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.

Even political insiders recognize that years of political effort on behalf of Evangelical Christians have generated little cultural gain.

I never realized how much I've become dependent on human approval until God took it away. I didn't even realize that I was in a self-made prison of human approval and human acceptance. Most of the prisons we live in we are not conscious of. God showed me Jesus plus nothing equals everything. And everything minus Jesus equals nothing. That set me free.

God's acceptance of us cannot be gained by our successes nor forfeited by our failures.

Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because He loves us.

Grace is thickly counter-intuitive. It feels risky and unfair. It's dangerous and disorderly. It wrestles control out of our hands. It is wild and unsettling. It turns everything that makes sense to us upside-down and inside-out.

The focus of the Christian faith is not our morality; it is Jesus, who died for our immorality.