What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own.

What is the essence of evil? It is forsaking a living fountain for broken cisterns. God gets derision and we get death. They are one: choosing sugarcoated misery we mock the lifegiving God. It was meant to be another way: God's glory exalted in our everlasting joy.

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

We weren't meant to be somebody--we were meant to know Somebody

The strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours.

Do you feel more loved when God makes much of you or do you feel more loved when God at the cost of His Son allows you to make much of Him?

Suffering in the path of Christian obedience, with joy - because the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3) - is the clearest display of the worth of God in our lives. Therefore, faith-filled suffering is essential in this world for the most intense, authentic worship. When we are most satisfied with God in suffering, he will be most glorified in us in worship. Our problem is not styles of music. Our problem is styles of life. When we embrace more affliction for the worth of Christ, there will be more fruit in the worship of Christ.