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.

Prayer-though it is often draining, even an agony-is in the long term the greatest source of power that is possible.

We were designed to know, serve, and love God supremely - and when we are faithful to that design, we flourish.

The Cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable — it is wrong. Jesus’ death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid — God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born — God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.

Jesus warns people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no one thinks they are guilty of it.

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.

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