The miracles of Jesus are signs of the right order of things. Jesus was not so much turning things upside down as turning them rightside up or, at least, giving his followers glimpses of the rightside up. The miracles of healing, deliverance, provision, and resurrection all reveal that God, through Jesus, is making all things new, that he is restoring what once was unbroken.

The Imperfect Pastor by Zack Eswine might be the most helpful and profound book I've read in years. If you're in pastoral ministry grab a copy.

When you blow it, God still celebrates His Son in you. The litmus test of whether or not you understand the gospel is what you do when you fail. Do you run from Him and go clean yourself up a little bit before you come back into the throne room? Or do you approach the throne of grace with confidence? If you don't approach the throne of grace with confidence, you don't understand the gospel.

Because a God who is ultimately most focused on his own glory will be about the business of restoring us, who are all broken images of him. His glory demands it. So we should be thankful for a self-sufficient God whose self-regard is glorious.

The idolatry the exists in a man's heart always wants to lead him away from his Savior and back to self-reliance no matter how pitiful that self-reliance is or how many times it has betrayed him.

The great message that we call the gospel begins, then, not with us, or our need, or even the meeting of that need, but with the writer of the news and the sender of its heralds: God himself.

Lots of neat Christian boys, not a lot of Godly men. And we are working our tails off for you to try to develop some into that. But do not settle, because it's better that you be lonely now than you be married and lonely later. Are you tracking me? It is better that you be lonely now than for you to get married to a man that will teach your kids everything but the way of Jesus.