Christians don't believe that goodness gets you to heaven. Christians believe it's exhausting to rely on your own goodness to please God.

The life of faith is not the perfect life; it is the life which clings on to what God has said he will do.

The basic premise of religion– that if you live a good life, things will go well for you– is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.

Jesus may ask of you far more than you planned to give, but He can give to you infinitely more than you dared ask or think.

When you listen and read one thinker, you become a clone… two thinkers, you become confused… ten thinkers, you’ll begin developing your own voice… two or three hundred thinkers, you become wise and develop your voice.

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.

Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you.