We get angry when we feel like God owes us a better life than we have.

The church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.

Your feelings come from where you find your hope. Where is your happiness and your significance?

If God does not have our highest allegiance, we will use prayer to try to get things that have that designation.

Christianity offers not merely a consolation but a restoration - not just of the life we had but of the life we always wanted but never achieved. And because the joy will be even greater for all that evil, this means the final defeat of all those forces that would have destroyed the purpose of God in creation, namely, to live with his people in glory and delight forever.

Hell is having to execute a pointless act from which nothing ever comes except the need to do it again.

Those who believe they have pleased God by the quality of their devotion and moral goodness naturally feel that they and their group deserve deference and power over others. The God of Jesus and the prophets, however, saves completely by grace. He cannot be manipulated by religious and moral performance--he can only be reached through repentance, through the giving up of power. If we are saved by sheer grace we can only become grateful, willing servants of God and of everyone around us.