Chapter 30: Enough for Me — Grace Is Bigger Than Our Tribe

I need to confess something before I earn the right to say any of this.

For most of my life as a believer, I was the man with the sharpest sword and the coldest eyes in the sovereign grace world. If you were an Arminian, I had you pegged before you finished your first sentence. Freewiller. Unbeliever. Lost. Done. It didn’t matter what you said about Christ. It didn’t matter if you wept over your sin or showed every evidence of love for the Lord and His people. If your theology was wrong on the sovereignty of God in salvation, I could dismantle your position in five minutes flat. I knew the arguments cold. I could quote the Scriptures, lay out the logical implications, and drive the point home until there was nothing left to say. And when my opponent had no answer, I felt good about it. I thought I was defending the Gospel. I thought I was contending for the faith.

But what I was really doing, at least in part, was feeding the pride monster. I was so right, that I was wrong. And I didn’t even see it.

I’ve been called a compromiser more times than I can count. I’ve been called an arch-heretic of the first order. I’ve been called an unbeliever by people who claim to believe in sovereign grace. I’ve had men I considered friends preach against me from pulpits without ever picking up the phone. And the show must go on. Because none of that changed the truth. And none of it stopped me from following the truth wherever it led. Even when it led somewhere I didn’t want to go.

And it led me here. To the last chapter of the hardest material I’ve ever written. After twenty-nine chapters of the sharpest theology I know how to hold, the last word is love. Not despite the theology. Because of it.

The Sharpest Doctrine Produces the Widest Arms

You have read this book. You know what it says.

It says reality is a thought in the mind of God. It says the decrees are supralapsarian, that God ordained everything from the end to the beginning, that permission is sovereignty with plausible deniability. It says God creates evil. It says the elect and the reprobate are two different seeds, ontologically distinct, a rock and an apple in the same biological suit. It says the image of God belongs to the elect only. It says the reprobate are devils in human form. It says there is no federal headship, no common grace, no offer of the Gospel to the non-elect. It says the law is entirely finished. It says baptismal regeneration is a lie, and both paedobaptist and Baptist mandates are condemned. It says heaven and hell are the same reality experienced through different firmware.

That is the hardest set of doctrines anyone has put in print in a very long time. And I believe every word of it. I have defended every word of it. I have shown you the Scriptures, the logic, and the lived experience that produced it. And I have not softened a single edge.

And now I am going to tell you that if someone comes to me confessing Christ and resting in Him alone for salvation, I call them brother. Regardless of what theological label they wear. Even if they call themselves an Arminian. Even if they sit in a Catholic pew. Even if they raise their hands in a Pentecostal worship service. Even if they belong to a Methodist church or a Lutheran congregation or a denomination whose official confession I would take apart point by point.

I am not saying those institutions are true representations of the Gospel. Most of them are not. I am saying that God’s elect are scattered. They are scattered across every camp, every denomination, every tradition, every continent. The Spirit blows where He wills, and He has never once asked an institution’s permission before regenerating a soul. There are elect in churches whose doctrinal statements would make me cringe. And there are reprobate in churches whose confessions are flawless. The institution does not save. Christ saves. And Christ has His people everywhere.

And I need you to understand: that is not a contradiction. That is not a departure from anything I’ve written in this book. It is the conclusion of everything I’ve written in this book. The sharpest doctrine produces the widest arms. And if you can’t see how, you haven’t followed the logic to where it leads.

The Hinge

Here is the argument. And it turns on a single sentence. A sentence I arrived at slowly, over years, through the painful process of watching the sovereign grace world eat itself alive while the people I had dismissed as theological enemies were producing the fruit of the Spirit in ways that put me to shame.

The sentence is this: if correct doctrine does not save, then incorrect doctrine does not necessarily damn.

That is the hinge of everything that follows. Christ saves. Christ alone. Not your theology about Christ. Christ Himself.

Now, every sovereign grace believer I know would affirm the first half of that sentence. Of course correct doctrine doesn’t save. We preach that. We write articles about it. We warn people not to trust in their knowledge. I wrote about it years ago in “Your Knowledge Won’t Save You,” where I opened with John 5:39 and told the sovereign grace world that the Pharisees thought their knowledge of the Scriptures was eternal life, and that some of us were making the same mistake. I believed every word of it then. I still do.

