There is nothing more important to learn about Christian growth than this: Growing in grace means becoming like Christ.

The Father did not require the death of Christ to persuade Him to love us. Christ died because the Father loves us.

Christian contentment, therefore, is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at His disposal in the place He appoints, at the time He chooses, with the provision He is pleased to make.

When I look at the cross, I learn to say: 'The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me' (Galatians 2:20). I begin to believe with Paul that if God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to the cross for me, then He loves me so much He will always give me only what will bring me blessing (Romans 8:32).

If you desire anything less for yourself than absolute obedience to God, a life of total devotion to the Lord, a life of absolute sin-less-ness - if you desire anything less, you are fighting against God's desire for you.

God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that He loves us.

Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows.