If grace is obligated it is no longer grace. The very essence of grace is that it is undeserved.

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.

Perhaps the most difficult task for us to perform is to rely on God’s grace and God’s grace alone for our celebration. It is difficult for our pride to rest on grace. Grace is for other people—for beggars. We don’t want to live by a heavenly welfare system. We want to earn our own way and atone for our own sins. We like to think that we will go to heaven because we deserve to be there.

Regeneration is a work of the omnipotent power of God, power that nothing can overcome or resist.

Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a god in the first place?

Scratching people where they itch and addressing their 'felt needs' is a stratagem of the poor steward of the oracles of God. This was the recipe for success for the false prophets of the Old Testament.

Only a true faith that applies God’s Word to everything-incl uding economics-will lead to the revival and reformation our culture needs so badly.