The most rapturous delights you have ever had - in the beauty of a landscape, or in the pleasure of food, or in the fulfillment of a loving embrace - are like dewdrops compared to the bottomless ocean of joy that it will be to see God face-to-face (1 John 3:1-3). That is what we are in for, nothing less. And according to the Bible, that glorious beauty, and our enjoyment of it, has been immeasurably enhanced by Christ's redemption of us from evil and death.

Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life.

It is possible to avoid Jesus as Savior as much by keeping all the Biblical rules as by breaking them.

Because creation was made in the image of a God who is equally one and many, the human race will finally be reunited and our racial and cultural diversity will remain intact in the renewed world. The human race finally lives together in peace and interdependence. Glory to God in the highest goes with peace on earth.

You won't be able to change the world, yourself, anything, if you don't change yourself inwardly, deeply, enduringly.

Unless we believe the gospel, we will be driven in all we do-whether obeying or disobeying-by pride ('self-love') or fear ('of damnation'). Apart from 'grateful remembering' of the gospel, all good works are done then for sinful motives. Mere moral effort may restrain the heart, but does not truly change the heart. Moral effort merely 'jury rigs' the evil of the heart to produce moral behavior out of self-interest. It is only a matter of time before such a thin tissue collapses.

God’s grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior.