Book Report: New Morning Mercies

New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional by Paul David Tripp

Of all the stunning realities of grace, one that constantly competes for first place is this—His mercies are new every morning. No matter how vast our failures, disappointments, or regrets of yesterday may feel, the Lord gifts us fresh gospel resources with each sunrise. This, friends, is spectacular news. “In a world where everything is in some state of decay, God’s mercies never grow old.” Paul celebrates the life, death, and resurrection of Christ in this year-long devotional, encouraging readers to ponder the constantly unfurling practical grace of the cross.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

As the gospel puts you in your place, it also puts praise in your mouth.

If you’re God’s child, you are a gallery of His glorious grace. The walls of your heart have been festooned with the gorgeous artwork of redemption: wisdom for the foolishness of sin, power for the weakness of sin, forgiveness for the guilt of sin, and deliverance from the bondage of sin. Grace means that beautiful things are being done for you and happening within you.

Because your story is woven into the fabric of the redemption story, there is meaning, purpose, and direction to every part of it. The inertia of redemption carries your story along.

He knows that sometimes you need the storm in order to be able to see the glory.

When you hit hard times, when your weakness is exposed, be ready for the enemy to whisper in your ear, “Where is your God now?” and be ready to respond, “He is where He has been and always will be—with me in power, glory, and grace.”

Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing to come to the end of your rope if at the end of your rope you find a strong and willing Savior.

Here is grace—that God would choose to splash His eternal glory down on inglorious, unthankful, rebellious, and self-oriented people such as us.

I wish I could tell you how hard it is to boil down a year’s worth of highlights to one big takeaway, but you’ll just have to use your imagination. The concept I eventually landed on was this:

You don’t protect the message of the gospel by denying your own spiritual struggles, and God surely doesn’t need you to defend His reputation by faking it.

“Everything you do reflects on this family. Remember that.” My parents often let such parting words serve as a vivid reminder that I didn’t exist in a vacuum. While this sentiment was helpful in raising conscientious family members who valued bringing honor to one another, the idea ultimately filtered into my spiritual life and warped into a draining game of “hide your problems for the sake of the family name.” Even as a pastor’s wife, I’ve been crushed by the pressure to be (or at least appear) perfect to keep my Father from looking bad. But guess how much room this gives the gospel to really work in, around, and through me? Zero. Grace requires honesty to be effective, so God’s family runs on genuine need and ample mercy. There’s room on the struggle bus for us all.

Journaling questions include:

• Where am I tempted to think of myself as a grace graduate?
• Whom have I invited to intrude into my private space to help me see reality?
• Is grumbling the ambient noise of my existence?
• When am I most tempted to present myself as more ready, knowledgeable, and capable than I really am?
• In what ways have I been an identity amnesiac? How can I look up and remember my God?
• Where do I feel troubled, inadequate, weak, defeated, overwhelmed, alienated, or alone?
• What do I really want in life: the success of God’s agenda of grace or the fulfillment of my catalog of desires?
• Where am I seeing an allegiance to my own glory?
• Am I satisfied in areas where God is dissatisfied?
• What have I been saying to me?