This is the centre of the gospel - this is what the Garden of Gethsemane and Good Friday are all about - that God has done astonishing and costly things to draw us near.

All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and His Son among all the peoples of the earth. Missions is not that goal. It is the means. And for that reason it is the second greatest human activity in the world.

One of the great enemies of hope is forgetting God's promises.

Be glad in the Lord and receive willingly from His Hand all that he designs for my holiness - both painful and pleasant.

There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning.

If grace is to be free - which is the very meaning of grace - we cannot view it as something to be repaid.

If gratitude is not rooted in the beauty of God before the gift, it is probably disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to delight in him for who he is so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver!