Day 9: Grace Teaches Us
What Christians Typically Believe: Rules and law are needed to keep us holy and prevent us from falling into sin.
The Biblical Truth: The grace of God teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness (Titus 2:11–12). Grace is not merely forgiveness — it is also empowering instruction.
Why It Matters: Grace produces genuine holiness from the heart, not superficial compliance. It trains us inwardly in a way that external rules never could, leading to sustainable victory over sin.
Day 8: Christ Lives in You
What Christians Typically Believe: Christianity is primarily “me trying harder to live for God” through greater dedication and discipline.
The Biblical Truth: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27). The Christian life is the living Christ expressing Himself through you.
Why It Matters: The Christian life becomes supernatural—His life expressed through you—rather than exhausting self-effort. This shifts everything from “I must” to “Christ in me,” producing fruit that lasts.
Day 7: The New Covenant
What Christians Typically Believe: Old Covenant principles (tithing, Sabbath rules, etc.) still apply to New Testament believers as guidelines or requirements.
The Biblical Truth: The Old Covenant is obsolete. God has given us a better covenant with better promises (Heb. 8:6–13; 2 Cor. 3:6–9). Jesus did not repair the old system — He replaced it.
Why It Matters: Living in the New Covenant releases internal transformation instead of external pressure. Laws written on the heart by the Spirit produce willing obedience that the old external code could never achieve.
Day 6: Complete in Christ
What Christians Typically Believe: You are incomplete and must improve yourself spiritually through constant effort and self-discipline to become acceptable to God.
The Biblical Truth: You are already complete in Christ (Col. 2:9–10; Heb. 10:14). His finished work has made you fully accepted and perfected forever in God’s sight.
Why It Matters: This ends the self-improvement treadmill and allows you to rest in His finished work. Instead of always striving to become something more, you begin enjoying who you already are in Christ, which paradoxically releases more genuine growth than self-effort ever could.
Day 5: Not Under Law
What Christians Typically Believe: We need a balance of law and grace. This “balance” often sounds wise but in practice means adding some law back into the gospel because pure grace is feared to produce careless living.
The Biblical Truth: You are not under law but under grace (Rom. 6:14; Gal. 5:18; Gal. 3:23–25). Mixing the two neutralizes the power of grace, like trying to drive with one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake. The law was never designed for the new creation.
Why It Matters: Any mixture frustrates grace. Pure grace is the only sustainable path to holiness. When led by the Spirit, you are not under law, and the resulting fruit is authentic and lasting. This unmixed gospel produces confident, joyful Christians who live holy lives from the heart.
Day 4: Died to the Law
What Christians Typically Believe: The Ten Commandments and moral law still guide and obligate believers for sanctification. Many are taught that while we are saved by grace, we are kept holy by continuing to live under the moral law.
The Biblical Truth: You died to the law through Christ’s body so you can belong to Him and bear fruit to God (Rom. 7:4–6; Gal. 2:19). Believers have been released from the entire law system. The law served as a temporary tutor until Christ came, but we are now married to another — the risen Christ.
Why It Matters: The law kills and provokes sin. Dying to it releases you from bondage and frustration into Spirit-empowered living. This severs the old marriage to rules and opens the way for a higher righteousness produced by the indwelling life of Christ rather than external pressure.
Day 3: New Creation Reality
What Christians Typically Believe: “I’m just a sinner saved by grace” — the old sinful nature still defines me. This leads many to spend their lives trying to suppress or “die to” an old self that they believe remains at their core.
The Biblical Truth: You are a brand-new creation with a new heart and new desires. The old has gone (2 Cor. 5:17; Ezek. 36:26–27; Gal. 2:20). God has removed the heart of stone and given a heart of flesh. Your core identity is now “in Christ,” and the old self was crucified with Him.
Why It Matters: Living from your true new identity produces authentic change, replacing self-focused sin management with Christ-focused living. New desires planted by the Spirit begin to flourish naturally. Instead of constantly battling the old nature, you reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God, leading to genuine transformation that flows from who you now are.
