1. The following is an excerpt from “The Christian Life: Cross or Glory” written by Steven A. Hein (1517 Publishing, 2015).
  2. Good works do not make a Christian, do not secure the grace of God and blot out our sins, they do not merit heaven.
  3. This earth is not the place where your promise is to be found. Rejoice because the kingdom of God comes to you!
  4. The quality of our walk with Jesus is not predicated on anything we do, for the only thing we bring to our salvation is the sin that makes it necessary.
  5. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again.
  6. No matter how great our thirst is, God's abundance not only meets it but quenches it. When we are poor and in need, the Lord is always there to give us grace and mercy without end.
  7. Maybe for the first time you can begin to receive creation as a gift, a sheer gift from God’s hands. And who knows what might happen in the power of this grace? All possibilities are open.
  8. What doesn’t kill you might actually be a cheapened law that leaves wiggle room and space in the door for your old man to stick his foot in and get in on the work of Christ.
  9. One day at a time, God provides us with a heart of wisdom, and in this way, our Lord teaches us to number our days. 
  10. The gospel fires up within us the gratitude, joy, and love to pull off what the law never could get us to do.
  11. Even as children of God, we have down days. That’s just a fact of being sinful and living in an evil world.