To discover the real you, look at what you spend time thinking about when no one is looking.

Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own. God had to come to you.

At the root of all our disobedience are particular ways in which we continue to seek control of our lives through systems of works-righteousness. The way to progress as a Christian is to continually repent and uproot these systems the same way we become Christians, namely by the vivid depiction (and re-depiction) of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves. 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.

I wouldn't venture to say which kind of sin is more prevalent. I wouldn't even want to try to characterize certain 'circles.'

Unless you believe the gospel, everything you do will be driven by either pride or fear.

A faith without some doubts is like a human body with no antobodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask the hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.

No one is so good that they don’t need the grace of the gospel, nor so bad that they can’t receive the grace of the gospel.