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.

Thankfully, God's restraining grace keeps even the worst of us from being utterly depraved. The worst people who have ever lived could've been worse.

My daily sins require daily distribution of God's grace. In that sense, it never ceases to surprise me because I don't deserve any of it. I mean, I deserve to be locked in a cage and for God to throw away the key.

Grief, of course, is not something that operates according to a specific time frame, and it seems cold to suggest otherwise. Yet when we do not grasp that God is present in pain, we eventually insist on victory or, worse, blame the sufferer for not "getting over it" fast enough. This is more than a failure to extend compassion; it's an exercise in cruelty.

Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make bad people good; it makes dead people alive...the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.

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

There is no better story in the Old Testament, or perhaps the whole Bible, for depicting the difference between the ladder-defined life and the cross-defined life than that of the Tower of Babel.