The Gospel announces that Jesus came to acquit the guilty. He came to judge and be judged in our place. Christ came to satisfy the deep judgment against us once and for all so that we could be free from the judgement of God, others, and ourselves.

...this culture of mandatory happiness actually promotes dishonesty and more suffering.

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.

The gospel is for the defeated, not the dominant.

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

Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make good people good; it makes dead people alive. That's the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion. All the others exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshiped deity is. But the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.

If we read the Bible asking first, 'What would Jesus do?' instead of asking 'What has Jesus done?' we’ll miss the good news that alone can set us free.