Death is the operative device that sets us free in Christ - when we die, we truly live.

Thankfully, while our self-righteousness reaches far, God's grace reaches farther.

Self-righteousness is the fruit of a low view of God's law and a lite view of your own sin.

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.

There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need God.

The gospel doesn't make bad people good, it makes dead people alive.

Unfulfilled dreams, ongoing relational tension, the loss of friendships, a hard marriage, rebellious teenagers, the death of loved ones, remaining sinful patterns - whatever it is for you - live long enough, lose enough, suffer enough, and the idealism of youth fades, leaving behind the reality of life in a broken world as a broken person.