When Job was prospering, he prayed. When he was suffering, he still prayed.

When Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think “I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.” No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, “Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing.” He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely.

In every other religion the indicative flows from the imperative. Which means, ‘because I do, therefore I am... because I do this, therefore I’m a child of God.’ But only in Christianity does the imperative flow from the indicative. ‘Because I am in Christ all these things, therefore I obey.’ Exactly the opposite.

The deeper the experience of the free grace of God, the more generous we must become.

Jesus' purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.

To pray is to accept that we are, and always will be, wholly dependent on God for everything.