Sometimes God has to remind you that you're weak so that you can be set free from your "self-sufficiency."

The Christian life has been nothing more and nothing less than a daily dependence on and a rediscovery of God's grace.

I've got three kids. I worry about them but the gospel freed me and freed my wife. We are not trying to make our kids think that we're super spiritual or we've got it all together. They see mom and dad being real people. What they hear dad talking about at home is not different from what they see from dad [at church]. That won't guarantee that they'll avoid the whole PK, MK thing. But we are hopefully not contributing to what normally produces that crisis, which is pretending.

Grace doesn't lead us into destructive behavior. Sin does. And grace is the only remedy for sin. The kindness of God leads to repentance.

Unfortunately, some Christians are guilty of throwing out an equivalent sentiment when they play the "God is sovereign" card as a way to trump every evil that comes your way.

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.

The gospel is not about a lifestyle that we live, it's about the law-fulfilling life that Christ lived.