The people to whom we minister and speak will not recall 99 percent of what we say to them, but they will never forget the kind of persons we are.

What is truly profound is thought to be stupid and trivial, or worse, boring, while what is actually stupid and trivial is thought to be profound. That is what it means to fly upside down.

Dallas Willard warns us too of the "cost of non-discipleship." We may be able to live with some pain, but when our whole self becomes more and more rotten, the cost is far greater than dealing with the problem as soon as possible. This is why I think following Jesus, though challenging, is much easier than following anything else. The world has nothing better to offer me. Jesus has come to right my wrongs and to make me refreshingly new.

I submit my tongue as an instrument of righteousness when I make it bless them that curse me and pray for them who persecute me, even though it "automatically" tends to strike and wound those who have wounded me. I submit my legs to God as instruments of righteousness when I engage them in physical labor as service, perhaps carrying a burden the "second mile" for someone whom I would rather let my legs kick. I submit my body to righteousness when I do my good deeds without letting them be known, though my whole frame cries out to strut and crow.

Two ways of thinking: Human kingdom and human cleverness or God's kingdom and God's cleverness

Our relations with others are not external. They enter into our very identity. And that's why people struggle with them so.

The union Christ had with the Father was the greatest that we can conceive of in this life-if indeed we can conceive of it.