I believe that the gospel and the American Dream have fundamentally different starting points. The American Dream begins with self, exalts self, says you are inherently good and you have in you what it takes to be successful so do all you can, work with everything you have to make much of yourself. The gospel begins with God, the reality that we were created to exalt his name to the ends of the earth.

As Elisabeth Elliot points out, not even dying a martyr’s death is classified as extraordinary obedience when you are following a Savior who died on a cross. Suddenly a martyr’s death seems like normal obedience.

Whereas disinfecting Christians involves isolating them and teaching them to be good, discipling Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to risk their lives for the sake of others. Now the world is our focus, and we gauge success in the church not on the hundreds or thousands whom we can get into our buildings but on the hundreds or thousands who are leaving our buildings to take on the world with the disciples they are making

We can rest confident in the fact that nothing will happen to us in this world apart from the gracious will of a sovereign God. Nothing.

The primary reward of the gospel - God himself

Salvation has absolutely nothing to do with human merit and absolutely everything to do with divine mercy.

By God’s design, he has wired his children for spiritual reproduction. He has woven into the fabric of every single Christian’s DNA a desire and ability to reproduce.