You see, the secret of the gospel is that we become more spiritually mature when we focus less on what we need to do for God and focus more on all that God has already done for us. The irony of the gospel is that we actually perform better as we grow in our understanding that our relationship with God is based on Christ's performance for us, not our performance for him.

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.

The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn't make people work harder, it makes them give up. Moralism doesn't produce morality; rather, it produces immorality.

We are all both victims and victimizers. Just as everyone suffers, no one is innocent of causing suffering themselves.

An identity based in the one-way love of God does not take into account public opinion or, thankfully, even personal opinion.

The desperate addict is closer to the heart of grace than the devout moralist.

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