Rather, God has commissioned us as agents of intervention in the midst of a hostile and broken world.

If we comprehend what Christ has done for us, then surely out of gratitude we will strive to live 'worthy' of such great love. We will strive for holiness not to make God love us but because He already does.

Often, it seems, we're [Christians] perceived more as guilt dispensers than as grace dispensers.

The world is not against you, but the world is a place where bad things happen. It's just true. Airlines crash, people do evil things. A lot of bad things happen and it causes pain.

We whine about things we have little control over; we lament what we believe ought to be changed.

If God doesn't want something for me, then I shouldn't want it either.

Individuals and societies are not helpless victims of heredity. We have the power to change - not by looking "down" to nature but "up" to God, who consistently calls us forward to become the people we were designed to be. A confused world urgently needs a model of what that looks like. If Christians fail to provide that model, who will?