I'm a preacher first and a writer second, although my role is changing a bit at the church. I'm going to bring on a co-teacher, but I'll still be a pastor and a writer.

As long as you hate your enemy, a jail door is closed and a prisoner is taken. But when you try to understand and release your foe from your hatred, then the prisoner is released and that prisoner is you.

In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely.

Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.

There is a rawness and a wonder to life. Pursue it. Hunt for it. Sell out to get it. Don't listen to the whines of those who have settled for a second-rate life and want you to do the same so they won't feel guilty. Your goal is not to live long; it's to live.

Apple trees bear apples, wheat stalks produce wheat, and forgiven people forgive people.

I try to help people see they're going to have these times in which they turn away, in which they deny Christ and their faith grows cold, their convictions weakened; but Jesus is waiting.