Occasionally God rips aside the veil, and you begin to see this very fact: All things happen for you. All things. Everything is knit together.

God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.

The two things we all want so desperately — glory and relationship — can coexist only with God.

God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we.

The Bible judges the church; the church does not judge the Bible. The Bible is the foundation for and the creator of the church; the church is not the foundation for or creator of the Bible. The church and its hierarchy must be evaluated by the believer with the biblical gospel as the touchstone or plumb line for judging all truth claims.

There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back... No other religion-whethe r secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam-believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body.

The gospel has two parts. It has the part that says you're a sinner, and it has the part that says you're loved and accepted.