Embedded in the larger story of redemption is a principle we must not miss: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others.
We must not offer people a system of redemption, a set of insights and principles. We offer people a Redeemer.
People struggling with life in a fallen world often want explanations when what they really need is imagination.
We forget that God’s primary goal ia not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.
Harboring bitterness against people is actually confessing their sin to myself, over and over again. Anger is akin to confessing their sin to God, dissatisfied that he hasn’t done something and placing myself in his position as judge.
The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to scue me from myself.
An instrument s a tool that is actively used to change something, and God has called all of his people to be instruments of change in his redemptive hands
Every time you ask for forgiveness, you recognize that the biggest problems you face in life exist inside of you, not outside of you.
Every time you ask for forgiveness, you declare that your life does not belong to you, but has been created for the purpose of Another.
Could it be that desire for a good thing has become a bad thing because that desire has become a ruling thing?
Today you will envy the blessings of another, or you will bask in the wonder of the amazing grace you have been given.
. . .most people who are angry with God are angry with him for being God. They’re not angry because he has failed to deliver what he promised, They’re angry because he has failed to deliver what they have craved, expected or demanded.
The Bible says that our core problem, the fundamental reason we do what we do, is sin.
For students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology then live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing in a matter of living
Weakness is not the problem, but my delusion of my strengths is.
Foolishness is more than being stupid, that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance.
We are hardwired for glory because we are hardwired for God.
If your hope disappoints you, it is the wrong kind of hope. You see, hope in God never disappoints, precisely because it is hope *in God.* This means that hope placed in any other thing will always end up disappointing.
The minute you hear a sermon on materialism, you’re glad somebody else is there to hear it.