The determining factor in our relationship with God is not our past but Christ's past.

We must have a strong inner life of fellowship and intimacy with Jesus if we are going to have a strong outer life of ministry

At the end of history the whole earth has become the Garden of God again. Death and decay and suffering are gone. . . . Jesus will make the world our perfect home again. We will no longer be living 'east of Eden,' always wandering and never arriving. We will come, and the father will meet us and embrace us, and we will be brought into the feast.

The more you rejoice in your own forgiveness, the quicker you will be to forgive others.

It takes both spouses to say, "My self-centeredness is the main problem in my marriage" to have a great marriage.

Jesus does not divide the world into the moral "good guys" and the immoral "bad guys". He shows us that everyone is dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways. Even though both sons are wrong, however, the father cares for them and invites them both back into his love and feast.

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.