Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won't matter. You will be able to move out into the world in strength.

Religion: 'My identity is built on being a good person.' Gospel: 'My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on Christ's.'

Suffering is actually at the heart of the Christian story.

Suffering is the stripping of our hope in finite things, therefore we do not put our ultimate hope in anything finite.

Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting… We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow.

The sin that is most destructive in your life right now is the one you are most defensive about.

We can only grasp the gospel's sweetness if we first grapple with its offense- you can't save yourself.