The more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you.

Religion makes us proud of what we have done. The Gospel makes us proud of what Jesus has done.

While Christianity was able to agree with pagan writers that inordinate attachment to earthly goods can lead to unnecessary pain and grief, it also taught that the answer to this was not to love things less but to love God more than anything else. Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace. Grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope.

Reason can get you to probability, but only commitment can get you to certainty.

Love is counting someone else’s needs and interests as more important than your own needs or interests or comfort.

If you wait until your motives are pure and unselfish before you do something, you will wait forever.

The rich brother needs to let the gospel humble him while the poor brother needs to let the gospel affirm him.