Purity is the gatekeeper for everything precious and blissful in God's kingdom.

I had a God who knew my every desire. He also knew how I would fall. And yet he was waiting on the other side of my failure and my shattered dreams with some dreams of his own.

The fire to pursue God, the zeal to know God, and the humility to allow God to do whatever He pleases with our lives.

But the commission is now. The time to speak is when the Spirit of God boils the message so hot within you that it must come out. The time to write is when God Almighty presses his thumb against your heart and forces the words out like a steaming geyser.

If you want to live the Christian life, you will have to realize that Someone Else has to be in control.

And the flesh is that reprehensible preference for self that lurks within every one of our hearts. It is that base and selfish instinct to preserve our own interests at the expense of God's interests. It's devious, it's deceitful, it's self-indulgent. It's interested only in selfish comfort and will happily crucify Christ afresh to secure it. God also has another name for it- sin.

The Word of God is a treasure map. That treasure map is the most valuable thing you have until you get to that treasure.