Why doesn't God just force us to do the things he knows to be right? It is because that would lose precisely that which he has intended in our creation: freely chosen character.

The true saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on takeoff.

A leader enables people to love and honor the role they play in the organization or group they are part of

The needed transformation is very largely a matter of replacing in ourselves those idea systems of evil (and their corresponding cultures) with the idea system that Jesus Christ embodied and taught and with a culture of the kingdom of God.

Grace is not opposed to effort; it's opposed to earning.

Suppose our failures occur, not in spite of what we are doing, but precisely because of it.

The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best.