The biggest lie about grace that Satan wants the church to buy is the idea that it’s dangerous and therefore needs to be kept in check.

The Gospel is not ultimately a defense from pain, it is the message of God's rescue through pain. In fact, it allows us to drop our defenses, to escape not from pain but from the prison of "How" and "Why" to the freedom of "Who?"

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.

The emphasis of the Bible is on the work of the Redeemer, not on the work of the redeemed.

Real, pure, unadulterated freedom happens when the resources of the gospel smash any sense of need to secure for myself anything beyond what Christ has already secured for me.

When I was 25, I believed I could change the world. At 41, I have come to the realization that I cannot change my wife, my church, or my kids, to say nothing of the world. Try as I might, I have not been able to manufacture outcomes the way I thought I could, either in my own life or other people's.

...this culture of mandatory happiness actually promotes dishonesty and more suffering.