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.

Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism.

We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks.

We respond to healing grace by giving it away.

One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as "those evil people" or "those poor people who need our help." Nor must we search for signs of "loveworthiness." Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.

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

In the move The Last Emperor, the young child anointed as the last emperor of China lives a magical life of luxury with a thousand eunuch servants at his command. "What happens when you do wrong?" his brother asks. "When I do wrong, someone else is punished," the boy emperor replies. To demonstrate, he breaks a jar, and one of the servants is beaten. In Christian theology, Jesus reversed that ancient pattern: when the servants erred, the King was punished. Grace is free only because the giver himself has borned the cost.