The ministry of mercy, then, is the best advertising a church can have. It convinces a community that this church provides people with actions for their problems, not only talk. It shows the community that this church is compassionate.

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.

The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.

The world says you are loved because of what you do. Jesus says you can now do all things because you are loved.

We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order.

If you say: I believed in God, I trusted God and He didn't come through - You only trusted God to meet your agenda.

A triune God would call us to converse with him . . . because he wants to share the joy he has. Prayer is our way of entering into the happiness of God himself.