There is a direct relationship between a person's grasp and experience of God's grace, and his or her heart for justice and the poor.

Elder brothers obey God to get things. They don't obey God to get God himself — in order to resemble him, love him, know him, and delight him.

What the heart most wants, the mind finds reasonable, the will finds doable, and the emotions find desirable.

Only if God can say things that make you struggle will you know that you have met a real God and not a figment of your imagination.

The most rapturous delights you have ever had - in the beauty of a landscape, or in the pleasure of food, or in the fulfillment of a loving embrace - are like dewdrops compared to the bottomless ocean of joy that it will be to see God face-to-face (1 John 3:1-3). That is what we are in for, nothing less. And according to the Bible, that glorious beauty, and our enjoyment of it, has been immeasurably enhanced by Christ's redemption of us from evil and death.

How you experience your present is completely shaped by what you believe your ultimate future to be.

Worry is not believing God will get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.