"The Law and Gospel Distinguished" by Isaac Watts

The Law commands and makes us know
What duties to our God we owe;
But 'tis the Gospel must reveal
Where lies our strength to do his will.

The Law discovers guilt and sin
And shows how vile our hearts have been;
The Gospel only can express
Forgiving love and cleansing grace.

What curses doth the Law denounce
Against the man who fails but once!
But in the Gospel Christ appears,
Pardoning the guilt of numerous years.

My soul, no more attempt to draw
Thy life and comfort from the Law
Fly to the hope the Gospel gives;
The man that trusts the promise lives.

More teens becoming 'fake' Christians - CNN.com

"If you're the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning: Your child is following a 'mutant' form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.

Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls 'moralistic therapeutic deism.' Translation: It's a watered-down faith that portrays God as a 'divine therapist' whose chief goal is to boost people's self-esteem.

Dean is a minister, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of 'Almost Christian,' a new book that argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on this self-serving strain of Christianity.

She says this 'imposter'' faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.

'If this is the God they're seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust,' Dean says. 'Churches don't give them enough to be passionate about.'"

Read the rest of the article here...