Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make good people good; it makes dead people alive. That's the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion. All the others exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshiped deity is. But the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.

God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be. It is the message of grace.~Quote by Brennan Manning

I wish I could say that everything I do is for God’s glory but I can’t. And neither can you. What I can say is Jesus’ blood covers all my efforts to glorify myself.

Flight from God always leads downward. It culminates not in the vivacious life we imagined but in what amounts only to stagnant sleep. It's why so many people seem to exist without ever really living. In fact, they aren't really living; they're only going through the motions—rarely if ever experiencing the internal shalom they were designed to enjoy from God, because they're running from him.

Because of total depravity, you and I were desperate for God's grace before we were saved. Because of total depravity, you and I remain desperate for God's grace even after we're saved.

God loves us too much to leave us in the hell of unhappiness that comes from trying to do his job. Into the slavish misery of our ladder-defined lives, God condescends.