1. The issue is not the existence of so-called inner rings, but our desire and willingness to spend our lives in order to gain from an inner ring what is freely promised in Christ: hope, security, and identity.
  2. Honest confession brings us into the fatherly care of God where we are always greeted with grace, mercy, peace, love, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
  3. I’ve experienced firsthand the promise that God never leaves a congregation empty-handed.
  4. God’s published will offers us anchorage, the anchorage of Jesus Christ, in the midst of chaos, reminding us that there is a greater purpose to our lives than the pursuit of worldly success or fleeting pleasures.
  5. While we wait in tribulation for our white robes (or pants) to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, we confess to one another our seen and unseen stains.
  6. The Holy Spirit unleashes his power through us, his vines, and we then get to watch as his fruits blossom and ripen.
  7. Everything in Scripture is God revealing himself to his people, you and me.
  8. It’s not our eloquence or persuasive rhetoric that changes hearts, but the Word of God that pierces through the hardened shells of unbelief and breathes life into the dead bones of sinners.
  9. God's faithfulness is constant and consistent. It knows no season. His love for us doesn't fade with the summer sun.
  10. What I desperately needed was not to preach to myself, but to listen to a preacher—not to take myself in hand, but to be taken in the hands of the Almighty.
  11. Paul thinks the consequences of Christ not being raised are worse for those who believe than those who never did if it were to be true Christ was not raised.
  12. I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.