Christians are driven by God's promises, and directed by God's purposes.

If you want to be an athlete, there's no way around it: You have to go to the gym. You can't Google your way to it.

As Paul argues, it is the righteousness of God that is revealed in the law, and this condemns us all (Ro 1:18 - 3:20), while the gospel reveals the righteousness from God, namely, that we "are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Ro 3:24).

To preach the Bible as 'the handbook for life,' or as the answer to every question, rather than as the revelation of Christ, is to turn the Bible into an entirely different book. This is how the Pharisees approached Scripture, as we can see clearly from the questions they asked Jesus. For the Pharisees, the Scriptures were a source of trivia for life's dilemmas.

Faith in Christ is able to endure doubts-it's able to endure temptations-bec ause it faces them, not because it pretends they're not there.

Christians must return to the great story that has its fulfillment in life after death, so we may live and die well in the light of our extraordinary hope that enables us to embrace the ordinary lives God gives us here and now.

The power of God unto salvation is not our passion for God, but the passion He has exhibited toward us sinners by sending his own Son to redeem us.