In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.

Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.

What a nation needs more than anything else is not a Christian ruler in the palace but a Christian prophet within earshot.

Indeed we are all in peril if the flawed messenger invalidates the message.

We can’t expect the nation to operate by Christian principles… but we can expect this of the church.

As I read the Bible, it seems clear that God satisfies his "eternal appetite" by loving individual human beings. I imagine He views each halting step forward in my spiritual "walk" with the eagerness of a parent watching a child take the very first step.

When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.