Worry is not believing God will get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.

When the world sees us doing evangelism, they just see us recruiting. When they see us doing justice, they see God's glory.

For indeed, grace is the key to it all. It is not our lavish good deeds that procure salvation, but God's lavish love and mercy. That is why the poor are as acceptable before God as the rich. It is the generosity of God, the freeness of his salvation, that lays the foundation for the society of justice for all. Even in the seemingly boring rules and regulations of tabernacle rituals, we see that God cares about the poor, that his laws make provision for the disadvantaged. God's concern for justice permeated every part of Israel's life. It should also permeate our lives.

Unless you point to the good news of God's grace people will not be able to bear the bad news of God's judgement.

At the end of history the whole earth has become the Garden of God again. Death and decay and suffering are gone. . . . Jesus will make the world our perfect home again. We will no longer be living 'east of Eden,' always wandering and never arriving. We will come, and the father will meet us and embrace us, and we will be brought into the feast.

If we give God things in hope that they'll earn us blessings, we're really not doing anything for him. It's for ourselves.

No writer or thinker has taught me as much as James Hunter has about this all-important and complex subject of how culture is changed.