1. This is an excerpt from part two of “Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment” by Bradley Gray (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  2. If Jesus did not rise, then religion is just religion — a mere anthropological phenomenon.
  3. The resurrection of Jesus encompasses the total and comprehensive glorification of a human being, not merely his restoration.
  4. The Holy Spirit unleashes his power through us, his vines, and we then get to watch as his fruits blossom and ripen.
  5. Everything in Scripture is God revealing himself to his people, you and me.
  6. One word from one God says it all to our tired hearts.
  7. Caesar boasted: “I came. I saw. I conquered.” Christ can rightly say: “I came. I saved. I ascended.”
  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. Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4.
  12. May you believe, in this thin-line world, that this Jesus is for you, not against you.