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.

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.

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.

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.