I hate the moment when suddenly my anger turns into tears

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.

If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.

The gospel has two parts. It has the part that says you're a sinner, and it has the part that says you're loved and accepted.

In the church we have to deliberately let ourselves be transparent and accountable to others. We're a family.

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

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