Author: DwightClough

Tomorrow is Easter—resurrection Sunday.

Jesus rose from the dead. How does that make a difference in our lives today? Let me suggest 8 reasons why it matters.

#1 It shows that God is alive and well

Imagine for a moment a universe without God. We’ll need to ignore the troubling issue of nothing creating everything. Let’s pretend we have a universe without God. No Creator. No God.

Humanity happens by random chance. People live and die and this goes on for ages. Then Jesus of Nazareth comes along claiming to be the Son of God, and we think, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another looney tune. Then he’s crucified—put to death by jealous power-crazed fanatics. No big deal. We’ve seen all of this before.

But then something we can’t explain happens. On the third day we visit His tomb and it’s empty. The squad of Roman soldiers assigned to guard His tomb couldn’t keep Him dead. You’re trying to figure out what happened when there He is right in front of you—flesh and bones—you can touch Him, you can hug Him, He eats a meal in front of you, but at the same time He can appear or disappear at will, and pass through walls.

Wait a second! you’re thinking. The person who was just tortured almost beyond recognition—if He had survived—would require weeks of hospitalization, multiple surgeries, months of physical therapy just to be able to function—that person is standing in front of you more alive than He’s ever been.

What just happened broke reality. There’s no naturalistic, scientific explanation, and there never will be. Science could advance for another million years, and still be clueless.

There’s only one explanation. What just happened is supernatural. God is present. God is alive and well.

 

#2 It shows that God is good

Since we’re playing around with alternate realities, let me offer you this one. Instead of Jesus Christ rising from the dead, being seen by more than 500 witnesses, and then subsequently ascending into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father, where He remains until one day He will return to this earth to judge the living and the dead; instead of Jesus Christ rising from the dead…

Adolph Hitler rises from the dead.

Try to process that.

It’s a nightmare, right? It would say things about God that are almost too terrible to imagine.

But God did not raise Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Genghis Khan from the dead. He raised Jesus Christ. And that tells us something about God. It tells us that God put His stamp of approval on Jesus. If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus.

What do we discover when we look at Jesus? Here are my observations:

1. He hurts when we hurt. “Jesus wept.” It’s the shortest and perhaps the most powerful verse in the Bible. When we feel pain, Jesus feels pain as well.
2. Jesus was kind to children. He notices and protects and values the most vulnerable among us.
3. Jesus elevated the value of women. In a culture where women were often thought of as little more than property, Jesus again and again treated women with respect and compassion.
4. Jesus cared about the poor. It permeates His message and His actions.
5. Jesus included the people His world threw away.
6. Jesus taught—and modeled—forgiveness, kindness, and mercy.
7. Jesus healed people who were sick and hurting.
8. Jesus helped people who were struggling. He helped them find their way back to God.
9. Jesus elevated sacrificial, unselfish love as the highest value.
10. Jesus outsmarted all of His opponents.

When you put that together, it creates a beautiful picture of God.

 

#3 It solves the biggest problem we’re ever going to face

Death.

It robs us of everyone we care about.

It hangs over all of us—inescapable.

Jesus is the only one who knows how to solve that problem.

He was dead.

Now He’s alive.

In the words of C. S. Lewis, Jesus “has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death.”

Now Jesus turns to us and says, “You see what I did? I can make that happen for you. I am the resurrection and the life.”

In 1 John 5:12, the Bible says, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

We have a choice:

If we choose Jesus, we choose life. If we stiff arm Jesus, we choose death.

We can say, “Jesus, I invite You into my life. You can be everything You want to be and do everything You want to do in my life—not just today, but every day.” If you make that choice, death no longer has the final word over you. Someday, your tomb will be empty, and you will be in possession of eternal life.

Or alternatively, we can say, “Jesus, for whatever reason, I don’t like You, I don’t want You; I choose death instead of You.”

 

#4 It shows that we made the right choice

Buddha was a guy with interesting ideas. But Buddha was dead at age 80 and his body is still in the grave. Karl Marx was a guy with interesting ideas. But Karl Marx was dead at age 64 and his body is still in the grave. Muhammad was a guy with interesting ideas. But Muhammad was dead at age 63 and his body is still in the grave. Charles Darwin was a guy with interesting ideas. But Charles Darwin was dead at age 73 and his body is still in the grave.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the point.

None of those people rose from the dead.

They lived. The spouted off their interesting ideas. And then they died. End of story.

