Likewise, we continue to follow Jesus as we struggle with sin. Repentance ushers us into a life of greater struggle, not out of one.
Abiding in Jesus means understanding that His acceptance of us is the same regardless of the amount of spiritual fruit we have produced.
His love is the soil in which all the fruits of the Spirit grow. When our roots abide there, then joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control grow naturally in our hearts.
The gospel has done its work in us when we crave God more than we crave everything else in life.
Being able to articulate the gospel with accuracy is one thing; having its truth captivate your soul is quite another.
God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what He knows.
Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts.
In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more and nothing I have done that makes You love me less.
It is one thing to understand the gospel but is quite another to experience the gospel in such a way that it fundamentally changes us and becomes the source of our identity and security.
Focusing on what we ought to do for God creates only frustration and exhaustion; focusing on what Jesus has done for us produces abundant fruit. Resting in what Jesus has done for us releases the revolutionary power of the gospel.
True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God.
At your church, the week is more important than the weekend. Empower people and send them out for the week.
Faith is not the absence of doubt; it is continuing to follow Jesus in the midst of doubt.
When something becomes so important to you that it drives your behavior and commands your emotions, you are worshipping it.
My identity and my security are not in my spiritual progress. My identity and my security are in God’s acceptance of me given as a gift in Christ.
Lord, as You have been to me, so I will be to others. As I pray, I’ll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.
In a post-Christian, skeptical age, love on display is the most convincing apologetic.
A Christianity that does not have as its primary focus the deepening of passions for God is a false Christianity, no matter how zealously it seeks conversions or how forcefully it advocates righteous behavior.