When there’s something in the Word of God that I don’t like, the problem is not with the Word of God, it’s with me.

It is important for us to make a distinction between the spiritual fruit of joy and the cultural concept of happiness. A Christian can have joy in his heart while there is still spiritual depression in his head. The joy that we have sustains us through these dark nights and is not quenched by spiritual depression. The joy of the Christian is one that survives all downturns in life.

If it were left to us, we would all fall away from the faith and perish.

It’s dangerous to assume that because a person is drawn to holiness in his study that he is thereby a holy man. There is irony here. I am sure that the reason I have a deep hunger to learn of the holiness of God is precisely because I am not holy. I am a profane man—a man who spends more time out of the temple than in it. But I have had just enough of a taste of the majesty of God to want more. I know what it means to be a forgiven man and what it means to be sent on a mission. My soul cries for more. My soul needs more.

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

The one place where the Christian can be naked without fear is in the presence of Christ.

Dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith.