While on the cross, Jesus felt the indignity and disgrace of a criminal.  No.  He was not guilty.  No.  He had not committed a sin.  And, no, He did not deserve to be sentenced.  But you and I were, we had, and we did.

Though we come to the cross dressed in sin, we leave dressed in “garments of salvation” (Isa. 61:10, NIV).  Indeed, we leave dressed in Christ Himself.

Jesus displays the bad apples of his family tree in the first chapter of the New Testament ... Rahab was a Jericho harlot ... David had a personality as irregular as a Picasso painting—one day writing Psalms, another day seducing his captain’s wife. But did Jesus erase his name from the list? Not at all ...

If your family tree has bruised fruit, then Jesus wants you to know, “I’ve been there.”

We give more applause to a brawny ball-carrier than we do to the God who made us. We sing more songs to the moon than to the Christ who saved us . . .

Though we may not act like our Father, there is no greater truth than this: We are his. Unalterably. He loves us. Undyingly.

One of the hardest things to do is to be saved by grace. There’s something in us that reacts to God’s free gift. We have some weird compulsion to create laws, systems, and regulations that will make us “worthy” of our gift.

Why do we do that? The only reason I can figure is pride. To accept grace means to accept its necessity, and most folks don’t like to do that. To accept grace also means that one realizes his despair, and most people aren’t too keen on doing that either.

Symbols are important. Some of them, like communion and baptism, illustrate the cross of Christ. They symbolize salvation . . . but they do not impart salvation.

Putting your trust in a symbol is like claiming to be a sailor because you have a tattoo . . .

Our God . . . saves us, not because we trust in a symbol, but because we trust in a Savior.

You gotta wonder what Jesus saw in Matthew . . .

Whatever it was, it must’ve been something. Matthew heard the call and never went back. He spent the rest of his life convincing folks that the carpenter was the King. Jesus gave the call and never took it back. He spent his life dying for people like Matthew, convincing a lot of us that if he had a place for Matthew, he just might have a place for us.

Our asking “Where is God?” is like a fish asking “Where is water?” or a bird asking “Where is air?” God is everywhere! Equally present in Peking and Peoria. As active in the lives of Icelanders as in the lives of Texans.

We cannot find a place where God is not.

“God’s testimony,” wrote David, “makes wise the simple.”

God’s testimony. When was the last time you witnessed it? A stroll through knee-high grass in a green meadow. An hour listening to seagulls or . . . witnessing the shafts of sunlight brighten the snow on a crisp winter dawn. Miracles happen all around us; we only have to pay attention.

Remember the followers’ fear at the crucifixion? They ran. Scared as cats in a dog pound . . .

But fast-forward forty days . . . Peter is preaching in the very precinct where Christ was arrested. Followers of Christ defy the enemies of Christ . . . As bold after the Resurrection as they were cowardly before it.

Explanation? A resurrected Christ and his Holy Spirit. The courage of these men and women was forged in the fire of the empty tomb.