Grace is the free, unmerited favor of God, working powerfully on the mind and heart to change lives.

Your feelings come from where you find your hope. Where is your happiness and your significance?

If you need something in addition to God to make you happy, that is your true King.

Nothing we formulate or do can qualify us for access to God. Only grace can do that- based not on our performance but on the saving work of Christ.

Rejoicing and repentance must go together. Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair. Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change.

A church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is profoundly counter-intuitive to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non-Christian west.

A sense of Jesus’ absence might be a sign of his presence- a sign that he’s working already in your life.