My lifestyle got so disruptive to my family that my parents had no choice but to say, "You can't live here any longer if you're going to live this way." So, I was thrilled about it - thrilled!

If you feel compelled to respond every time you're criticized it reveals just how much you've built your identity on being right.

Whether it's a Christian or a non-Christian, there's nothing like suffering to show us how small, needy, and not in control we are. Suffering has a way of sobering us up to the realization that we can't make it on our own, that we need help, that we're broken.

The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be.

The law demands that we do it all; the gospel declares that Jesus paid it all.

Our assurance is anchored in the love and grace of God expressed in the glorious exchange: our sin for His righteousness.

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.