Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own. God had to come to you.

Secularism and Religion are both all about your personal performance. The Gospel is the performance of another applied to you.

The very fact that we have access to God's attention and presence should concentrate the thoughts and elevate the heart.

If you seek to serve people more than to gain power, you will not only serve people, you will gain influence.

Honor the image of God. Human beings are not accidents, but creations.

Remember that according to the Bible, the heart is not primarily the emotions but rather the seat of our fundamental commitments and trusts, and therefore it is the control center of the whole life. So to preach to the heart means to go right for the commanding commitments of people's lives that drive their desires, thinking, feeling, and action.

At the root of all our disobedience are particular ways in which we continue to seek control of our lives through systems of works-righteousness. The way to progress as a Christian is to continually repent and uproot these systems the same way we become Christians, namely by the vivid depiction (and re-depiction) of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves. We must go back again and again to the gospel of Christ-crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what he did and who we are in him.