The purpose of God's grace is not to make your little kingdom of one work better.

You and I weren't created for independent living. We were created to be dependent on God.

When amazing realities of the gospel quit commanding your attention, your awe, and your worship, other things in your life will capture your attention instead. When you quit celebrating grace, you begin to forget how much you need grace, and when you forget how much you need grace, you quit seeking the rescue and strength that only grace can give. This means you begin to see yourself as more righteous, strong, and wise than you actually are, and in so doing, you set yourself up for trouble.

This season, in the midst of all the celebrations and gift-giving, be careful to remember that at the center of what we celebrate is one game-changing, life-altering, hope-giving reality: grace is a person, and his name is Jesus.

You will never be left to the limited range of your own resources.

Every leader is a package of God-given gifts and God-assigned limits. It is dangerous to focus on the one without humbly remembering the other.

If you have been freed from needing success and acclaim to feel good about yourself, you know grace has visited you.

You don't have to worry about whether your wrongs will be forgiven and your weaknesses greeted with patience and grace. You don't have to worry, because you have a Savior who has invaded your life with his grace and has made you the place where he dwells.

Face the fact today that you'll never outgrow your need for grace, no matter how much you learn and how much you mature, until you are on the other side and your struggle is over because sin is no more (see Phil. 3:12—16). The way to begin to celebrate the grace that God so freely gives you every day is by admitting how much you need it.

Physical suffering exposes the delusion of personal autonomy and self-sufficiency

Love is daily admitting to yourself, your spouse, and God that you are not able to love this way without God's protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.

God's grace invites you to be part of something that is far greater than your boldest and most expansive dream. His grace cuts a hole in your self-built prison and invites you to step into something so huge, so significant that only one word in the Bible can adequately capture it. That word is glory.