It is a myth that man in his natural state is genuinely seeking God. Men do seek God. But they do not seek him for who he is. They seek him in a pinch as one who might preserve them from death or enhance their worldly enjoyments. Apart from conversion, no one comes to the light of God.

The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves.

You never outgrow your need to preach to yourself the gospel.

Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. Once a day God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable. To cure us of this disease God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day.

All the money needed to send and support an army of self-sacrificing, joy-spreading ambassadors is already in the church.

Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia.

Do all things without grumbling. Why? You have a sovereign God who is on your side, who works everything together for your good.