No one is too bad for Jesus. A lot of people think they are too good for Jesus.

The gospel is not only the way to enter the kingdom; it is the way to live in the kingdom.

The sin under all other sins is a lack of joy in Christ.

There is a direct relationship between a person's grasp and experience of God's grace, and his or her heart for justice and the poor.

Religion poses a danger of creating division or intolerance between groups of people. However, the gospel of Jesus lead us to three things: humble service, reconciling behavior that is neither patronizing nor self-righteous, and a love toward people who hold different beliefs than we do.

An idol is something that we look to for things that only God can give. Idolatry functions widely inside religious communities when doctrinal truth is elevated to the position of a false god. This occurs when people rely on the rightness of their doctrine for their standing with God rather than on God himself and his grace. It is a subtly but deadly mistake. The sign that you have slipped into this form of self-justification is that you become what the book of Proverbs calls a 'scoffer'.

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.