“A life of gratitude to God for being saved is far more pleasing than a life based on self-righteousness over being good.”

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.

The reason the stone was rolled away on Jesus’s tomb was not so that Jesus could get out, but so that we could get in.

Christians tend to motivate others with guilt. We tend to say: You would do this if you were really committed Christians, indicating that we are committed and all that is needed is for others to become as good as we are!

The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life.

Our character is mainly shaped by our primary social community – the people with whom we eat, play, converse, and study.

There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile.

I’ve based my entire career off of just trying to do that for them – but I always kind of forget that my real life friends can hear my music and they can watch my interviews if they want and that’s when I get kind of like- “oh…”

It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.

Too often, people think that solving the world’s problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground.

All intimacies are based on differences.

If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I’d have to say, ‘George, you and I are about to become partners.’

My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world.

I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that’s been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.

My whole theory for the improvement of society is based on a belief in the discipline and the education of the individual to self-control and right doing, for the sake of right doing.