Churches are not the kingdom of God, but are primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of presence of the kingdom among us. They are 'societies' of Jesus.

The main thing God gets out of your life is not the achievements you accomplish. It's the person you become.

When we receive God's gift of life by relying on Christ, we find that God comes to act with us as we rely on him in our actions.

In the story of the good Samaritan, Jesus not only teaches us to help people in need; more deeply, he teaches us that we cannot identify who “has it”, who is “in” with God, who is “blessed”, by looking at exteriors of any sort. That is a matter of the heart. There alone the kingdom of the heavens and human kingdoms great and small are knit together. Draw any cultural or social line you wish, and God will find his way beyond it.

The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.

Projects of personal transformation rarely succeed by accident, drift, or imposition.

To withhold our bodies from religion is to exclude religion from our lives.