Both men and women today see marriage not as a way of creating character and community but as a way to reach personal life goals. They are looking for a marriage partner who will 'fulfill their emotional, sexual, and spiritual desires.' And that creates an extreme idealism that in turn leads to a deep pessimism that you will ever find the right person to marry.
Timothy KellerThe Cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable โ it is wrong. Jesusโ death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid โ God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born โ God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.
Timothy KellerChristians don't believe that goodness gets you to heaven. Christians believe it's exhausting to rely on your own goodness to please God.
Timothy KellerThere are many ways to cover up our sin. We may justify or minimize it by blaming circumstances and others people. However, real repentance first admits sin as sin and takes full responsibility. True confession and repentance begins when blame shifting ends...Just as real repentance begins only where blame shifting ends, so it also begins where self-pity ends, and we start to turn from our sin out of love for God rather than mere self-interest.
Timothy Keller