God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what He knows.

The amount which you understand the gospel is measured by your ability to be joyful in all circumstances. If you grasp what a treasure the presence and acceptance of God are, then even when life goes really wrong you will have a joy that sustains you, because you’ll recognize the value of what you have in Him. When life punches you in the face, you’ll say, ‘But I still have the love and acceptance of God, a treasure I don’t deserve.’ And the joy you find in that treasure can make you rejoice even when you have a bloody nose. You have a joy that death and depravation cannot touch.

The gospel points us upward to a God who gave himself for us, backward to the price he paid for our sin, and forward to what he’s making us into.

Focusing on what we ought to do for God creates only frustration and exhaustion; focusing on what Jesus has done for us produces abundant fruit. Resting in what Jesus has done for us releases the revolutionary power of the gospel.

Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts

The gospel has done its work in us when we crave God more than we crave everything else in life - more than money, romance, family, health, fame - and when seeing His kingdom advance in the lives of others gives us more joy than anything we could own. When we see Jesus as greater than anything the world can offer, we'll gladly let everything else go to possess Him.

Lord, as You have been to me, so I will be to others. As I pray, I'll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.