Spiritual growth is marked by a growing realization of just how much grace you need.

Christmas is the beachhead of God’s campaign against sin and sadness, darkness and death, fear and frustration.

The way of God's grace becomes indispensable when we realize that the way of God's law is inflexible.

My job as a pastor and theologian is to tease out the nature and the necessity of the gospel in meticulous ways, in everything I say, in everything I like. I want desperately for the church in America to rediscover the power and the beauty and the nature and the necessity of the gospel.

The law demands that we do it all; the gospel declares that Jesus paid it all.

I was always in places where I was widely accepted, approved and loved and I was finally in a place where people did not approve of me, did not accept me and did not love me. It was killing me.

Thankfully, God's restraining grace keeps even the worst of us from being utterly depraved. The worst people who have ever lived could've been worse.