The self is like a baseball. Throw it back to the divine pitcher who pitched it to you in the first place, and the game of love goes on. Hold it, and the game is over. That is the difference between Heaven and Hell.

Most theists are deists most of the time, in practice if not in theory. They practice the absence of God instead of the presence of God.

The secret of joy is hidden in the word itself: first J, then O, then Y: Jesus first, Others next, Yourself last.

God calls us, just as he called Abraham, away from the security we knew, out of our old, familiar, little room, down the ladder of faith and into his arms. Jesus called his disciples that way - just as a lover elopes with his beloved.

It is just as crazy not to be crazy about Christ as it is to be crazy about anything else.

We modern egalitarians are tempted to the primal sin of pride in the opposite way from the ancients. The old, aristocratic form of pride was the desire to be better than others. The new, democratic form is the desire not to have anyone better than yourself. It is just as spiritually deadly and does not even carry with it the false pleasure of gloating superiority.

This is the secret of life: the self lives only by dying, finds its identity (and its happiness) only by self-forgetfulness, self-giving, self-sacrifice, and agape love.