Which would you prefer? To be king of the mountain for a day? Or to be a child of God for eternity?

Trust God's love. His perfect love. Don't fear He will discover your past. He already has. Don't fear disappointing Him in the future. He can show you the chapter in which you will. With perfect knowledge of the past and perfect vision of the future, He loves you perfectly in spite of both.

Of all the things you must earn in life, God's unending affection is not one of them. You have it.

There is something about keeping Him divine that keeps Him distant, packaged, predictable. But don't do it. For heaven's sake, don't. Let Him be as human as He intended to be. Let Him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let Him in can He pull us out.

What I try to do is narrow the sermon series down to one big question. In this case the question is: What happens when grace happens? I knew I wanted to preach about grace. I just felt as if it was time for our church to be refreshed and see the beauty of God's grace - the uniqueness of the Christian grace as compared to the teachings of other world religions on forgiveness.

Choose satisfaction over salary. Better to be happy with little than miserable with much.

Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't heaven, so don't expect it to be.