The reality is we are all daily in need of confession and repentance, daily in need of counsel and accountability within the body of Christ, and daily in need of longsuffering grace in order to strive together as Christians. Do not put off this vital warning until tomorrow. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, tomorrow may just be too late.

Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.—Hebrews 3:13
I was thinking this past week about cases where a person who has been a professed believer, maybe even a well-known Christian leader, falls into public sin or even apostasy, walking away from the Christian faith. Sadly, there have been many such cases in the news lately.
We often think, and maybe even say, afterward that in hind sight there were some tendencies we could see in that person’s life that led to their eventual demise:
“I did notice he treated his wife very coldly, so come to think of it adultery is not that surprising”,or“I do recall now that they were always seeking approval from people, so I suppose its only natural that they followed that bad crowd,”or“I did hear her constantly complaining about her circumstances, so I guess we shouldn’t be shocked that she ended up declaring she was angry with God and deciding not to be a Christian any more.”
But the fact is, those tendencies toward destructive sin, even apostasy, are alive in every one of us every day!

We must not put off until tomorrow the repentance that is needed today.

There is not a human alive who does not struggle every day with some sin that, if left unchecked, will bring him or her to spiritual ruin.
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The pro-abortion movement doesn’t ignore babies: they murder them. The pro-life movement, however, protects babies and their mothers. As for the ridiculous claim that the pro-life movement needs to embrace essentially leftist or socialist causes in order to prove we’re authentically pro-life: no. 

One of the biggest myths about abortion today is that the pro-life movement doesn’t help mothers. But I guess that shouldn’t be surprising.
Any culture that believes they’re helping mothers by encouraging them to kill their own children shouldn’t be expected to know what it really means to help mothers.
When people who kill children are considered heroes—of course, people who save children will be considered villains.
Therefore since the leak that America’s Supreme Court is set to revoke Roe v. Wade, critics of the pro-life movement have become even more devoted to that myth.
The critics say the pro-life movement isn’t “pro-life from womb to tomb” or “holistically pro-life”. They say we’re just “pro-birth and anti-abortion”. They say we don’t care about mothers, we only care about babies; otherwise, we would support socialist healthcare, paid parental leave, “free” child care, and more.
Essentially, they claim the pro-life movement doesn’t help mothers.
As you’ve probably noticed on social media—increasingly, some of these critics are professing pro-life Christians, including organizations like And Campaign and influential evangelicals like Russell Moore.
Earlier this week, Russell Moore said: “If in fact Roe is overturned, those of us who are pro-life must work to convince our neighbors that we can and will love and protect both mothers and children.”
And a few years ago, an ad from The And Campaign shamefully described the pro-life movement as “protecting the unborn baby (but) ignoring the mother”. And worse, they described the pro-abortion movement as “protecting the mother (but) ignoring the unborn baby.”
It’s depressing that many professing Christians are embracing talking points from abortion activists. Some professing Christians really believe the pro-life movement ignores mothers? And they really believe the pro-abortion movement protects mothers?
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A Christian is compelled to do good works not so she might earn God’s favor but in response to receiving God’s favor as a divine gift. She puts that love on display by loving God and neighbor. Despite our inability to keep it, God’s law remains a perfect blueprint for loving God and neighbor. When we fall short, as we undoubtedly will, we can run back to Christ (instead of running from him in fear).

In recent years, it’s become commonplace for employers to put underperforming employees on a performance improvement plan (PIP). Though they’re often interpreted by the employee as a sign that termination is inevitable, PIPs crystallize job expectations and highlight the ways a worker is falling short. This covers the employer in the event of termination, and it removes cause for accusation on the employee’s part.
I thought about this modern practice when I read Old Testament scholar Stephen Dempster’s observation about God’s law in his book Dominion and Dynasty: “Israel is treated differently after [receiving the Ten Commandments at] Sinai. Pre-Sinai violations lead to reprimand; post-Sinai trespass[es] lead to death.”
Dempster wouldn’t call the law a PIP, but he observes one sense in which it functions similarly: it clearly reveals where Israel has fallen short of God’s standard. It shows them where they haven’t lived up to the performance God requires. But we’re in trouble if that’s our entire perspective on God’s law. When we look at the text, we find a bigger picture.
Our Poor Performance
God’s law is a perfect blueprint for human flourishing (Ps. 19:7). In this sense, God’s law is an encouragement to greater obedience. But it also reveals a massive problem: we can’t keep it.
Before they received the law, the Israelites grumbled and complained (Ex. 16). After the commandments were given, that attitude didn’t improve. What did change, however, was the severity of God’s response. God punished them with death (Num. 14). 
What’s going on here? Did God suddenly become stricter? God’s people’s performance before the law wasn’t any more stellar than it was after they received it. What changed? Before Sinai, God’s expectations hadn’t yet been written in stone. But after the people received their PIP, after expectations were clear, they tragically believed they possessed the inner strength to obey God’s demands (Ex. 24:3). So when the grumbling and ingratitude returned, some were literally terminated.
In Romans, Paul helps us understand:
If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. . . . I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. (Rom. 7:7, 9–11)
Like Paul’s, the Israelites’ sin lay dormant. But after the law was given and God’s metric was made clear, it was also clear how abysmal their performance was. The result was death.
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