There's nothing that makes you more miserable or less interesting than self absorption .

But resurrection is not just consolation — it is restoration. We get it all back — the love, the loved ones, the goods, the beauties of this life — but in new, unimaginable degrees of glory and joy and strength.

Idols are often good things that we have made into ultimate things.

Disordered love always leads to misery and breakdown. The only way to 'reorder' our loves is to love God supremely.

People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don't be surprised by messiness.

Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn't mercy.

The ministry of mercy, then, is the best advertising a church can have. It convinces a community that this church provides people with actions for their problems, not only talk. It shows the community that this church is compassionate.

The deeper the experience of the free grace of God, the more generous we must become.

Look at Jesus Christ. Every time he was in trouble he used the Word of God. When he was tempted he used the Word. When he was suffering on the cross he used the Word.

Jesus’s miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.