But here is where we have to be honest about where that belief leads. If your understanding of unconditional election and limited atonement and irresistible grace is not what purchased your redemption, then a lack of that understanding cannot forfeit it. Christ’s blood is what saves. Christ’s righteousness is what justifies. Christ’s substitutionary death is what satisfies the wrath of God. And none of those things depend on your ability to articulate how they work.

“It is finished.” (John 19:30)

Finished. Not mostly finished. Not finished pending your correct doctrinal formulation. Not finished contingent on your ability to explain the five points. Finished. And if it is finished, then it is finished for every soul Christ died for, regardless of whether that soul can pass a theology exam.

Sovereignty Taken to Its Logical End

Now I need to make something very clear, because some of you are already composing your response before you’ve finished reading. What I am about to say is not a departure from sovereign grace theology. It is sovereign grace theology. It is the same thing I have argued for twenty-nine chapters, followed all the way to where it leads. And where it leads is a place that makes a lot of sovereign grace people very uncomfortable. But I didn’t invent the logic. I just stopped fighting it.

Think of it this way. If I tell you there is a beautiful oak tree in my yard, you know something true. You know there is a tree. It is an oak. It is beautiful. But if I then tell you about the root system, the way it draws water from deep in the ground, the way the branches spread out to provide shade, the way the leaves turn golden in the fall, the way it withstands storms because of how deeply it is anchored, I have not changed what the tree is. I have simply given you a fuller picture of the same tree. And that is what the doctrines of grace do with the gospel. They do not change the simple truth that we are saved by Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone. They show you why that is true. They show you how that is possible. And they show you what God did behind the scenes, before the foundation of the world, to bring His people to faith and to keep them there forever. You do not need to understand the root system of an oak tree to enjoy the shade it provides. The shade is real whether you understand the roots or not. The tree holds you up whether you have studied its structure or not. But when you do begin to see those roots, when you do begin to trace out how deep and how wide and how strong this grace really is, it does not scare you. It makes you marvel.

If salvation is entirely the work of Christ, from beginning to end, with no contribution from man whatsoever, then what saves a person is not their understanding of how salvation works. What saves a person is Christ. His blood. His righteousness. His death. His resurrection. The work was accomplished before any of us drew our first breath. And if the work is His and not ours, then a person can be saved by Christ while still being confused about how Christ saves. That is not a contradiction. That is sovereignty. God does not need your theological precision to accomplish His purposes in a soul.

I have argued in this book that salvation is entirely monergistic. That God does it all. That man contributes nothing. That the elect are regenerated by the sovereign act of the Spirit, not by their own decision, their own will, or their own theological understanding. I have insisted on this. I have driven it into the ground. And now I am going to follow it to its conclusion.

If God does it all, then God does it all. Including the part where He saves people who don’t yet understand how He saves them. Including the part where He regenerates a soul that is still using the wrong theological vocabulary. Including the part where He opens eyes that are still wearing the wrong doctrinal prescription.

Think about the thief on the cross.

“And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43)

What did that man know about the doctrines of grace? What did he know about unconditional election, or limited atonement, or irresistible grace, or the perseverance of the saints? He knew nothing about those things. He had no systematic theology. He had no confession of faith. He had no doctrinal exam to pass. He had Christ. And Christ said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

That was enough. Christ was enough.

And the Philippian jailer. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:30-31). Paul and Silas did not say, “First, affirm that God from eternity past has unconditionally chosen certain ones unto salvation, that Christ died for the elect only, that faith is God’s sovereign gift imparted by the Holy Spirit when He regenerates the individual, and that the atonement is particular and effectual.” They did not say that. They said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” And the man was saved.

Was all of that Calvinistic doctrine true? Every word. I believe it all. But Paul did not make it a condition of saving faith. And neither does Scripture anywhere else. There is a difference between the doctrines that describe how God saves and what a person must believe to be saved. The doctrines of sovereign grace describe the mechanics of salvation with beautiful precision. They are true. They are precious. They magnify the glory of God. But they are not the object of saving faith. Christ is.

The Test

So here is the question I now ask. And it is the only question that matters.

Who are you resting in?

Not “can you articulate unconditional election?” Not “do you understand the logical order of the decrees?” Not “can you explain the difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism?” I have spent twenty-nine chapters on those things, and I believe they are true and important and worth every word. But they are not the test.

The test is: who are you resting in? What is your hope? Where is your confidence? And if someone says to me, “Christ alone, His righteousness alone, not my own,” that is enough for me. I call them brother. I embrace them. And I leave the rest to the Lord.

“Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4)

The man you are judging does not belong to you. He belongs to God. And God is able to make him stand. Not you. Not your doctrinal examination. God.

And John wrote, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” (1 John 3:14). Notice what John says the evidence of passing from death unto life is. It is not doctrinal precision. It is not your ability to articulate the five points. It is love. Love for the brethren. And if love is the evidence of life, then a lack of love is the evidence of death. I would encourage every man who has ever written off a fellow confessor of Christ as an unbeliever over a doctrinal disagreement to sit with that verse for a long while and let it do its work.

What I See Now

Henry Mahan once asked a question that I have never been able to shake: “Where can I go this Lord’s Day and hear the mercy of God and not the mechanics of grace?” That question cuts to the bone. Because the sovereign grace world has become experts at the mechanics. We can outline the order of salvation. We can diagram the covenant of grace. We can debate the finer points of doctrine and give you five points this and three steps that. But somewhere along the way, we forgot to talk about mercy. We forgot to talk about a Savior who loves sinners, who died for the ungodly, who welcomes the weary and the heavy laden. We straightened out people’s heads and neglected their hearts. We made them theologically precise and left them spiritually dry. We gave them the mechanics of grace, but they never tasted the mercy of God.

I used to be the guy who drew a hard line. And I drew it because the logic was clean. Too clean. Clean logic has a way of making you feel righteous when what you really are is cold. I could win every argument. I could expose every error. And I was miserable. Because there is no joy in being the doctrine police. There is no peace in spending your life making sure everyone around you has their theology exactly right before you will acknowledge them as a brother in Christ.

The Pharisees won every argument too. They had the Scriptures memorized. They had the law down cold. And they couldn’t see the Messiah standing right in front of them.

And the more I sat with that, the more I had to reckon with something I’d been avoiding. If the fruit of the Spirit is the evidence of the Spirit’s work, and I was seeing that fruit in people whose theology I disagreed with, what did that mean? Was I really prepared to look at someone who was resting in Christ, who loved the Lord, who showed kindness and humility and gentleness and the marks of the Spirit’s work, and tell them they were an unbeliever because they couldn’t articulate the doctrine of unconditional election?

I wasn’t. Not anymore.

Because here is what I saw. The sharpest theological minds I knew, men who could run circles around any Arminian in a debate, were producing rotten fruit. Cruelty. Arrogance. Slander. Division. They could quote John Gill and Augustus Toplady all day long but couldn’t sit across from a hurting person and just listen. They turned sovereign grace into a club to beat people with instead of a comfort to rest in. And some of the people I had dismissed as freewillers, people whose theology I would have torn apart in a heartbeat, were producing the fruit of the Spirit in ways that shamed me.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-2)

Nothing. All your knowledge, all your correct theology, all your ability to defend the faith. Without love, it amounts to nothing. Paul said it. Not me.

The Confusion, Not the Rebellion

Now, I want to be very precise about what I mean, because there is a distinction here that matters.

A person who truly and consistently believes they are saved by their own willing and running cannot have been regenerated yet. A hardened, consistent freewiller who insists that God cannot save without human permission, who genuinely believes that man’s will is the deciding factor in salvation, who has thought through the implications of that position and embraces them, that person has dethroned God and enthroned man. That is a different gospel. I have not moved on that.

But most people who call themselves Arminians don’t actually believe what consistent Arminianism teaches. They use freewiller language because that is the language they were raised with, not because they have thought through the implications. Many people inconsistently confess both grace and works. They ascribe their salvation wholly to God’s grace, and yet speak of having chosen Christ, of having free will. Usually this is the fault of the teaching they have received, not the state of their hearts. They say “I chose Christ” and then in the very next breath thank God for saving them as though the whole thing was His doing. And in their hearts, it was. They just don’t have the vocabulary yet.

I have watched this happen more times than I can count. Someone will use every wrong phrase in the book. They will say “I accepted Christ” and “God gave me a free will” and “I made a decision.” And my trained sovereign grace ears will bristle at every syllable. But then you sit down with them. You actually talk to them. You ask them what they actually believe. And they will tell you, “It’s all Him. I didn’t deserve any of it. He saved me. I can’t explain it. He just did.” And they mean it. They are describing their experience of regeneration in the only language they have ever been taught. They are confused, not rebellious.

And it is our job to be patient with them. Not to write them off.

In Joshua 22, the tribes of Israel nearly went to war with the children of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh over an altar they built in Gilead. The rest of Israel saw it and assumed it was idolatry. They were furious. They were ready to fight their own brethren over it. And in their minds, they were righteous. They had seen the consequences of idolatry. They knew what was at stake. But when they finally stopped and asked their brethren what the altar was for, they found out it wasn’t idolatrous at all. It was a memorial. A witness between them and their children that they too belonged to the Lord. They had misjudged the heart of their brethren. And they nearly went to battle over something that could have been cleared up by talking.

How many times have we done this in the sovereign grace world? How many times have we heard someone use the wrong phrase, seen them hold the wrong position on some secondary matter, and immediately marched into battle without ever sitting down to ask them what they actually believe?

I know I have. And it grieves me.

Christ Saves Through the Cracks

Here is the truth that the entire system of this book demands, if you follow it honestly.

Christ saves through the cracks in bad theology just as easily as He saves through the front door of good theology. He is sovereign over all of it.

If I have argued anything in this book, I have argued that God is sovereign over everything. That nothing happens outside His will. That nothing catches Him off guard. That He authors every frame of the story, including the frames where His children hold confused and incomplete theology. And if that is true, then Christ’s blood does not become less effectual because the person it was shed for cannot explain the five points of Calvinism. The blood works. The righteousness is imputed. The Spirit regenerates. And He does all of it without consulting our doctrinal statements.

Doctrine is about propositions. Saving faith is about personal trust. A person can have genuine, personal, saving trust in Christ while still being confused about the propositions that describe how that trust came to be. Doctrine knows that all men are sinful. Saving faith believes that I am the sinner, the chief of sinners. Doctrine knows that Christ died for sinners. Saving faith believes that the only way the sin of a sinner like me could be forgiven is if Christ died for me. The trust is what matters. The trust is the evidence of the Spirit’s work. Not the theological vocabulary.

Don Fortner said it plainly: “You don’t get to Christ by doctrine. You get to doctrine by Christ. Saving knowledge is not what you know, but who.”

And Spurgeon saw it too. His argument was that the Arminian is usually woefully inconsistent. He may call himself a freewiller, but when he gets on his knees to pray, he prays like a Calvinist. He doesn’t thank God for his own free will. He thanks God for saving him. Spurgeon called Arminian theology heresy, and I agree with him on that. But he did not write off every Arminian as unregenerate. He was hard on the doctrine and patient with the people. And for that, he still gathers criticism from the heresy hunters to this day.

“For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)

That verse should humble every sovereign grace believer into silence when it comes to pronouncing judgment on another man’s soul. What do you have that was not given? What truth do you hold that you arrived at by your own strength? None of it. All of it is a gift. And if it is all a gift, then the man who has not received the same gift as you is not your enemy. He is someone the Lord has not yet taught. Or someone the Lord is teaching differently. Or someone the Lord is teaching slowly. And who are you to rush the work of God?

Why This Is the Point of the Whole Book

I told you in the prologue that after holding the hardest theology I know how to hold, the last word is love. And I meant it. This chapter is not an afterthought. It is not a softening at the end to make the hard stuff go down easier. This chapter is the point.

Because here is what I have learned in more than two decades of writing theology. The man who holds the hardest positions should be the man who extends the most grace. And the reason is not complicated. If salvation is entirely Christ’s work, with no contribution from man, then the man who truly believes that has no reason to hold anyone’s theology against them. Not their bad theology. Not their confused theology. Not their inherited-from-a-false-religious-environment theology. Because none of it is a condition of salvation. Christ is the condition. Christ did it. Christ finished it. Christ paid for it. And Christ applies it by His Spirit to whom He pleases, when He pleases, in whatever state of doctrinal confusion He finds them in.

That is not a soft position. That is the hardest position in this book. Because it requires you to let go of the one thing sovereign grace people hold tightest: the right to decide who is in and who is out.

God was patient with me when my theology was a mess. God was patient with me when I was a freewiller who didn’t know any better. God was patient with me when I was a puffed up Calvinist who thought his knowledge made him righteous. And God is patient with me now, as I continue to grow and learn and shed the things that don’t belong. If God can be that patient with me, who am I to be impatient with someone else?

“Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)

If I am going to err, and I will err, because I am a man and I do not have perfect knowledge, then let it be love. Let it be on the side of embracing someone who confesses Christ rather than shutting the door on them because their vocabulary doesn’t match mine. A loveless guard at the gospel gate is the greater wound. That is what I believe now. And I believe it because sovereign grace demands it.

The Song That Says It Better

I wrote a song about all of this. It’s called “Enough for Me.” And the chorus says it better than this whole chapter does:

If you’re resting in Christ alone, not in something you’ve done or shown, then brother, that’s enough for me.

That is where I have landed. And I am at peace with it. Not because I have compromised. Not because I have gone soft. But because I followed the doctrine I have preached all the way to where it leads. And where it leads is a table wide enough for everyone who trusts Christ, whether they can articulate the mechanics or not.

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)

Not by your ability to win arguments. Not by your doctrinal precision. Not by how many Arminians you have refuted. By your love.

And sovereign grace, real sovereign grace, the kind that says God does it all and man does nothing, that kind of grace should produce more love than any other theology on earth. Because the man who truly believes God does it all has nothing left to hold over anyone. He can only look at every other confessor of Christ and say, “If God saved me through the mess of my own ignorance, He can save you through yours.”

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

Grace is bigger than our tribe. And love is the thing that stays.

Objections and Answers

“You’ve compromised the Gospel.”

I have followed it to its conclusion. The Gospel is that Christ saves His people by His work alone. If that is true, then conditioning salvation on correct knowledge of His work is the same error as conditioning salvation on correct behavior. You have swapped one human condition for another. The Arminian says you must choose correctly. The knowledge-Calvinist says you must understand correctly. Both are adding a human condition to what Christ accomplished alone. I am the one who has removed the human condition. You are the one who has kept it.

“You’re saying doctrine doesn’t matter.”

I am saying doctrine matters deeply. The doctrines of grace are the truth. God is sovereign over salvation. Christ died for the elect. Faith is a gift, not a work. Regeneration precedes belief. The atonement is particular and effectual. I have written twenty-nine chapters defending these things. I still preach them. I still publish them. But the doctrines of grace describe how God saves. They are not the object of saving faith. Christ is the object. A person can trust the right Savior while having incomplete understanding of the mechanics of that salvation. That is not a compromise of doctrine. That is a recognition that doctrine and saving faith, while related, are not the same thing.

“If Arminians can be saved, why preach sovereign grace at all?”

Because it is true. And the truth glorifies God. And knowing the truth produces deeper joy, stronger assurance, and greater worship. The doctrines of grace are not a ticket to heaven. They are the richest possible experience of the heaven you are already going to. You preach them because they are true and because they magnify the glory of God, not because they are the entry requirement. A man who has never tasted Burgundy can still enjoy wine. But the man who has tasted it knows what wine was meant to taste like. Sovereign grace is the Burgundy of theology. Preach it because it is glorious. Not because it is the gate.

“You’re being soft.”

I was hard. I described the fruit it produced in “What I See Now” — the sharpest minds producing the rottenest fruit, and the people I had dismissed producing the fruit of the Spirit. “By their fruit ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). You tell me which group looked more like Christ. I already know my answer. And I spent most of my life on the wrong side of it.

