Friends become wiser together through a healthy clash of viewpoints.

Religion operates on the principle 'I obey-therefore I am accepted by God.' But the operating principle of the gospel is 'I am accepted by God through what Christ has done-therefore I obey.'

There is a joy available that the deepest grief cannot put out. No circumstance or person can take away the joy God gives.

There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back... No other religion-whethe r secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam-believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body.

If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all he said.

The resurrection makes Christianity the most irritating religion on the face of the earth.

Only if God can say things that make you struggle will you know that you have met a real God and not a figment of your imagination.