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.

When Martin Luther was asked what we contribute to our salvation, he said, "Sin and resistance"

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

There are a still lot of people in today's church who can easily identify the idolatry outside the church and are pretty proud of the fact that they are not like them. And yet, we are far too slow to recognize the idolatry inside the church and more painfully, the idolatry inside our hearts.

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.

As long as I am focusing on the faults of others, then I don't have to face my own.

When we reduce the notion of “calling” to work inside the church, we fail to equip our people to apply their Christian faith to everything they do, everywhere they are.