“After creation God said, ‘It is finished’-and he rested. After redemption Jesus said, ‘It is finished’-and we can rest.”

The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome…

The more you understand how your salvation isn’t about your behavior, the more radically your behavior will change.

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.

They only go after what they know they can get.

It will alter the way you hear poetry forever. And not in a good way.

There is more you can do after you pray.

And when they have done their job, America must look after and honor its veterans.

I’m after a snake and please God I’ll scotch it.

But people do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can’t live with what they’ve done.

There was a long stint during my childhood after I gave up on being a pro football player – were talking sixth grade here – that I strongly considered a future writing and drawing comic books. I have been making stuff up ever since.

Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It’s killing new plays, demolishing one after another.