But Jesus is different.

Only Jesus rose from the dead. And that puts Him in a totally different league.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then what is He? He’s just a guy with some interesting ideas, right?

But He did rise from the dead. That gives Him the authority to say things about life and death and eternal life that nobody else who ever lived has the same authority to say.

 

#5 It proves that eternal life is a real thing

Sixty years after the resurrection, the Apostle John encounters the risen Christ on the Island of Patmos. If the normal processes of aging applied to the resurrection body of Jesus, you would expect that He would be walking with a walker, hearing with a hearing aid, and seeing with some pretty heavy duty glasses. But we don’t see any of that. If anything, Jesus is now more alive than He was when John saw Him last—when He ascended into heaven. His presence is powerful, overwhelming, unforgettable.

Before the resurrection of Jesus, people hoped that their spirit would live on after death. But Jesus changed that hope into reality. His spirit returned to the grave, took charge of His abandoned corpse, fixed everything that was wrong with it, made it better than it ever was, and brought it fully, totally back to life. And Jesus lives in that body today.
He took something that was theoretically possible with God, and made it happen right before our eyes. Eternal life is real.

 

#6 It shows that God has not abandoned planet earth

Jesus returned.

He could have just gone on to heaven in spirit and been quite happy and fully alive without His body.

But He returned.

He returned to earth.

Returning to earth was worth it to Him.

In so doing, He set the stage for His eventual return where He will resurrect everyone who has ever lived, conduct a final judgment, and establish His unending Kingdom here on earth.

Humanity has pretty much messed up this planet in almost every conceivable way, but Jesus sees something here worth saving, and His return to earth to pick up His body, to talk to His followers, it sets the stage for the restoration of all things.

 

#7 It means that His sacrificial death on the cross was complete

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. He is the final sacrifice for our sins. You can find language like this repeated over and over in the Bible.

The resurrection of Jesus shows us that His sacrifice is complete. From the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.” And God validates those words by raising Jesus from the dead. No more sacrifice is needed. The job is done.

Paul underscores this in 1 Corinthians when he writes, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17) And again in Romans, he writes that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:25)

The job of paying for sin is finished.

 

#8 It means we win

Since the day Jesus was nailed to the cross, over 200 million Christians have paid for their faith with their lives.
They were martyrs, and even today, in 2025, Christians continue to be martyred at an alarming rate. On Palm Sunday, 51 Christians were murdered in northern Nigeria by Fulani terrorists. Even though it gets scant media attention, attacks like this happen frequently, and they happen all over the world.

Since Cain killed Abel, the world, the flesh, and the devil have done everything they can to wage war against the people of God.

The resurrection is our victory.

It says to all our enemies, in the words of Jusin Martyr: “You can kill us, but you cannot harm us.” You can kill us, but you cannot win, because we are coming back with life that can never be destroyed.

Be encouraged!
Dwight

 

PS. Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Is this historical fact? These books will help:
• The Case for Easter: Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection, by Lee Strobel
• The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, by Gary R. Habermas
• The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, by Michael Licona
• Raised on the Third Day: Defending the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, by W. David Beck and Michael R. Licona
• The Resurrection of the Son of God, N. T. Wright

Want to get closer to God?

Here are three great ways to do that.

#1 Share your story. Our stories make us who we are. Sharing your story with someone forges a bond with that person. So why not tell your story to God? Yes, of course He already knows. That’s not the point. The process of you sharing your experiences with God helps create a new level of intimacy with Him.

#2 Share your feelings. Our feelings are deeply personal, and they tell us a great deal about ourselves. Sharing your feelings with God demonstrates your trust that God is a safe place for you to be real about yourself. And don’t stress about your feelings not being “sanctioned” or correct. God doesn’t need your performance; He needs your honesty. When the real you meets the real Jesus, transformation occurs.

#3 Ask a question. The God who created the universe can figure out how to answer your questions. But He cannot answer them if you don’t ask. So ask! I ask God about decisions, but I also ask for His perspective, especially if I’m feeling out of sorts. “What do You want me to know?” is a powerful prayer/question, opening the door for God to share transforming truth with you.

More in this video

Be encouraged!

Dwight

Some time ago, I believe God gave Kim and me an incredible insight into how to reduce poverty and save a whole bunch of money in the process. This is not partisan (Democrat or Republican), nor should it be. It’s just applying Christian principles to a complicated problem.

