It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything, or achieve anything, or accomplish one more thing. That, exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance.

It takes quite a spine to turn the other cheek. It takes phenomenal fortitude to love your enemy. It takes firm resolve to pray for those who persecute you. (with reference to Matthew 5)

For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one.

The danger is that in reaction to abuses and distortions of an idea, we'll reject it completely. And in the process miss out on the good of it, the worth of it, the truth of it.

The great German scholar Helmut Thielicke once said that a person who speaks to this hour’s need will always be skirting the edge of heresy, but only the person who risks those heresies can gain the truth.

We need to return to the simplicity that God is love.

Before anything else, you have received breath - the gift of life itself. The first word about you is GIFT.