“So consistent Arminians can’t be saved?”

A person who truly and consistently believes God cannot save without human permission, who has thought through the implications of that position and embraces them, has denied the heart of the Gospel. But most Arminians are not that person. Most have never thought through the implications. Most are using language they inherited from bad teaching. Most, when you sit down and actually talk to them, will tell you it is all Christ, all His doing, all of grace. They just do not have the words. And it is the height of arrogance to damn someone because they lack a vocabulary that God has not yet given them.

“This is the most dangerous chapter in the book.”

No. Chapter 12, “The Two Seeds,” is the most dangerous chapter in this book. The chapter that says the reprobate are devils in human form, that the image of God belongs to the elect only, that the seeds are ontologically different. That is dangerous. This chapter is the most loving chapter in this book. And the fact that love feels dangerous to some sovereign grace ears is exactly the problem this chapter addresses. When love looks like compromise to you, the problem is not the love. The problem is the lens.

The Last Word

I started this book with a sentence. Everything that exists is a thought in the mind of God, sustained by His will, authored by His purpose, and held together by personal covenants of love.

I end with love. Not because I am softer than I used to be. But because the sentence demands it. If everything is held together by personal covenants of love, then love is the final word. Not doctrine. Not precision. Not the ability to articulate the mechanics of salvation. Love.

The hardest system in print. The widest arms.

“If I’m gonna err, let it be love.”

That is sovereign grace taken all the way home.

For Further Study

The following passages speak to the themes of this chapter and are commended to the reader for independent study.

Love as the supreme evidence of regeneration: John 13:34-35; John 15:12; John 15:17; Rom. 13:8-10; 1 John 2:9-11; 1 John 3:14; 1 John 3:16-18; 1 John 3:23; 1 John 4:7-8; 1 John 4:11-12; 1 John 4:20-21; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 Pet. 4:8; Gal. 5:14; Col. 3:14.

If correct doctrine does not save, incorrect doctrine does not damn: John 5:39-40; John 17:3; Luke 23:42-43; Acts 16:30-31; 1 John 5:11-12; 1 John 5:20; Matt. 7:22-23; Luke 10:20; Acts 4:12; Rom. 10:9-10; 1 Cor. 1:30; 1 Cor. 2:2; Phil. 3:8-9; Col. 2:2-3.

Against judging another man’s servant: Matt. 7:1-5; Luke 6:37; Rom. 14:1-4; Rom. 14:10-13; Rom. 14:19; James 4:11-12; 1 Cor. 4:3-5; Col. 3:12-13.

God’s elect scattered across all nations and circumstances: John 10:16; John 11:52; Acts 18:10; Rev. 5:9; Rev. 7:9; Isa. 49:6; Isa. 56:8; Matt. 8:11; Matt. 24:31; Mark 13:27; Luke 13:29.

Patience with those at different resolutions of understanding: Rom. 2:4; Rom. 14:1-3; Rom. 15:1-7; 1 Cor. 3:1-3; 1 Cor. 8:9-13; 1 Cor. 9:22; Gal. 6:1; Eph. 4:2-3; 2 Tim. 2:24-25; Heb. 5:12-14; 1 Thess. 5:14; 1 Pet. 3:8.

Sovereignty demanding humility, not gatekeeping: 1 Cor. 4:7; 1 Cor. 15:10; Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 2:3; Gal. 6:14; 2 Cor. 3:5; 2 Cor. 4:7; James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5-6; Mic. 6:8; Deut. 8:17-18.

The fruit of the Spirit as the true test of the Spirit’s work: Matt. 7:16-20; Matt. 12:33; Gal. 5:22-23; Eph. 5:9; Phil. 1:11; Col. 1:10; John 15:2; John 15:5; John 15:8; 2 Pet. 1:5-8; James 3:17-18.

“If I’m gonna err, let it be love” — the supremacy of love: 1 Cor. 13:1-13; 1 Cor. 16:14; Col. 3:14; 1 Pet. 4:8; 1 John 4:7-8; 1 John 4:16; Prov. 10:12; Prov. 17:9; Song 8:6-7; Matt. 22:37-40; Rom. 12:9-10; Heb. 13:1.