Here’s a YouTube short with links in the description.

Or, if you prefer:

What if I could give you an army of 500,000 people who will specialize in helping millions of fellow Americans get out of poverty for good?

Millions of people no longer need food stamps, Medicaid, any kind of social welfare.

Government saves billions of dollars.

Here’s how it works:

Mary helps Bob get out of poverty.

Government gets two wins:

#1 No more social welfare payments to Bob.

#2 Taxes from Bob.

We take the second win and give it to Mary. Bob pays taxes to the government, the government turns around and cuts a check to Mary, giving her a return for her investment in Bob.

It’s compassionate, nonpartisan, a huge net savings—everybody wins.

I call this Tax Diversion Financing.

Here’s the video that tells the story behind this and explains why it will work: “I decided not to hate you”

I’m asking you to share these two videos. If you’re on X, tweet them to @elonmusk and @RepMTG …

And here’s a printable flier you can send to to Congress, celebrities.

“Why are people poor” (Google doc)

Or please read and share these books
A Simple Way to End Poverty in the United States

Rethinking Our War on Poverty

Anyway, if you could help spread the word, I would be so grateful.

Many blessings!

Dwight

Driving on back roads nourishes my soul—tooling along, taking in open fields, winter trees, a marsh, a deer, a crane, a bald eagle.

Traveling through rural Wisconsin affords me the opportunity to look at the work and lives of people, people connected to the land—Amish farmers, deserted deer hunting cabins, the place we call the “drug lord mansion,” and, often, the homes of people living in poverty.

The signs are clear. A yard littered with junk cars, a roof caving in, shingles that haven’t been painted in 50 years.

But I’ve noticed something. Often—not always—but often, amid the chaos of their lives, something stands out. It might be a chair on a porch. It might be flowers along a walkway. It might be the pleasing way in which the house sits on the land.

It’s like a human voice is speaking to me and saying, “Yeah, I’m struggling. But I’m not defined by my struggle. There’s something beautiful here that most people don’t see.”

In my mind, I call this an outpost of beauty.

I smile when I see these. It makes me happy inside. I think it’s because it reminds me of God. As he travels through humanity, he looks at our lives—and, yeah, He sees the wreckage. But He also sees something beautiful—that outpost of beauty that most people miss.

He sees it in us. And He smiles. And He says to Himself, “Yeah. I’ll start with that. There’s something there I want to redeem.”

Be encouraged!

Dwight

PS. Thanks for your warm thoughts and prayer regarding our car situation. We were able to get Alan’s car fixed without replacing the transmission. (Thank You, God!) And, I think we have the oil leak fixed in Kim’s car. My car continues to function miraculously. And it looks like we’ll be able to purchase a car from a friend for an affordable amount. The adventure isn’t completely over, but things are definitely looking up.

P.P.S. Here are some recent videos from my YouTube channel you or someone you know might find helpful … Why would a loving God send anyone to hell? (Great question by the way) and Why are so many Christian marriages falling apart? Is there something about marriage that Christians don’t know?

I guess it started several weeks ago. The transmission started to go out in Alan’s Mercury Grand Marquis. The shop wanted $4,000 to put a new one in, and recommended another several thousand dollars in needed repairs.

Out of his reach, out of our reach, and so, Alan, who lives with us, borrowed our cars to go and find used books for his online used bookstore.

Then it turned out that my car needed nearly every part of the front end replaced. While we were doing that, my transmission stopped working. (But we managed to fix it.) And then the inside of my car started to smell like gasoline. The mechanic cleaned up the o-ring and the injector and said he hoped the problem didn’t recur because the car could start on fire.

Is the gasoline smell gone?

I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. It’s better, I think. Or maybe I’m used to it.

So when we gathered enough money to buy a replacement car for Alan, we took Kim’s car down to Madison to buy it. On the way, the oil light went on. We added 2-3 quarts of oil and then 2 more quarts when we got back.

The mechanic inspected Kim’s car yesterday, and scheduled a repair for next Thursday that might fix the oil leak. Meanwhile, don’t drive it if you don’t need to.

So we borrowed Alan’s new (used) Toyota Sienna to go grocery shopping, and as we were heading home, guess what?

The transmission went out.

There’s a word for all of this.

Adventure.

Adventure is circumstances that you don’t like when you’re going through them, but you laugh about and tell stories about later on.

Adventure is an opportunity for God to show up.

