Real joy comes when we get the right desire met - the desire for God himself, for a life led by the Spirit, fulfilling not our material desires but our deepest need, which is to be in a close relationship with our Creator. That is the source of true blessing. The only source.

Successful resistance to temptation may result in an increase of moral muscle, but that is because one is going to need it. A temptation resisted may become more, not less, fierce.

Following Christ in the power of the Spirit means bringing to our world the shape of the gospel: forgiveness, the best news that anyone can ever hear, for all who yearn for it, and judgment for all who insist on dehumanizing themselves and others by their continuing pride, injustice, and greed.

Those who belong to Jesus are called, here and now, in the power of the Spirit, to be agents of that putting-to-rights purpose.

Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.

Sin and the child of God are incompatible. They may occasionally meet, but they cannot live together in harmony .

First John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin; it means that if we obey the life of God in us, we need not sin.

We are half mechanical [physical] and half mysterious [spiritual]; to live in either domain and ignore the other is to be fools or fanatics... We have to WORK OUT in the mechanical realm what God WORK IN in the mysterious realm.

When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up "with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.

The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices.

Holiness is the remaking of our inward and hidden desires and affections, when the Holy Spirit of God dwells in our mortal bodies.

Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight.