Religion operates on the principle 'I obey-therefore I am accepted by God.' But the operating principle of the gospel is 'I am accepted by God through what Christ has done-therefore I obey.'

Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.

It is because Jesus Christ experienced cosmic thirst on the cross that you and I can have our spiritual thirst satisfied. It is because he died that we can be born again. And he did it gladly. Seeing what he did and why he did it will turn our hearts away from the things that enslave us and toward him in worship. That is the gospel, and it is the same for skeptics, believers, insiders, outcasts, and everyone in between.

Some suffering is given in order to chastise and correct a person for wrongful patterns of life (as in the case of Jonah imperiled by the storm), some suffering is given not to correct past wrongs but to prevent future ones (as in the case of Joseph sold into slavery), and some suffering has no purpose other than to lead a person to love God more ardently for himself alone and so discover the ultimate peace and freedom.

Are you living to justify yourself, or are you living because you are justified?

One of the biggest obstacles in the way of people coming to Christianity is that they think they know about it already.