If you want God's grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing. But that kind of spiritual humility is hard to muster. We come to God saying, "Look at all I've done," or maybe "Look at all I've suffered." God, however, wants us to look to him - to just wash.

If you add anything to Jesus as a requirement for being happy, that's your real king.

The world values power, comfort, success, and recognition. Jesus frees us to value grief, sacrifice, weakness, and exclusion.

Every one of our sinful actions has a suicidal power on the faculties that put that action forth. When you sin with the mind, that sin shrivels the rationality. When you sin with the heart or the emotions, that sin shrivels the emotions. When you sin with the will, that sin destroys and dissolves your willpower and your self-control. Sin is the suicidal action of the self against itself. Sin destroys freedom because sin is an enslaving power.

The two things we all want so desperately — glory and relationship — can coexist only with God.

The simple fact is that only if I love Jesus more than my wife will I be able to serve her needs ahead of my own.

A lack of generosity refuses to acknowledge that your assets are not really yours, but God's.