Forgiveness costs us nothing. All our costly obedience is the fruit, not the root, of being forgiven. That's why we call it grace.

Isn't it ironic that today people say, 'If you know the love of God, you don't have to worry when you go on in sin.' But the apostle John said, 'If you know the love of God, you won't be able to go on in sin.'

If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full.

The cost of food in the kingdom is hunger for the Bread of Life.

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over all other joys and therefore sways the will. The will is free to move toward whatever it delights in most fully, but it is not within the power of our will to determine what that sovereign joy will be.

The Bible says he was raised not just after the blood-shedding, but by it. This means that what the death of Christ accomplished was so full and so prefect that the resurrection was the reward and vindication of Christ's achievement in death.

Where the Bible is esteemed as the inspired and inerrant Word of God, preaching can flourish. But where the Bible is treated merely as a record of valuable religious insight, preaching dies.