“God sees with utter clarity who we are. He is undeceived as to our warts and wickedness. But when God looks at us that is not all He sees. He also sees who we are intended to be, who we will one day become.”

Failure does not shape you; the way you respond to failure shapes you.

Real question is not who was this man (Jesus), but who is this man?

We are too often double espresso followers of a decaf Sovereign.

Make your life about something bigger than your life.

To become truly free, you must surrender.

The Holy Spirit says: You are it. You are God’s plan. In a thirsty world, people need to be refreshed. It is a broken world, and people need to be healed. Now get out there and do it!

The good news as Jesus preached it is not just about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life-your life.

The character of the faith that allows us to be transformed by suffering and darkness is not doubt-free certainty; rather, it is tenacious obedience.

The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus, you must renounce comfort as the ultimate value of your life.

The harder you strike it, the deeper it goes.

Jesus is mysterious not just because of what we don’t know about him, but because of what we do know about him.

Genuine brokenness pleases God more than pretend spirituality.

Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

Self-improvement is no more God’s plan than self-salvation.

I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.

For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.

There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.

As long as buyers, users, attendees at animal performances, etc., keep using, abusers keep abusing!!!

We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.

Why doesn’t God just force us to do the things he knows to be right? It is because that would lose precisely that which he has intended in our creation: freely chosen character.

The greatest challenge the church faces today is to be authentic disciples of Jesus.

I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains.

All human desire is poised on an axis of paradox, absence and presence its poles, love and hate its motive energies.

If a misplaced admiration shows imbecility, an affected criticism shows vice of character. Expose thyself rather to appear a beast than false.