You have been given a ministry and your ministry is not your job and your job and your ministry are two things and beyond that is your work in life which isn't the same as your ministry and then beyond that is your life. And this is what God is more interested in than your work or your ministry-what He gets out of your life is the person you become. And He has plans for you, and these are long-range plans.

The sinner is not the one who uses a lot of grace... The saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on take off.

When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.

Jesus came among us to show and teach the life for which we were made. He came very gently, opened access to the governance of God with him, and set afoot a conspiracy of freedom in truth among human beings. Having overcome death he remains among us. By relying on his word and presence we are enabled to reintegrate the little realm that makes up our life in the infinite rule of God. And that is the eternal kind of life. Caught up in his active rule, our deeds become an element in God’s eternal history. They are what God and we do together, making us part of his life and him a part of ours.

The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.

The prospering of God's cause on earth depends upon his people thinking well.

Jesus offers himself as God's doorway into the life that is truly life. Confidence in him leads us today, as in other times, to become his apprentices in eternal living. "Those who come though me will be safe," he said. "They will go in and out and find all they need. I have come into their world that they may have life, and life to the fullest.