If what you are believing increases your self-image, it isn’t the gospel.

>According to Scripture, God deliberately designed the gospel in such a way so as to strip me of pride and leave me without any grounds for boasting in myself whatsoever (Eph 2; 1 Cor 1). This is actually a wonderful mercy from God, for pride is at the root of all my sin. Pride produced the first sin in the Garden (Gen 3), and pride always precedes every sinful stumbling in my life (Prov 16:18). Therefore, if I am to experience deliverance from sin, I must be delivered from the pride that produces it. Thankfully, the gospel is engineered to accomplish this deliverance.

Milton Vincent, Gospel Primer, 27

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