-sided nature of the believer's relationship to God. It is the relationship God initiates and in which we participate.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 48.

New Covenant Sanctification

According to the Bible, change takes place within a deeply personal relationship that is built on a solid legal foundation. We are gradually conformed to the likeness of the One to whom we are married.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 47.

Christ is Our Hope for Change

Christianity's change process does not revolve around a system of redemption but around a person who redeems. The Bible calls us to focus on Christ our Redeemer--the Word of God made flesh--who gives us the pattern and power for change. Christ is our hope. He links the forgiveness of the past to the growth of the present to the hope of the future.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 43.

God Can Change Our Desires

We all want the wrong things, but God is in the business of changing what we want.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 34.

God is More Interested in Changing Us than Changing Our Circumstances

God says that what needs change most is us! He does not just work to fix situations and relationships; he is intent on rescuing us from ourselves. We are the focus of his loving, lifelong work of change.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 33.

The Christian Life is a Life of Constant Repentance

God has blessed you with his grace, gifted you with his presence, strengthened you with his power, and made you the object of his eternal love. Because we belong to him, we live for his agenda. And if change is his agenda, then repentance and faith is the lifestyle to which we have been called.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 16.

Christ is Working in Our Hearts Every Day

It is not enough to embrace Christ's promise of life after death. We must also embrace his promise of life before death, which is only possible because of Christ's grace at work in our hearts today.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 12.

Jesus as Savior vs. Jesus as Therapist

But whenever you view the sin of another against you as a greater problem than your own sin, you will tend to seek Christ as your therapist more than you seek him as your Savior.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 10.

Externalism Does Not Equal Sanctification

Whenever we are missing the message of Christ's indwelling work to progressively transform us, the hole will be filled by a Christian lifestyle that focuses more on externals than on the heart.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 7.

The Gospel Gap

If we do not live with a gospel-shaped, Christ-confident, and change-committed Christianity, that hole will get filled with other things.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 6.

Everyone Needs Change

God is not working for our comfort and ease; he is working on our growth. At the very moment we are tempted to question his faithfulness, he is fulfilling his redemptive promises to us. After all, it's not like there are only some people who really need to change. Change is the norm for everyone, and God is always at work to complete this process in us.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 6.

God's Unwavering Agenda: To Make Us Holy

[God] calls us to a life of constant work, constant growth, and constant confession and repentance. Making us holy is God's unwavering agenda until we are taken home to be with him. He will do whatever he needs to produce holiness in us. He wants us to be a community of joy, but he is willing to compromise our temporal happiness in order to increase our Christlikeness.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 6.

God's Enabling Presence

[God's] presence gives us everything we need to be who we are supposed to be and do what we are supposed to do.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 5.

The Gospel Promises Life Before Death

We find it much easier to embrace the gospel's promise of life after death than we do its promise of life before death!

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 5.

Identity Replacement

[E]ach of us lives out of some sense of identity, and our gospel identity amnesia will always lead to some form of identity replacement. That is, if who I am in Christ does not shape the way I think about myself and the things I face, then I will live out of some other identity.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 5.

Biblical Christianity is More Than a Religious Philosophy

This journey of following Christ as his disciple is a lifelong one. Anything less is a Christless Christianity. Without the reality of following Jesus, Christianity is just a religious philosophy.

--Bill Hull, The Complete Book of Discipleship: On Being and Making Followers of Christ (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2006), 107.

Changing the World Requires Individual Heart Change

One lesson we can learn from Jesus' refusal to become a political leader is that he didn't see the power of the state as the solution to society's basic problem of sin. While politics can be a noble career, Jesus saw "changing the world" as an internal issue that required inner transformation (see Luke 6:43-45).

--Bill Hull, The Complete Book of Discipleship: On Being and Making Followers of Christ (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2006), 61.