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.

God's ability to clean things up is infinitely greater than our ability to mess things up.

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

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

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

Grace loves without reference to what may or may not happen-which is precisely why such incredible things do happen!

God reminds us again and again that things between He and us are forever fixed. They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has been paid, the ledger put away, and that everything we need, in Christ we already possess. This re-convincing produces humility, because we realize that our needs are fulfilled. We don’t have to worry about ourselves anymore. This in turn frees us to stop looking out for what we think we need and liberates us to love our neighbor by looking out for what they need.