Day 2: No Condemnation
What Christians Typically Believe: God is disappointed or condemns us when we fail. Many believers walk on eggshells, sensing that while God loves them, He is frequently let down or angered by their shortcomings.
The Biblical Truth: There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus—ever (Rom. 8:1; Rom. 5:1; John 5:24). Condemnation was fully exhausted on the cross. Because you are joined to Christ, God now sees you exactly as He sees His own Son — fully pleasing and accepted.
Why It Matters: Freedom from shame allows you to run to God instead of hiding, transforming your relationship from fearful servant to beloved child. The Holy Spirit lifts your eyes back to the finished work rather than beating you down. This security becomes the healthy soil where real holiness grows best, fueled by perfect love instead of fear.
Day 1: Forgiveness
What Christians Typically Believe: Believers must regularly confess sins and ask God for forgiveness to restore fellowship or stay forgiven (using 1 John 1:9 as a daily requirement). Many have been trained to treat their relationship with God like a checking account that needs constant deposits of confession to stay in the black, creating a life of perpetual self-monitoring where every misstep sends them back to “get right with God again.”
The Biblical Truth: All sins—past, present, and future—were fully forgiven and cancelled at the cross. God remembers them no more (Col. 2:13–14; Heb. 10:14, 17–18; Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:12). When Jesus declared “It is finished,” He accomplished complete redemption. The blood of Jesus did not merely cover sin but removed it entirely from God’s sight.
Why It Matters: This ends the exhausting cycle of guilt management and sin-focused living, opening the door to constant, confident intimacy with God instead of a yo-yo relationship based on performance. Prayer shifts from duty to delighted communion, and the conscience is liberated because forgiveness is not maintained by our efforts but by Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice.
There is a teaching making the rounds on social media, popularized by Walter Wink, that claims that to "turn the other cheek" referred to a so-called cultural practice that a right-hand backhand slap on the right cheek was a shaming gesture from a superior to an inferior (e.g., master to slave), and turning the other cheek forces an open-handed (equal-to-equal) strike, thus asserting dignity.
Unfortunately, this teaching has no scriptural or historical support. The early Christians of the first three centuries took "turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:29) quite literally and their teachings reveal this. They treat "turn the other cheek" straightforwardly as a command to non-retaliation, patience under insult/injury, and overcoming evil through endurance rather than revenge.
These texts show continuity with the New Testament: the command promotes humility, de-escalation, and trust in God's justice over personal vengeance.
Right-hand dominance and taboos around the left hand (unclean) made a backhand the natural way to strike the right cheek. While there is cultural support in the broader Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts for bankhand strikes as insults (more demeaning, sometimes with higher legal penalties in Jewish law, e.g., Mishnah Bava Kamma on fines for backhand vs. open-hand slaps), the early Christians do not comment on the right/left cheek distinction as a social-status reversal tactic or equality assertion. If this was the intent behind "turn the other cheek," the early Christians of the first three centuries knew nothing of it. Especially considering this was their culture and society. Origen notes the right-cheek detail, but focuses on practical morality, not some "power dynamic." Such an understanding is absent from the earliest Christian interpreters, who quoted the verse literally and applied it to patience under "physical violence," "outrage," and persecution, emphasizing literal non-resistance amid real persecution. The early Christians treat "turn the other cheek" as non-retaliation and endurance, consistent with enemy-love.
Contrary to those individuals who claim "the phrase 'turn the other cheek' is often misunderstood to mean that one should passively accept abuse or mistreatment," the early Christians' overall witness strongly favoured pacifism or non-resistance in personal and military contexts, seeing "turn the other cheek" as lived out in martyrdom and refusal to return evil for evil. They do not add layers about social status reversal or forcing an "equal" open-hand strike; they emphasize humility, love for enemies, and trust in God's justice.
For those who are also ignorant enough to believe that Jesus gave cause for self-defense (protection of self, family, and property), you can read my thorough treatment of this false teaching here.