Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.

I was afraid that if I surrendered my life over to God, God would tell me not to do those things that I desperately wanted to do.

Christian growth doesn't happen by first behaving better, but by believing better--believi ng in bigger, deeper, brighter ways what Christ has already secured for sinners.

Jesus has done everything for you.

The Gospel is not ultimately a defense from pain, it is the message of God's rescue through pain. In fact, it allows us to drop our defenses, to escape not from pain but from the prison of "How" and "Why" to the freedom of "Who?"

God does everything through people who understand they're nothing. And God does nothing through those who think they're everything.

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.