I guess I forgot to tell you that I’ve been praying for three reliable cars. Every day praying for this for weeks.

So, what do I know?

I know that God is our provider. I know He loves answering prayer. I know that He’s full of the unexpected. And I know that He’s already laughing because He knows how it’s all going to turn out.

But what about me?

What do I know?

I asked God what’s going on, and the best I can tell His answer is: “It will be okay.”

It will be okay.

For the most part, that’s how I feel. It will be okay.

But sometimes, in the middle of the night, I lie awake, and I can’t really sleep, and the circumstances of this adventure just swirl around in my mind. I lie there for a long time, praying a bit, listening to the Bible on audio, trying to listen to God. And then I fall back to sleep.

I think faith is like that. We have these mountaintop moments when we’re sure that we’re sure that we’re sure that God will show up, all will be well, nothing to fear. And then we have these private moments of doubt where Goliath seems so very big and we seem so very small.

And I think God knows this. He works with us, not just on the mountaintop, but also in the valley.

The real meaning of grace

Sometimes we get an idea stuck in our heads, and that idea makes it difficult or impossible to understand what God is really saying or what God is really doing.

A good example would be the book of Job. The human players in that drama labored under the misconception that God was punishing Job for some moral failure. As a result, nearly everything they said to try to explain what was going on missed the mark because God was NOT punishing Job; instead He was trusting Job—trusting Job to silence the accuser Satan. And by the end of the book, Job did exactly that; he silenced the voice of the accuser.

I think the same thing might be said about our understanding of grace. Or my understanding of grace, if you prefer.

For many years, I understood grace as getting what we don’t deserve from God. G R A C E — God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Being forgiven of my sins. Getting a free ride to heaven. Being justified—just as if I had never sinned. Being found not guilty at God’s courthouse. Having my sentence suspended. And so on.

And when I heard that we weren’t under the law but under grace, I understood that to mean that we were no longer required to keep a bunch of rules because Jesus died to pay for our sins, and our sins are being forgiven by God.

But now I wonder if I was doing the same thing Job’s friends were doing: looking at God’s work through a faulty lens.

Consider the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus makes it clear that the law is not to be abolished but to be fulfilled.* (*And before you jump to the conclusion that I’m preaching works salvation, read to the end.) Jesus said, “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:19 NIV

Then He goes on to point out that the teachers of the law in His day didn’t understand the moral implications of the law. In the mind of God, character assassination is made out of the same moral mud as murder, lust as adultery, and so on.

In other words, Jesus raised the bar. And He didn’t exempt any of us from His clarified requirements.

We move on from Jesus to Paul.

The thing that’s easy to miss about Paul is this: Before his conversion, Paul was a zealous, law loving Pharisee. He was under the law. He praised the law.

His misguided zeal for the law drove him to throw Christians into jail and to try to stamp out Christianity—making him the “worst of sinners.” As Jesus said about others of Paul’s ilk, he strained out the gnat and swallowed the camel.

Before Christ entered his life, Paul observed the law outwardly, but inwardly he struggled because the law put a spotlight on his own human inadequacy. (The real meaning of the Romans 7 passage in context.)

Paul was given the job of being the apostle to the Gentiles—the non-Jews. So he had to figure out what to do with this Jewish law he had devoted his entire life to studying. What relevance did the Jewish law have to a non-Jew?

When you put the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Paul together, a beautiful truth emerges: Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of the law.

Yes, Jesus is the final sacrifice for sin, and yes, in that way He fulfilled the law.

But it goes beyond that. Jesus embodies everything that was in the heart and mind of God when He delivered the law on Mount Sinai. Jesus was and is God in the flesh. When Jesus speaks, God speaks. The law is good, and all that is good in the law is from God, and is embodied in Jesus.

What does that mean for us?

When we invite Jesus into our lives and allow Him to be who He wants to be and do what He wants to do, we are inviting in the fulfillment of the law.

The fulfillment of the law is inside us, transforming us, granting us the heart and the mind of God.

The outcome—over time—is this: We want what God wants. We love what God loves. We hate what God hates. We no longer need a set of rules to tell us how to behave because we’ve internalized the heart and mind of God.

When I was a child, I needed someone to set a bedtime for me because I didn’t have the maturity to set one for myself. Now that I’m an adult, I don’t need someone to set a bedtime for me; I have enough sense to go to bed at a decent time every night.

