Whether it's a Christian or a non-Christian, there's nothing like suffering to show us how small, needy, and not in control we are. Suffering has a way of sobering us up to the realization that we can't make it on our own, that we need help, that we're broken.

I think there is tribalism is a big deal inside of the church, that the church thinks of themselves as a tribe and not a mission.

God wants every local church to be the first place people think to go when they've really messed up...not the last.

While our sin reaches far, God's grace reaches farther. God came after us not to strip away our freedom but to strip away our slavery to self, that we could become truly free.

I was spending too much time thinking about how I was doing, if I was learning everything I was supposed to be learning during this difficult season, whether I was doing it right or not, taking my spiritual pulse, etc - my inner lawyer was working overtime.

Only when we see that the way of God's law is absolutely inflexible will we see that God's grace is absolutely indispensable. A high view of the law reminds us that God accepts us on the basis of Christ's perfection, not our progress. Grace, properly understood, is the movement of a holy God toward an unholy people. He doesn't cheapen the law or ease its requirements. He fulfills them in his Son, who then gives his righteousness to us. That's the gospel. Pure and simple.

Don't get me wrong - what we do is important. But it is infinitely less important than what Jesus has done for us.