Paul sees all kinds of sins in himself and all kinds of accomplishments too, but he refuses to connect them with his identity.

To love our success more than God and our neighbor hardens the heart, making us less able to feel and to sense.

Life in this fallen world is to a great degree meaningless, our aspirations are constantly being frustrated, and sometimes the respectable people are oppressive and bigoted. And yet there is a Good that will triumph over Evil in the end. From a Christian perspective the problem with both kinds of stories is that they tend to blame problems on things besides sin and identify salvation in things besides God — and therefore are ultimately too simplistic.

Hell is having to execute a pointless act from which nothing ever comes except the need to do it again.

In a smaller church your pastoring sets up your preaching. In a larger church your preaching sets up your pastoring.

The deeper the experience of the free grace of God, the more generous we must become.

Many times people think if God has called you to something, he's promising you success. He might be calling you to fail to prepare you for something else through the failure.