“Jesus's purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories”

“The peace of God is not the absence of negative thoughts, it is the presence of God himself” Source: Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“If Jesus didn't think he could handle life without knowing the Scripture inside and out, what makes you think you can?”

“The only love that won’t disappoint you is one—that can’t change, that can’t be lost, that is not based on the ups and downs of life or of how well you live, that not even death can take away from you. God's love is the only love like that”

“There is no way to know who you really are until you've been tested”

“If you live for and love anything more than God then your life is always going to be like a tossing sea” Source: Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“Never before have we had so much while feeling we have so little. 'Progress' cannot be only economic, material, and technological, though it must include that. It must also be communal, moral, and spiritual”

“If you believe in Jesus and you rest in him, then suffering will relate to your character like fire relates to gold” Source: Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“When you lie to people, even out of love, you demean them. You put them in that dependent condition. You treat them like children. And the worst thing about it is you isolate that person from yourself. Lies always isolate. They break community” Source: Integrity (Sermon)

“Friendship does not flow out of great sexual chemistry. Sexual chemistry grows out of terrific friendship”

“Happiness is a by-product of wanting something more than happiness—to be rightly related to God and our neighbor” Source: Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“People who have never or seldom suffered are likely to have naive beliefs about life's meaning”

“Foolishness is natural. Wisdom is acquired” Source: Wisdom: What Is It? (Sermon)

“One reason you might worry about money and be hesitant to be radically generous with your finances is because you’re looking for it to be a kind of security that only God can be”

“Tolerance isn't a lack of exclusive beliefs. Everyone has exclusive beliefs—we all think we are right about important things and the world would be better if others agreed. Tolerance is whether your beliefs lead you to treat those disagreeing with kindness, respect, humility”

“We are free only to the extent that we do what God built us to do—to serve him” Source: Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“To say there is no absolute truth is in fact to give a truth, absolutely”

“We are so instinctively and profoundly self-centered that we don't think we are”

“(I)n general, satan doesn’t control us with fang marks on the flesh, but with lies in the heart” Source: Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

“If you can't show the difference between religion and the gospel, people will confuse morality with a changed heart”

“It's always God's prerogative to rearrange your schedule”

“Our self-image rests in a love we can’t lose” Source: Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

“If each spouse says to the other, ‘I will treat my selfishness as the main problem in the marriage,’ you have the prospect for great things”

“Faith is not so mysterious. It’s being willing to respond to the offer of Jesus Christ with gratitude and to say, ‘Because of what you’ve done for me, I give you myself’” Source: Secret Treason (Sermon)

“The lie is this: ‘I am my own person. I am an independent person. I need no one else and I don’t need God.’ That’s the lie. The truth is this: ‘I owe God everything. I need him. Where is he?’ …” 1/2

“If there is no day of judgment (to account for all the wrongs of the world that people have gotten away with), what hope is there for the world? But if there is a day of judgment, what hope is there for me? Jesus is our answer to both questions”

“The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 a.m. for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access”

“If you read the Bible, you will see that the father and the mother, the husband and the wife, were co-heirs of both the economic provision of the family and the rearing of the children. The father and the mother worked together to provide for the family …” 1/3

“Be skeptical of your own skepticism” Source: Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

“The only person who could do all you know deep in your heart you’re required to do is Jesus. He was the only one who could ever do that, and he has done it for you. The moment you receive him by faith, which means the moment you stop trusting in your own works and you say, …” 1/3

“Without the gospel, we will be either naïvely utopian or cynically disillusioned”

“How can you possibly be free from any fear of loss of power, or loss of popularity, or loss of love, or loss of certainty, or loss of status? How can you be free from that? Only if you get rid of all the things that are before him, all the other gods” Source: First of All (Sermon)

“Legalistic remorse says, ‘I broke God's rules,’ while real repentance says, ‘I broke God's heart’”

"When you create an identity by despising other groups, it makes you dependent in many ways on them—the ‘other’ becomes part of who you are. You need them to stay in their place and to fit your stereotypes of them” Source: Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter

“We were made in God's image, and if the law expresses his nature, then it actually reflects what we need to be in order to be fully who we are” Source: God's Law (Sermon)

“It’s one thing to believe in God. Lots of you believe in God, but do you believe God? Jesus is saying, ‘Trust me. Not just believe in me, trust me. Listen to what I say. Obey me.’” Source: Seeking the Kingdom (Sermon)

“We deserve to be forgotten because we forget Him. But because Jesus died on the cross, we will never, ever be forgotten by God”

“If you look up every place Paul prays for his friends, you will find something absolutely remarkable (…) You will see a surprising absence of any prayer for relief from troubles, for healing, for overcoming problems, for happiness. You don’t see him praying for that …” 1/3

“Jesus did not come with a sword in his hands; he came with nails in his hands” Source: Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

“Why repent? Because there’s absolutely no other way, emotionally or spiritually, to get freedom” Source: Admitting (Sermon)

“Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance?” Source: The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy 1/3

“The sign of true, growing, gospel disciples is their gentleness” Source: The Call to Discipleship

“Like a surgeon, friends cut you in order to heal you” Source: The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

“The reason our prayers are boring and stilted is because we don’t know the one we’re praying to” Source: How to Pray (Sermon)

"Discipleship is not just a matter of bending your will to Jesus’ will; it’s melting your heart into a whole new shape. A disciple is not someone who simply sets a new priority; a disciple finds a new identity” Source: The Call to Discipleship

“Luther says every day a Christian is somebody who gets up and says, ‘I’m rich. I’m rich. I’ve been adopted into the family. I’ve been accepted in the beloved. I have a guarantee to rule and reign forever …” 1/2

“Until God has the proper place in my life, I will always be complaining that my spouse is not loving me well enough, not respecting me enough, not supporting me enough” Source: The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

“The world embraces Christmas in a way it has never embraced Good Friday and Easter. I think the world sees Christmas as being rather affirming — it’s all about peace and goodwill. Isn’t that nice? …” 1/2

“You and I have been trained by our culture to not believe in the supernatural. As we saw earlier, as a Jewish woman, Mary had been trained by her culture to not believe that God could ever become a human being. So, though they are different, …” 1/3

“When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you are on the brink” Source: Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith