Someday I want to go back and maybe write another book on those seven sayings. I just think they are kind of like a table of contents to the Christian hope. They invite us to go into all the aspects of the heart of Jesus. Everything about them from the drama, the setting, the passion around them - I think the seven sayings of the cross are powerful.

We will never be cleansed until we confess we are dirty. And we will never be able to wash the feet of those who have hurt us until we allow Jesus, the one we have hurt, to wash ours.

We may not see the connection between the name Jesus and the phrase "save his people from their sins," but Joseph would have. He was familiar with the Hebrew language.

Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the One who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.

The Promised Land, for many people, though, is something that's far off in the future. People are saved, but they don't feel victory. They feel like they're in a wilderness and they're wandering. And so this book of Joshua gives us a picture of how we can come out of the wilderness in our own spiritual lives and enter into a season of victory.

Every time we equip the church with a verse, chapter or a story from the Bible, we're really placing another weapon in the hands of the Holy Spirit that He uses to challenge and strengthen the church. I think that's very important.

Our kids were God's kids first... We tend to forget this fact, regarding our children as "our" children, as though we have the final say in their health and welfare. We don't. All people are God's people, including the small people who sit at our tables.