Paul sees all kinds of sins in himself and all kinds of accomplishments too, but he refuses to connect them with his identity.
God looks at the anxious and says, I tore my Son to shreds for you, and you’re afraid I will not give you what you need?
Reason can get you to probability, but only commitment can get you to certainty.
People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don’t be surprised by messiness.
You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.
Power, approval, comfort, and control are meta-idols that hold sway over our daily lives.
Jesus smashed two of the rich young ruler’s assumptions: Christianity is something you can ADD and something you can DO.
You are more sinful than you could dare imagine and you are more loved and accepted than you could ever dare hope.
The peace of God is not the absence of fear. It, in fact, is His presence.
If you aren’t constantly astonished at God’s grace in your solitude, there’s no way it can happen in public.
Love is the effort and desire to make someone else everything they were created to be.
The cross is the place where we find the freedom to accept ourselves without being proud and to challenge ourselves without being crushed.
If the church does not identify with the marginalized, it will itself be marginalized. This is God’s poetic justice.
Tolerance isn’t about not having beliefs. It’s about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you.
God made you to love him supremely, but he lost you. He returned to get you back, but it took the cross to do it. He absorbed your darkness so that one day you can finally and dazzlingly become your true self and take your seat at his eternal feast.
The ministry of mercy, then, is the best advertising a church can have. It convinces a community that this church provides people with actions for their problems, not only talk. It shows the community that this church is compassionate.
No one is exempt from trials and tribulations. In fact, this is often what happens to people God loves very much, for it is part of God’s often mysterious and good plan for turning us into something great.
We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to nonbelievers; we must also intentionally celebrate the gospel before them.
If you add anything to Jesus as a requirement for being happy, that’s your real king.
What you do today is shaped by what you believe about tomorrow.