Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: You become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more . . . And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less

When the world asks if there is any hope, we can say absolutely! No one is exempt from tragedy or disappointment- God himself was not exempt. Jesus offered no immunity, no way out of the unfairness, but rather a way through it to the other side.

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

Pain narrows vision. The most private of sensations, it forces us to think of ourselves and little else.

[...]women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. Has the church lost that gift?

Whoever desires to remain faithful to Jesus must communicate faith as he did, not by compelling assent but by presenting it as a true answer to basic thirst. Rather than looking back nostalgically on a time when Christians wielded more power, I suggest another approach: that we regard ourselves as subversives operating within the broader culture.