Jesus resisted the temptation of outrage and the quick fix of condemnation. He spent most of his time preparing wineskins before pouring new wine into them. Our tendency is to start pouring the wine into skins that will only burst.

Where the eye is focused, there the imagination finds its raw material. The right focus must be won at immense cost and discipline. Train the eye to see the good, and the imagination will follow suit.

You'll never get to a person's soul until you understand their hurts.

God is the shaper of your heart. God does not display his work in abstract terms. He prefers the concrete, and this means that at the end of your life one of three things will happen to your heart: it will grow hard, it will be broken, or it will be tender. Nobody escapes

The grace of forgiveness, because God Himself has paid the price, is a Christian distinctive and stands splendidly against our hate-filled, unforgiving world. God's forgiveness gives us a fresh start.

Ours is not a problem of the intellect but of spiritual poverty. That is why we need a Savior.

The cross stands as a mystery because it is foreign to everything we exalt- self over principle, power over meekness, the quick fix over the long haul, cover-up over confession, escapism over confrontation, conform over sacrifice, feeling over commitment, legality over justice, the body over the spirit, anger over forgiveness, man over God.