Abigail

“It is the moral anesthetic of our day to ask God and our friends to only understand our sin from our point of view. This mind-set of seeing sin from a personal point of view has led to, at best, weak Christians crippled by sin and untouched by gospel power, or at worst, wolves in sheep’s clothing who hunker down with offices in the church, teaching feeble sheep a perverted catechism, one that renders sin grace and grace sin, one that confuses doubt with intelligence and skepticism with renewed hope. When we live by the belief that sin is best discerned from our own point of view, we cannot help but to develop a theology of excuse-righteousness. We become anesthetized to the reality of our own sin. One consequence of this moral anesthesia is the belief that you are in good standing with God if you give to him what the desires of your flesh can spare. But sin, biblically rendered, is both a crime and a disease, requiring both the law of God and his grace to apply it for true help.”
― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ

“The business of the Christian is not to desire just enough grace to be strong in ourselves. Indeed, strong personalities can and do make behavioral changes on the grounds of will, many of these for the good of their health and well-being. But there is no new life found in the fruit of a self-willed behavioral change. Only the risen Lord can give new life. What separates the admitting of sin from the confession of sin is the cross of Christ.”
― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ

“Desires for things God has forbidden are a reflection of how sin has distorted me, not how God has made me.”
― Sam Allberry

“Union with Christ is part of the saints’ armor.”
― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