To focus on how I'm doing more than what Christ has done is Christian narcissism

The more I focused on my need to get better the worse I actually got - the more neurotic and self-conscious and self-absorbed I became.

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

If the depths of everyone's sin was made public, we would all be much more gracious to each other.

Only when you realize that the gospel has nothing to do with your obedience but with Christ's obedience for you, will you start to obey. The only Christians who end up getting better are those who realize that if they don't get better, God will love them anyway.

Jesus is not the man at the top of the stairs; He is the man at the bottom, the friend of sinners, the savior of those in need of one. Which is all of us, all of the time.

There is no better story in the Old Testament, or perhaps the whole Bible, for depicting the difference between the ladder-defined life and the cross-defined life than that of the Tower of Babel.