Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love. It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives. It’s about portraying something true about Jesus Christ and the way He relates to his people. It is about showing in real life the glory of the gospel.

Our lives become trivial. And our capacity for magnificent causes and great worship dies.

Adoption is the visible Gospel.

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.

This assumes that the glory of Christ is our highest treasure, not health, wealth, family or even life. So preaching must continually show not that Jesus is the means to prosperity but that he is better than prosperity.

The whole world lives for pleasure. The only difference is theirs is fleeting, while ours is forever in Jesus.

We have a name for those who try to praise when they have no pleasure in the object. We call them hypocrites.