1. How can he say it? How can he say that Christ is after all the entire meaning of life for him, and that death is no real worry?
  2. God knows that when we face insurmountable odds in our moments of weakness, we are more likely to turn to him in trust and reliance.
  3. We have to “remember” that God remembers us. He has not fallen away. For God to remember us means he is working for our good; a restoration.
  4. Faith sees your neighbor not as a means to an end, not as a way to score points, but as an object of love: Christ's love and yours.
  5. Jesus’s story in Luke 16 draws definitive attention to whom God helps — namely, God always comes close in order to help those who cannot help themselves.
  6. It is of the utmost importance that pastors teach their congregation that through faith in Jesus Christ, they are fortified against the machinations of the adversary.
  7. Christ shows up in the middle of our storms and our nightmares. That’s where he sets up shop.
  8. This is an excerpt from “Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment” by Bradley Gray (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  9. The Holy Spirit unleashes his power through us, his vines, and we then get to watch as his fruits blossom and ripen.
  10. The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.
  11. 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.
  12. His successes were not the result of his brilliance, might, and ability as an apostle. They were the result of the all-sufficient grace of God.