“Religion makes us proud of what we have done. The Gospel makes us proud of what Jesus has done.”

If God is not at the center of your life, something else is.

When we worry we are saying, ‘I know the way my life is supposed to go, and God’s not getting it right’.

The Gospel is good news not good advice. Advice = what we should do. News = report of what was done for us.

God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back… No other religion-whethe r secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam-believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body.

Christ did not suffer so you wouldn’t suffer. He suffered so when you suffer you will become like Him.

Yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

If the church does not identify with the marginalized, it will itself be marginalized. This is God’s poetic justice.

If we have not seen our sin and sought radical forgiveness from God, we will be unable to forgive and to seek the good of those who have wronged us.

The cross is the place where the Judge takes the Judgment.

Success and suffering will either darken your heart or make you wise, but they won’t leave you where you were.

The prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it.

The infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life.

When Job was prospering, he prayed. When he was suffering, he still prayed.

Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says, ‘My life for your life.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.

If you love anything in this world more than God, you will crush that object under the weight of your expectations.

I used to think JESUS motivated us with ultimatums, but now I know He pursues us in LOVE.

It is INCONSISTENT to have Jesus pay a price for healing and for us to believe it is not Gods intention to heal.

Father God said to Jesus, “Sit thou at my right hand until I make all your enemies your footstool.”.

I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe He gave me the passion and determination to continue surfing. You fall off the horse, and you get back on. I had to go for it.

I will spend the rest of my life exploring what could happen through the life of one who is willing to cultivate the God-given appetite to see impossibilities bow to the name of Jesus.

This guy from L.A. sits down next to me, and he says “you like baseball?” I said, “Oh, man, I love baseball.” So he goes “Did you know that if Jesus had played ball, he’d have been the greatest ball player ever?” Like I’m gonna argue with that logic.

Anything you think you know about about God, that you can’t find in the person of Jesus, you have reason to question.

Jesus-murdered. Martin Luther King-murdered. Gandhi-murdered. Malcolm X-murdered. Reagan-wounded.