People who haven't experienced major setbacks sometimes feel that their hurts are somehow less legitimate or real.

Passive righteousness tells us that God does not need our good works. Active righteousness tells us that our neighbor does. The aim and direction of good works are horizontal, not vertical.

God reminds us again and again that things between He and us are forever fixed. They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has been paid, the ledger put away, and that everything we need, in Christ we already possess. This re-convincing produces humility, because we realize that our needs are fulfilled. We don’t have to worry about ourselves anymore. This in turn frees us to stop looking out for what we think we need and liberates us to love our neighbor by looking out for what they need.

When it comes to understanding and appreciating grace, our biggest problem is our so-called goodness...not our self-perceived badness.

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

When we imply that our works are for God and not our neighbor, we perpetuate the idea that God's love for us is dependent on what we do instead of on what Christ has done.

We often read the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us: our improvement, our life, our triumph, our victory, our faith, our holiness, our godliness.