If you have to run away from something that used to be an idol, you're actually still enslaved by it. It's still controlling you.

We must go back again and again to the Gospel of Christ crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what He did and who we are in Him.

Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.

I've heard plenty of Christians try to answer the why question by going back to the what. "You have to believe because Jesus is the Son of God." But that's answering the why with more what. Increasingly we live in a time in which you can't avoid the why question. Just giving the what (for example, a vivid gospel presentation) worked in the days when the cultural institutions created an environment in which Christianity just felt true or at least honorable. But in a post-Christendom society, in the marketplace of ideas, you have to explain why this is true, or people will just dismiss it.

It's impossible to have met the real Jesus and be indifferent. You either bow down in wonder OR go away offended.

Any person who only sticks with Christianity as long as things are going his or her way, is a stranger to the cross

To stand in the presence of God, that is what the Gospel is. The Gospel is not primarily about forgiveness. It’s not primarily about good feelings. It’s not primarily about power. All those things are byproducts, sparks. It’s primarily about the presence of God.