Let's try to present the same gospel but in a fresh fashion, always looking for a better way to connect with the audience.

How does God deal with your bitter heart? He reminds you that what you have is more important than what you don't have. You still have your relationship with God. No one can take that.

Don't quit. For if you do, you may miss the answer to your prayers.

If you knew that only a few would care that you came, would you still come? If you knew that those you loved would laugh in your face, would you still care? If you knew that the tongues you made would mock you, the mouths you made would spit at you, the hands you made would crucify you, would you still make them? Christ did.

I didn't want to just write stories that were entertaining. Nor did I want to be so scholarly that people couldn't digest it.

When we see death, we see disaster. When Jesus sees death, he sees deliverance!

We are Jesus Christ's; we belong to him. But even more, we are increasingly him. He moves in and commandeers our hands and feet, requisitions our minds and tongues. We sense his rearranging: debris into the divine, pig's ear into silk purse. He repurposes bad decisions and squalid choices. Little by little, a new image emerges.