If we are not deliberately thinking about our culture and our context, we will be conformed to it without ever knowing.

Success and suffering will either darken your heart or make you wise, but they won't leave you where you were.

Even if our own troubles are great, we should still serve. Jesus washed His disciples feet on the way to the cross.

The church is not a museum for pristine saints, but a hospital ward for broken sinners.

When we try and use fear or pride to stop from sinning, we are forgetting that we sin because of either fear or pride.

The Gospel is this: You're more sinful, evil and weak than you'd ever believe. But you're more valued, accepted and loved than you dared hope.

Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach. And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God. He took so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great. A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond. And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous.