The product of a true, growing, gospel-centered nature is often gentleness.

Those who condemn the self-righteous for the sake of self-discovery do so with ironic self-righteousness.

If your fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrificing for them, loving them - if that sinks into your heart of hearts, it's going to produce the kind of life that the early Christians produced. The most inclusive possible life out of the most exclusive possible claim - and that is this is the truth. But what is the truth? The truth is a God become weak, loving and dying for the people who opposed him, dying forgiving them.

God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver.

But resurrection is not just consolation — it is restoration. We get it all back — the love, the loved ones, the goods, the beauties of this life — but in new, unimaginable degrees of glory and joy and strength.

If you seek to serve people more than to gain power, you will not only serve people, you will gain influence.

You should not begin to pray for all you want until you realize that in God you have all you need.