The Gospel is news of what God has done to reach us. It is not advice about what we must do to reach God.

A church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is profoundly counter-intuitive to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non-Christian west.

You are under-qualified for the job of God.

At the root of all our disobedience are particular ways in which we continue to seek control of our lives through systems of works-righteousness. The way to progress as a Christian is to continually repent and uproot these systems the same way we become Christians, namely by the vivid depiction (and re-depiction) of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves. We must go back again and again to the gospel of Christ-crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what he did and who we are in him.

Prayer can be simple, but it's not easy. Nothing great is.

The gospel is not only the way to enter the kingdom; it is the way to live in the kingdom.

People only get in the afterlife what they have most wanted-either to have God as Savior and Master or to be their own Saviors and Masters.