1. 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.
  2. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  3. Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
  4. To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
  5. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  6. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  7. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  8. The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
  9. As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
  10. Who would ever want all these screamers and haters? It turns out that Christ does.
  11. For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of him who works.
  12. We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.