Faith is not primarily a function of how you feel. Faith is living out and believing what truth is despite what you feel.

If you want God's grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing. But that kind of spiritual humility is hard to muster. We come to God saying, "Look at all I've done," or maybe "Look at all I've suffered." God, however, wants us to look to him - to just wash.

If God is real, why does he align perfectly with our views? We should expect God to challenge us on what we think is right somewhere

The future is already won, and the more hostile the culture, the easier it is to communicate the difference of Christianity.

The targets of this story are not wayward sinners but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. H wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.

A rich, vibrant, consoling, hard-won prayer life is the one good that makes it possible to receive all other kinds of goods rightly and beneficially. [Paul] does not see prayer as merely a way to get things from God but as a way to get more of God himself.

There are some needs only you can see. There are some hands only you can hold. There are some people only you can reach.