Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.

O God, make the bad people good, and the good people nice

Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame-and pain-in a relationship...It does not settle all questions of blame and justice and fairness...But it does allow relationships to start over. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ from all animals. It is not our capacity to think that makes us different, but our capacity to repent, and to forgive.

Grace is heartfelt, tinged with love, a spillover gift of the God who extended undeserved favor toward us.

Jesus represents a point of common ground an esteemed rabbi to the Jew, a god to the Hindu, an enlightened one to the Buddhist, a great prophet to the Muslim. Even to the New Age guru, Jesus is the pinnacle of God-consciousness. At the same time, Jesus is the divider. None but Christians see Him as a member of the Godhead on an exclusive mission to repair the broken world.

We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.

Life with God is an individual matter, and general formulas do not easily apply.