Assurance never comes from looking at ourselves. It only comes as a consequence of looking to Christ.

Christianity is in no way a stoic faith. It fundamentally rejects the "stiff upper lip" school of thought.

Grace is thickly counter-intuitive. It feels risky and unfair. It's dangerous and disorderly. It wrestles control out of our hands. It is wild and unsettling. It turns everything that makes sense to us upside-down and inside-out.

Long-term, gospel-motivate d obedience can only come from the grace of what Jesus has already done, not the guilt of what we must do.

Here's one way I can know that I've forgotten the gospel of grace: when your sin bothers me more than my sin.

Grace frees you to be honest about what you've always known to be true about yourself: that you're weaker & more afraid than you want to be.

God loves broken people because broken people are all that there are.