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.

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

Our default faith mode is to trust, above all things, our own ability to create a safe, controllable, predictable world.

We are not responsible for finding the right formula to combat or unlock our suffering.

There's absolutely no way you can feel the freedom to embarrass and humiliate yourself unless you have finally recognized that your identity is in someone other than yourself.

I was afraid that if I surrendered my life over to God, God would tell me not to do those things that I desperately wanted to do.

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.