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. Lewis takes us to the planets to satisfy our cravings for spiritual adventure, which, as he says, “sends our imaginations off the Earth,” in the first place.
  3. Prior sees much of evangelicalism’s imaginary trouble arising from the fact that it emphasizes quick and dramatic conversion experiences and a personally directed relationship with God.
  4. The Holy Spirit isn’t so much the one you look at, as he is the one who turns you from looking at yourself and your sin to your Savior, Jesus.
  5. Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
  6. The story of salvation is the true story of God doing his unexpected work of salvation for us.
  7. If the season of Lent is a journey, Holy Week is the destination.
  8. What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
  9. This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
  10. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  11. Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.