The church is, above all, a place to receive grace: it brings forgiven people together with the aim of equipping us to dispense grace to others.

...to see that God does answer, in great things as well as small, the prayers of those who put their trust in Him will strengthen the faith of multitudes.

As Ecclesiastes tells it, a wholesale devotion to pleasure will, paradoxically, lead to a state of utter despair.

Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it and I am one of those people... Now I am trying in my own small way to pipe the tune of grace. I do so because I know, more surely than I know anything, that any pang of healing or forgiveness or goodness I have ever felt comes solely from the grace of God.

Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort? Why complain about a lifetime that includes suffering when that lifetime is a mere hour of eternity?

... we need to reclaim the "goodnewness" of the gospel, and the best place to start is to rediscover the good news ourselves.

At the heart of the gospel is a God who deliberately surrenders to the wild, irresistable power of love.