When we depend on anything smaller than God to provide us with the security, significance, meaning, and value that we long for, God will love us enough to take it away. Much of our anger and bitterness, therefore, is God prying open our hands and taking away something we've held onto more tightly than him.

The truth is that when it comes to suffering, if we do not go to our graves in confusion, we will not go to our graves trusting. Explanations are a substitute for trust.

In those moments when I'm obsessively counting my sins against me, it is good news to remember that God has counted my sins against Christ.

Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make bad people good; it makes dead people alive...the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.

Graciousness is the fruit of someone who knows how badly they themselves need grace.

I had turned personal validation into my primary source of meaning and value, so that without it I was miserable and depressed.

Our deepest fear is judgment. Our deepest longing is love. The gospel of grace removes the one and provides the other.