Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,’I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I’m signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It’s going to be hard but I want to get there.
It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.
If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.
The basic purpose of prayer is not to bend God’s will to mine, but to mold my will into His.
Jesus didn’t come to tell us the answers to the questions of life, he came to be the answer.
The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access.
In religion, you obey because God is useful. In Christianity, you obey because God is beautiful.
Legalistic remorse says, “I broke God’s rules,” while real repentance says, “I broke God’s heart.”
We need to remember that we are saved by grace when we fail. But we need to remember it much more when we succeed.
If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.
The basic premise of religion– that if you live a good life, things will go well for you– is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.
If we have not seen our sin and sought radical forgiveness from God, we will be unable to forgive and to seek the good of those who have wronged us.
It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her.
Jesus Christ was treated as we deserved so that when we believe in Jesus, God treats us as Jesus deserves.
Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.
We must have a strong inner life of fellowship and intimacy with Jesus if we are going to have a strong outer life of ministry.