If you need something in addition to God to make you happy, that is your true King.

The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.

The infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life.

Paul reminds us that in the Gospel we are both brought lower and raised higher than we can imagine.

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.

When you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt. You bear it yourself. All forgiveness, then, is costly.

When Job was prospering, he prayed. When he was suffering, he still prayed.