Important reminder: It's not fair of you to demand more proof of Christians for their beliefs than you demand for your own.

Most people in the world believe that if there is a God, you relate to God by being good. Most religions are based on that principle, though there are a million different variations on it...But they all have the same logic: If I perform, if I obey, I’m accepted. The gospel of Jesus is not only different from that but diametrically opposed to it: I’m fully accepted in Jesus Christ, and therefore I obey.

We're far worse than we ever imagined, and far more loved than we could ever dream.

Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently. It 's a shocking message: Careful obedience to God's law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God .

You don't fall in love. You commit to it.

God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.

If God is treated as God during suffering, then suffering can reveal and present him in all his greatness.