If we could understand how impossible our situation is, we would grow in reverence for the kingship of Christ.

Prayer does two things. It shows the complete sufficiency of God and the complete helplessness of man. It shows that God is not lacking, that He is in need of no thing, that He is infinitely and gloriously wealthy, that He can give to, He can bless and He can answer without the need of help from anyone or anything else. And it also shows that we are in desperate need of that kind of sufficiency.

God's response to the belittlement of his name, from the beginning of time, has been the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a Roman cross.

My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ.

The general confusion is that our moral behavior is what justifies us before God. Most of us would never say that with our mouths but we feel that lie in our heart and believe it in our minds. You can be morally upright and not be a worshipper of Christ at all.

God is awesome; he doesn’t need you to be awesome. He wants you to be obedient.

Every one of us loves Pauline theology, but few of us want Pauline pain.