In the same way, the presence of Jesus grants us maturity and clarity. We do the things God wants because God’s very heart and mind are inside us.

That is the real meaning of grace.

Are our sins forgiven? Of course.

Are we granted the gift of eternal life? Yes.

Will we still mess up? For sure. That’s a given. But it doesn’t disable us because the work of God in us is so much stronger than the work of sin. …If we say yes to Jesus.

So while grace forgives our sins, it does not exempt us from holy living and holy living is not accomplished through try hard human effort apart from God (which is sometimes preached from the pulpit), but rather through the transformation that comes to us because the Fulfillment of the Law lives inside us. (Jude 1:4, Romans 6:1-2, Titus 2:11-14, Philippians 1:6, etc.)

Grace works. The presence of Jesus transforms. We are becoming better people because God lives inside us.

Footnote: I don’t really have the space to get into it here, but sometime you might want to review all the passages in the Bible about the final judgment and ask yourself: Does this really sound like a criminal court proceeding? Or does it sound like something else? And if it sounds like something else, (how) does that alter our understanding of grace?

Be encouraged,

Dwight

I know, I know. Some of you are asking yourself: Who’s Tina? And: Has Dwight finally lost it?

I’m laughing.

I also mean Merry Christmas, Neil, Tom, Kris, Steve, Scooty, Kathie, Philippe, Leo, Shanice, Doug and Ruth, Gayle, Nathan, Terrie, Hala, Sarah, Ron, Lorinda, Erica and all the rest (if I didn’t mention your name, it’s not that I don’t like you—I do)!

But I single out Tina because she has been the most enthusiastic supporter of this blog. Nearly every time I post, she sends me a little note: “Good one, Brother D.” And then she adds, “Hugs to you and Kim.”

It’s those little human touches that make our lives so rich, isn’t it? The smile. The unexpected note in the mail. A hug. A kind word.

Anyway, I want you to know that I wish you a full measure of God’s love and kindness today on Christmas and all year as well.

Those of you who are regulars will recognize this video and might enjoy coming back to this post from 2015.

Merry Christmas!

Dwight

I want to share with you an epiphany I had earlier this year about the meaning of life. Sorry this is long, but it takes a little bit to explain.

Ecclesiastes is probably the strangest book of the Bible. The author, Solomon, sets God aside, looks around, tries to find meaning in life and comes up empty. He examines the evidence and concludes: there is no meaning to life.

Meaningless!
Pointless!
Empty!
Futile!
Vanity!

According to Solomon, here’s why:

#1 You, me, everybody—we all end up dead. All that’s left is a corpse in the ground, and once you die, you will soon be forgotten.

#2 Life isn’t fair. The corrupt live in McMansions; good people struggle to pay the rent.

#3 Life is hard. And is it worth it? Probably not.

#4 Great achievements are meaningless. You spend your whole life climbing the ladder; when you get to the top you discover—there’s nothing there.

#5 Pleasure too is meaningless, empty, devoid of meaning.

Yeah, it’s a bleak book, but also witty, eloquent, and sometimes practical.

But when we get to the end of the book, we find these words. (And they seem completely out of place.)

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 NIV

For many years I read that and I didn’t get it.

Yeah—standard biblical advice. But how does it fit this book?

At the end of the book, Solomon, who has mostly been ignoring God for the whole book, brings Him into the picture.

That does change things. His arguments melt away:

#1 Yes, we all die. But life doesn’t end in the grave. Life goes on. And the meaning for our lives is found in that greater life that is to come.

#2 And yeah. Life isn’t fair. But it doesn’t end there. God is still in charge of this universe. He has seen what has happened to you. He knows. He cares. And all wrongs will be righted.

#3 Sure, life is hard. But there is no pain without purpose. God will redeem all the pain and trouble we have experienced if we let Him.

#4 While we cannot find our significance in our achievements, there is a way that our accomplishments can have meaning and lasting significance.

Years ago I listened to a mega church pastor tell about his near death experience. He stood before Jesus and realized that all of his rock star Christian accomplishments meant nothing at all. Nothing. Nada.

The only thing that mattered was: Did I do what Jesus asked me to do?

More on that in a minute, but yes—our accomplishments can mean something, if they’re what Jesus asked us to do.

#5 Is pleasure meaningless? Apart from God, yes. But when we invite God in, He gives us good things to enjoy, which we can celebrate with gratitude as gifts from God.

We can gather all of this from the rest of the Bible. But Solomon doesn’t zero in on any of those things. Instead, he tells us to fear God, keep His commandments, because all our deeds will be judged by God.

How does that give us lasting significance?

Here’s my epiphany:

Someday we stand before God in judgment.

Judgment Day.

I used to think of Judgment Day as a court date with God. He declares is guilty or innocent; He sends us to heaven or to the lake of fire.

But what if God is saying something else here?

What if Judgment here in this passage is not a court date with God, but rather a Father meeting with His child and helping that child—that’s you and me—helping us make sense of this “meaningless” life?

This was my epiphany.

Judgment is when God looks at your life with you, and says, “Remember what you did there? It mattered. It has lasting significance. You have lasting significance. Your life has meaning.”

Judgment is the moment in our existence when God reveals the hidden meaning to your lives, when He takes away the curtain and shows you how and why your life mattered.

Are you rich or poor? Are you smart or slow? When you post on social media, do you get 75 comments and 200 likes? Or do you get crickets? Are you an up front leader or are you invisible? Will a thousand people come to your funeral or will your death go unnoticed?

None of that matters.

All that matters is this: Did you do what Jesus asked you to do?

That matters. That gives your life lasting significance.

And let me add a footnote to that.

Some people have the idea that Jesus is here to steal your autonomy, your identity, your sense of self—that He wants to rob you of you, and turn you into some kind of goody-two-shoes religious fanatic, turn you into somebody you aren’t.

Uh, no.

Not my experience.

When I ask Jesus, “What do You want me to do?” most of the time He turns the question around: “What do you want to do, Dwight?” He invites me into the process, and we make a plan together.

What does all of this mean?

God is wanting to work with you to give your life lasting significance and deep meaning. He’s offering that to you.

All you need to do is ask.

So ask!

God intends for you life to be filled with meaning and to achieve lasting significance. He wants to help you find that meaning today and every day, and someday, when you stand before Him, you’ll celebrate that significance together.

Be encouraged!

Dwight

PS. More in this video…

“A sinner saved by grace”—that’s how many—maybe most—Christians would identify themselves.

Sounds good—humble, honest, theological. But is it true? And is it helpful?

I’m going to answer no to both questions.

First of all, it’s not helpful. People act from their identity. If you identify yourself as a sinner, guess how you’re going to act? And when you struggle with temptation, that temptation is going to seem much stronger than it really is if you are, in fact, a sinner. Identifying yourself as a sinner, in my opinion, dooms you to a lifelong battle—a mostly losing battle—with sin, because no matter how hard you try, your old sin nature is always there, lurking in the background, ready to make you mess up once again.

But there is a different—and very biblical—way to identify yourself that places you in a much stronger position to overcome sin.

Before you accuse me of heresy, let’s look at what the Bible says. Romans 3 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It quotes Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 53:1-3, and Ecclesiastes 7:20 to say that no one is righteous. In 1 Timothy 1, Paul calls himself the chief of (or worst of) sinners. And in Romans 7, he seems to describe his own personal struggle with sin. Jesus said, “There is no one good except God,” (Mark 10:18) and says, “If you then, being evil…” (Matthew 7:11).

So yeah. I get that. I’ve read and reread all these passages with care.

But we really need to wider context of scripture. For example, consider this passage:

But all sinners will be destroyed;
there will be no future for the wicked.
The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
Psalm 37:38-39 NIV (emphasis mine)

If you are a sinner, then who are the righteous? And if we’re all sinners, we’re all going to be destroyed, we have no hope. Or consider what Jesus says in Matthew 26:45: “the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.” If we’re all sinners, then the disciples were sinners, and Jesus was already in the hands of his disciples, so He was already in the hands of sinners. If we’re all sinners, then His statement doesn’t make sense.

And if we’re all evil, and none of us are good, then why does Jesus say, “A good man brings forth good out of the good stored up in him…” (Matthew 12:35) Why do Psalm 1, Proverbs 13, Isaiah 1, Amos 9 and other passages make a distinction sinners and the righteous?

Maybe it’s time to take a second look at all those passages we quote to “prove” that we’re sinners.

Paul calls himself the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1. But what evidence does he give to support that claim? He explains that he persecuted the church. Did he persecute the church before his conversion or after?

Before, right?

So what is he really talking about? Yes, he uses the present tense, but he’s talking about himself before he came to Christ. He’s not talking about himself in the present, otherwise he couldn’t tell us to follow his example in Philippians 4:9.

And what about Romans 7. Again it sounds like Paul is talking about himself, talking about a losing battle with sin. But dig deeper into the passage, and read carefully from Romans 7:14 to Romans 8:14. Paul is contrasting two ways of approaching sin, the law, and God. You can walk according to the flesh (sometimes mistranslated “sinful nature”) or you can walk according to the Spirit. What is the flesh? Do a word study throughout the Bible, and I think you will come to the conclusion that the flesh is human effort apart from God.

Here’s what I think he’s saying: If you think you can go it alone apart from God, your life will be a mess. You will struggle with sin and never overcome. But if you invite Jesus into your struggles, He will set you free from sin and give you the power to overcome. Go it alone, and your path leads to sin, death, and hell. Invite Jesus in, and your path leads to righteousness, life, and heaven.

So, no. I don’t think Paul is describing his post conversion self in Romans 7. If he’s describing himself at all, he’s describing himself before he met Jesus Christ.

So, what are the takeaways?

Have all sinned? Yes. (Setting aside those who are incapable of knowing the difference between good and evil. That’s a whole different conversation.)

Compared to God, are we good? No.

Are we good enough to earn our way into heaven? No.

What is a sinner? Someone whose life is characterized by sin.

If we’ve invited Jesus into our lives, are we sinners? No.

Do Christians have a sin nature? According to Romans 6:6, our sin nature is dead. If it’s dead, it’s not alive. If it’s not alive, it can’t do anything to make us sin. So no, I don’t believe we do.

Why do Christians sin then? Because we are, at some level, deceived. Just like Eve in Genesis 3 (1 Timothy 2:14). She didn’t have a sin nature either before the fall.

In my view, the big problem with running around saying, “I’m a sinner. I’m a sinner,” is this: It insults the work of God. God’s work in us (Philippians 1:6) is far stronger than our sin. God is in the process of transforming us. Sin will fail, but God’s work in us will succeed. In the end, we will be without sin. Righteous you and righteous me will walk the streets of gold.

When we are born of God, God’s spiritual DNA is placed inside our soul, and we cannot live a life of sin because that kind of life is incompatible with God’s DNA. (1 John 3:9)

Hope these thoughts are helpful. Here’s a video with more information.

Be encouraged!

Dwight

In the Old Testament book of 2 Kings, chapter 4, we read about a woman with a heartbreaking problem. Her husband has died. He was in debt. She had no way of paying the debt. So the creditor was planning to take her two sons away from her and sell them as slaves to pay off the debt.

All of that was legal back in the day.

She needed a miracle. So she consulted the prophet Elisha. Here’s what the text says:

Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”
2 Kings 4:2 NIV

Here we find something profoundly important.

The woman was focused on what she didn’t have. She didn’t have the money to pay off the debt. But God, through the prophet, changed her focus from what she didn’t have to what she did have.

She had a jar of olive oil.

God starts with what we have. It may be small. It may seem insignificant, but God multiplies what we have.

Years ago I dreamed of owning a home in the country. I was desperately poor at the time; if I told you my income you probably wouldn’t believe me.

But I felt like God wanted me to start with what I had. So I put some money in a jar—it was everything I had on me at the time, $1.78 I believe. I closed the lid, labeled the jar “House in country.” (Every so often I added a few coins. The jar I’m holding contains two dollar bills, 33 quarters, 21 dimes, 13 nickels, and 13 pennies.)

And every time I walked by that jar, I was inspired to believe that God could do the impossible.

And He did. Through a series of miracles, God provided us with a home in the country—a nice home built in 2016 with new appliances that actually work all the time (that was a new experience for us). And last year, we were even able to add a one bedroom apartment onto our home so my 92 year old mother could come and live with us.

Back to our story. The prophet Elisha told the woman to borrow as many empty jars as she could. Then she poured oil from her jar to fill all the others. After selling the oil, she had money not only to pay off the debt, but to start a new life with her young sons.

What you desperately need you already have—in part. Take what you have, hold it up to God, and watch Him do something amazing in your life.

Be encouraged!

Dwight

PS. I know I haven’t posted here for a while. Here are a couple of recent videos I posted:

A message to JD Vance

Could this be a place for you? Empower Good groups

And this Saturday at 10 am I’ve scheduled a video to help you identify your Kingdom Style.