Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin.

The life of faith is not the perfect life; it is the life which clings on to what God has said he will do.

The happy ending of the Resurrection is so enormous that it swallows up even the sorrow of the Cross.

The gospel is not about choosing to follow advice; it's about being called to follow a King.

All I know is, if I don't care about the poor, if my church doesn't care about the poor, that's evil.

The Cross is not simply a lovely example of sacrificial love. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable — it is wrong. Jesus’ death was only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid — God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born — God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.

When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives but that we never were.