“The great basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.”

When love of one’s people becomes an absolute, it turns into racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life. It is the settled tendency of human societies to turn good political causes into counterfeit gods.

Men, you’ll never be a good groom to your wife unless you’re first a good bride to Jesus.

The resurrection was God’s way of stamping PAID IN FULL right across history so that nobody could miss it.

If you want God’s grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing. But that kind of spiritual humility is hard to muster.

If I have the smile of God, all other frowns are inconsequential.

Religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.

You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.

To discover the real you, look at what you spend time thinking about when no one is looking.

Religion: ‘My identity is built on being a good person.’ Gospel: ‘My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on Christ’s.’

Many times people think if God has called you to something, he’s promising you success. He might be calling you to fail to prepare you for something else through the failure.

We have to be careful not to elevate our preferences to moral standards and judge others by them. We only do so to feel superior.

If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning of life, and identity then it is an idol.

We are regularly in danger of having too light a view of our sin and also too light a grasp of what Jesus has done to free us from our sin.

Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become more like him.

Religion operates on the principle ‘I obey-therefore I am accepted by God.’ But the operating principle of the gospel is ‘I am accepted by God through what Christ has done-therefore I obey.’

Worry is not believing God will get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.

Clothes have always had a wonderful influence on my physical well-being as well as my self-assurance.

In all thy undertakings, let a reasonable assurance animate thy endeavors if thou despairest of success, thou shalt not succeed.

You can point to these things, and you can have that assurance.

It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.

I can assure you that my first and foremost interest is my country. This is not a personal matter. We are not people driven by a wish to be in the government since it is for us the least attractive work, even though we are politicians.

Griefs assured are felt before they come.

I assure you, an educated fool is more foolish than an uneducated one.

Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature.