When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.
We are saved not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit"</strong></em> Total Justification by faith was Martin Luther's great spiritual and theological breakthrough. It did not come easily. He had tried everything from sleeping on hard floors and fasting to climbing a staircase in Rome while kneeling in prayer. Monasteries, disciplines, confessions, masses, absolutions, good works-all proved fruitless. Peace with God eluded him. The thought of the righteousness of God pursued him. He hated the very word "righteousness," which he believed provided a divine mandate to condemn him. Light finally dawned for Luther as he meditated on Romans 1:17, "<em>For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith</em>." He saw for the first time that the righteousness Paul ha...
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