Obedience does not consist in paying God back and thus turning grace into a trade. Obedience comes from trusting in God for more grace - future grace - and thus magnifying the infinite resources of God's love and power.

James says, "You desire and do not have; so you kill" (Jas. 4:2). We kill marriages and we kill unborn babies because they cut across our desires; they stand in the way of our unencumbered self-enhancement. And we live in a culture where self-enhancement and self-advancement is god. And if self-enhancement is god, then the One who is at work in the womb shaping a person in His own image is not God and the assault on His work is not sacrilegious, but obedience to the god of self.

The ultimate aim of the gospel is the display of God’s glory.

I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.

Nothing is more vital than prayer in Christian existence, and few things are more vulnerable to neglect.

The line of lovelessness is not drawn between speaking and doing, but between speaking and doing in the truth, and speaking and doing in emptiness. Truth turns word-love into deed-love.

I measure Your love for me by the magnitude of the wrath I deserved, and the wonder of Your mercy by putting Christ in my place.