If God says, 'I forgive you,' you are forgiven no matter how you feel, and to refuse that forgiveness is an act of arrogance.

We live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization.

Grace, by definition, is something that God is not required to grant. He owes a fallen world no mercy.

Before I can call upon Christ as my Savior, I have to understand that I need a savior. I have to understand that I am a sinner. I have to have some understanding of what sin is.I have to understand that God exists. I have to understand that I am estranged from that God, and that I am exposed to that God's judgment. I don't reach out for a savior unless I am first convinced that I need a savior. All of that is pre-evangelism. It is involved in the data or the information that a person has to process with his mind before he can either respond to it in faith or reject it in unbelief.

Every person needs to feel significant. We want our lives to count. We yearn to believe that in some way we are important and that hunger for significance-a drive as intense as our need for oxygen-doesn't come from pride or ego. It comes from God because he wants each of us to understand how important we are. ... We must seek our roots, our origin, and our destiny so that we can know our present value. ..... ...We can help each other realize that we are persons of significance being made in the image of God.

Though sin often brings immediate pleasure, it gives no lasting joy.

We have to find in Christ, not a mask that conceals our face, but an entire wardrobe of clothing, which is His righteousness.