The common moral framework: Do anything as long as it does no harm to others. Problem: Whose definition of harm?

Prayer-though it is often draining, even an agony-is in the long term the greatest source of power that is possible.

Idols are often good things that we have made into ultimate things.

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

Because of the Cross, God can be both just towards sin and yet mercifully justifying to sinners.

Jesus is not asking us to do anything for him that he hasn’t already done for us, under conditions of difficulty beyond our comprehension.

The human heart is an idol factory that takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.