Thank You

Thank you to God our Father, and to the Lord Jesus Christ — from the heart of a forgiven, rotten sinner saved by the precious blood of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

That sentence is the reason this website exists. If you read nothing else here, it is the one line I would want you to carry away.

I am not a good man who found religion. I am not a decent person who improved himself and now has advice to offer. Before God I was rotten — not damaged, not struggling, not doing my best under difficult circumstances. Rotten. And the worst of it was never the sins that other people could see. It was what I knew about myself that nobody else did: the thoughts I would not have repeated aloud, the motives underneath the good deeds, the man I was when no one was watching.

So when Scripture says our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, I do not find it harsh. I find it accurate. The best things I ever did were shot through with pride, and I knew it even while I was doing them.

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6)

And when the apostle Paul calls himself the chief of sinners, I do not read false modesty from a great man. I read the only honest position any of us can take once the lights are on.

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." (1 Timothy 1:15)

How, then, does a man like that come to write anything at all about God?

Only because of what was done for him — and none of it by him.

Thank you, Father, that You did not deal with me after my sins. That You waited, through years I would rather not describe, while I proved I did not need You. That You looked on a man with nothing to bring and no argument to make, and did not turn away. That You sent Your only begotten Son, knowing exactly what it would cost You, and knowing exactly what I was.

Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that You came all the way down. That You were born in a stable, worked in a carpenter's shop, were misunderstood by Your own family, betrayed by a friend, condemned by religious men, and nailed to a Roman cross — for people who did not want You.

Thank You that You did not come for the respectable. Thank You that when they accused You of eating with sinners, You never once denied it.

And thank You for the blood. Not the example, not the teaching, not sympathy — the blood. Because nothing less could have reached what I was.

"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold... But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." (1 Peter 1:18-19)

"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." (Revelation 1:5)

Washed. That word still undoes me. Not excused. Not overlooked. Not quietly filed away where it would never be mentioned again. Washed — as though it had never been there at all. I have met men who can forgive and not forget, and I understood them; God does something no man has ever managed, and He does it at His own expense.

John the Baptist saw Him coming and said one sentence, and it holds the whole gospel:

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)

He takes it away. He does not help you carry it.

Everything on this website comes out of that, and nothing comes out of me. If a single line here helps a soul, it will be because God used something He gave in the first place. If any of it is wrong, that part is mine, and I would rather be corrected.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am." (1 Corinthians 15:10)

So nothing here is sold. Nothing sits behind a payment. There is no membership, no mailing list, no appeal for support, and no man's name being built. Copy anything you find useful. Print it, preach it, translate it, hand it to someone who needs it more than you do. It was never mine to keep.

And if you have come to this page carrying something you believe is beyond help — some habit you cannot break, some history you cannot undo, some thing you have never once said out loud to another living person — then hear it from a man who knows exactly what he was:

The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is enough for that too.

It was enough for me, and I was no borderline case. He did not clean me up first and then accept me. He took me as I was, which was the only way I could have come.